Intro to Engineering Databases Class

Want to learn how to do research for your assignment efficiently and effectively? This one-hour session will go over the basic steps of doing a search for engineering research literature-- from choosing a database, constructing a search, and finding the articles or papers (online or in print). Bring a topic to research when you come.

What: Intro to Engineering Databases Class
When: May 11th, 2009. 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.
Where: The Engineering Library (computer classroom on the 3rd floor)
Why: Search better, faster, stronger.

To register go here: http://lib.washington.edu/engineering/classes/classes.html

ISI Web of Knowledge Enhanced

ISI Web of Knowledge (also referred to as Web of Science) is an extremely useful tool for researching. It's a citation database, which means you can use it to find out how many times an article or author has been cited and where.

One of the neat new things you can do with Web of Knowledge is create citation maps (currently in beta, but worth checking out). ISI has recently announced enhanced citation mapping capabilities that let you create a colorful visual representation of citing/cited relationships. Here's an example:

More ISI updates.

Serials and Electronic Resources Review 2009

FYI: The UW Libraries is currently engaged in a serials and electronic resources review. Why? Estimated cuts in our information resources budget range from approximately $1.9 million to $2.4 million, which means we must start identifying possible titles to cancel.

A combined list of proposed titles for cancellation from all funds (including Engineering) will be posted on the web by summer 2009. Using faculty input and our principals and goals as guides, we will make final decisions in the fall.

You can find more information on the the official Serials and Electronic Resources Review 2009 page, including Frequently Asked Questions and a letter from the Dean of Libraries, Betsy Wilson.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact us.

How many engineers does it take to change a light bulb?

From the Rube Goldberg Contest at Purdue:

Inspired by cartoonist Rube Goldberg, college students nationwide compete to design a machine to complete a simple task using 20 or more steps.

The 2009 task was to replace an incandescent light bulb with a more energy-efficient, light-emitting design.

Check out our favorite entry, "Scene of the Crime," from the University of Illinois team. It won second place.

International Nuclear Information System Database now available free

From the International Atomic Energy Agency website:

3 April, 2009 - We are pleased to announce that access to INIS [International Nuclear Information System] database has been now opened to all Internet users around the world. Free, open and unrestricted access is available from the INIS Homepage (http://www.iaea.org/inisnkm), or directly from the following link: http://inisdb2.iaea.org

This initiative provides easy access to reliable nuclear information on the peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology, including nonconventional literature, and makes nuclear knowledge readily available worldwide.

Established in 1970, INIS represents the world's largest database of scientific and technical literature on a wide range of subjects from nuclear engineering, safeguards and non-proliferation to applications in agriculture, health and industry.

Currently, the INIS Database contains over 3 million bibliographic records and almost 200,000 full-text nonconventional documents, consisting of scientific and technical reports and other non copyrighted information.

Yoky Matsuoka in the Seattle Times

In case you missed it, here's a link to a great article about UW Associate Professor of Computer Science & Engineering and MacArthur "genius" award-winner Yoky Matsuoka.

Article: The UW's Yoky Matsuoka is leading the quest for robotics that take orders from the brain

Speaking of WorldCat...

As of right now, WorldCat (the main tool used to search UW Libraries and beyond) appears to be down. Oh no! How can anyone look up books?

Fear not, book seekers. Though WorldCat is down, you can still search for books using the trusty UW-only catalog.

There are many differences between WorldCat and our old UW-only catalog, but the major one is obvious from the titles: WorldCat searches the entire world (or almost) whereas the UW-only catalog just searches the books and journals we have here at UW.

So, while we're waiting on WorldCat to come back up, keep on searching using the old catalog. (Good thing we kept it around!)

Save your WorldCat searches

Do you have a specific subject you love reading about, like hobbies, specific authors or formats? If you have to repeatedly craft a specific search around one of these areas to "see what's new," this new feature on WorldCat.org will save you lots of time. Just go to www.WorldCat.org, do a search and refine your query as usual. Once you have the results set you want, click the "Save this Search" box in the upper right of the results screen. Now you can track the latest materials available on this topic in our library, and more than 10,000 other WorldCat libraries around the world.

New Industry Database

Our friends at the Foster Business Library recently let us know about First Research, a new database featuring industry profiles. According to the First Research website, they cover over 700 industries and update every 90 days.

So if you are interested in researching an industry, First Research may be a good place to get started. If you'd like more information about industry research, check out the very long list of resources available via Foster's business research guides.

ScienceDirect scheduled outage

FYI: ScienceDirect will be down due to scheduled maintenance on Saturday, April 4, 2009 @ 3:00 pm PST for approximately nine hours. We apologize for the inconvenience.