April-May 2000
CAMPUS HIGHLIGHTS
FUNDING NEWS
The Board of the Friends of the UW-Madison Libraries has voted to award a small grant to the Schwerdtfeger Library for preservation/conservation of Wilson Bentley's snowflake lantern slides. I am excited not only about their preservation but making them more accessible to our users.
Since 1997 when the Friends began awarding small grants through this
competition, they've given nearly $75,000 in direct grants to library units
located throughout the campus.
SCHWERDTFEGER LIBRARY SERVICES
In response to some of your questions, I've created a sampling of the
kinds of services the Schwerdtfeger Library provides and the range of queries
to which we respond.
ELECTRONIC JOURNALS IN THE ATMOSPHERIC AND SPACE SCIENCES
We continue to add new titles to the Schwerdtfeger Library's list of
full-text, electronic journals as they become available. We make
every effort to provide you with the most direct link. You'll also
find a link to the Campus-wide list of e-journals.
WISCONSIN WEATHER: MADISON-AREA FOCUS Current (updates vary)
This is a new resource. Wisconsin Weather is a compilation of
academic and government meteorological and climatological sites related
to weather events in Wisconsin, particularly the Madison area. The topics
include: current conditions, forecasts, severe weather, radar and satellite
images, climate summaries, and tropical information. It also lists statewide
and worldwide resources. The site is intended to provide quick and easy
navigation to weather and climate information.
The JCR is the only comprehensive source of citation data on journals, and includes virtually all specialties in the areas of science, technology, and the social sciences. It is published by the Institute for Scientific Information which also brings you the Web of Science (Science Citation Index). There are two editions available. The Science Edition contains data from roughly 5,000 journals in the areas of science and technology. The Social Sciences Edition contains data from roughly 1,500 journals in the social sciences. There is no citation report for the Arts and Humanities.
The beauty of JCR is that it allows you to compare journals from a specific subject area, rank the journals by total number of times cited (most frequently used/highest impact journals), or rank by the average age of cited articles, compare how often articles published in a journal are cited in the same year or measure the frequency with which the average article in a journal has been cited in a particular year. You can look at groups of journals, individual journals, journals by a specific publisher or by country.
This resource is licensed for access by UW-Madison students, faculty,
staff. You may have to log in more than once as the number of simultaneous
users is limited. Data are available for 1998 and 1997. Additional
years will be added.
OTHER SITES OF INTEREST
The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), a division
of the American Library Association, puts out monthly lists of key resources
on the Internet. The list for March 2000 amounts to a solid, annotated
metapage of physics links. Categories for sites include: general
physics metasites, professional societies, laboratories, preprint sites,
reference sources, electronic journals, educational resources, people in
physics and discussion groups. [NSF Library Newsletter, 4/12/00]
SLAC SPIRES HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS DATABASE
Search more than 415,000 high-energy physics related articles, including
journal papers, preprints, e-prints, technical reports, conference papers
and theses, received by the SLAC and/or DESY libraries since 1974. You
can enter a SPIRES find command, perform a simple search, or browse the
indexes.
Lists of the most cited articles in High-Energy Physics (HEP) with summation
reviews, provided as a service by the SLAC Library. The 1999 edition
covers all HEP papers from January 1, 1999 and December 31, 1999.
HURRICANE SEASON
Hurricane season officially started June 1st -- here are some useful websites:
Tropical
Cyclones (CIMSS)
NOAA
Miami Regional Library
Climate
Prediction Center
NCDC
SPACE SCIENCE MISSIONS -- NASA
From NASA's Office of Space Science, this metapage lists a wide variety
of missions that are either under study, in development, currently in operation,
or completed (those that ended after 1989). Users may access names
of missions, brief descriptions, and links to missions by clicking on the
category heading. Also available here are a few links to multi-mission
programs, ground-based astronomy, technology programs, and non-space science
missions. [From the Scout Report for Science & Engineering, Copyright
Internet Scout Project 1994-2000]
NRC REPORT ON ASTRONOMY RESEARCH
A new report from the National Research Council of the National Academies
maps out the priorities for investments in astronomy research over the
next decade. This report will factor into funding decisions, both
here and at the National Science Foundation, for years to come. [Space
Science News from NASA HQ, 5/23/00]
MARS IMAGES
Press
release
Images
More than 20,000 new images of the planet Mars taken by Mars Global
Surveyor are now available in a web-based photo album. [Space Science
News from NASA HQ, 5/23/00]
JPL MISSION AND SPACECRAFT LIBRARY
A public source for information about spacecraft. All kinds of spacecraft.
Big spacecraft, and small spacecraft. American, Soviet, Japanese, Indian,
Chinese, and Luxembourgian spacecraft. Research, communications, astronomy,
navigation, and spy satellites. The purpose of the library is to
provide a general overview of these space missions to the average reader,
not just those fluent in aerospace geek speak.
From the Federation of American Scientists, "The Space Policy Project
promotes American national security and international stability by providing
the public and decision-makers with information and analysis on civil and
military space issues, policies and programs." Subjects include Russian
Aerospace, Challenger Accident, Life on Mars, and Advanced Aircraft. Each
subject is exhaustively researched, and often provides annotated links
to other Web resources. In addition space weapons are monitored, as are
military and civil uses of space, and a country guide to space exploration
and use. Searchable. [Librarians Index to the Internet, 4/24/00]
THE
BOOK'S IN PRINT, BUT ITS BIBLIOGRAPHY LIVES IN CYBERSPACE
(New York Times, Sunday, 29 May 2000)
Oxford University Press recently decided to publish its print version
of, "The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero," by Robert Kaplan
**without** its 78-page bibliography. Instead the bibliography (and
notes) has been published on OPU's Web site: http://www.oup-usa.org/sc/0195128427/index.html.
This raises some interesting questions about what happens when a book and
its supporting source material are split.
THE LAST BOOK: THE FUTURE OF WORDS
A fascinating three-part series in the Washington Post on the future
of books and reading!
Google has added even more functionality in the form of a multiple language
search service. Currently available for Beta testing, this new feature
allows users to search and receive returns in ten additional languages:
French, German, Italian, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch,
Norwegian, and Danish. GoogleScout and cache functions are available in
multi-language searches, though links to related categories in the Google
Directory are not. Search returns and rankings will vary considerably based
on the selected language. [From the Scout Report, Copyright Internet
Scout Project, 1994-2000]
METAEUREKA (JavaScript)
http://www.metaeureka.com/
Yet another in a large collection of metasearch engines, METAEUREKA
distinguishes itself by its no-nonsense format -- no graphics, ads, or
anything really except the search box and your results. It also includes
a very useful feature for users concerned with the "freshness" of their
search returns. Clicking on the Site Info link under each result produces
a small pop-up window which lists, among other things, the last time the
site was modified. METAEUREKA is keyword-searchable; indexes AltaVista,
Google, Lycos, Alltheweb, and Yahoo, offering ten or twenty results per
engine; and lists the results on a single page. A refreshing, clean, and
simple alternative to the recent spate of cluttered, all-inclusive portal/
metasearch engines. [From the Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project,
1994-2999]
Branding itself "the world's most powerful metasearch engine," Ixquick
also features a clean and simple interface. Ixquick indexes fourteen search
engines and directories, though users can pick and choose between them
if they desire. The real appeal of Ixquick, however, is its "star rating"
system for reporting results. While some metasearch engines might be fooled
by irrelevant entries at the top of one or more of the engines indexed,
Ixquick assigns a star for each time a listing appears in the top ten of
the engines indexed. Thus, a result that appears anywhere in the top ten
of numerous engines will always be ranked higher than one that sits at
the top of just one or two. Ixquick also offers metasearches of selected
news, .mp3, and image resources. European language support (German, Spanish,
French, Italian, and Portuguese) is provided.
[From the Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project, 1994-2000]
COPYRIGHT LAW OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Circular 92 of the Copyright Office entitled, "Copyright Law of the United States of America" has been updated through April 2000. The preface lists amendments made to the Copyright Law since 1976, the last major revision.
"The Constitutional Provision Respecting Copyright: The
Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful
Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive
Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." (United States
Constitution, Article I, Section 8)
TWO DINOSAUR SITES
Fighting
Dinosaurs -- AMNH [QuickTime, IPIX]
Sue at the Field Museum
These two sites will appeal to dinosaur lovers of all ages. The first
comes from the American Museum of Natural History and serves as a companion
to a new exhibit highlighting recent discoveries from Mongolia, including
one of the most famous finds ever: a_Velociraptor_ that was apparently
buried alive by a sand flow while attacking a _Protoceratops_. The site
features animated recreations of the last moments of these dinosaurs and
their fossilized remains, as well as a modest image gallery of some of
the other specimens from Mongolia, some of them yet to be named. Beginning
Monday May 22, a virtual tour of the exhibit (IPIX plug-in required) will
be available. The second site highlights another famous fossil that was
very much in the news this week: Sue, the most complete and best preserved
_T. Rex_ skeleton ever found. Discovered in South Dakota in 1990, Sue was
purchased by the Chicago Field Museum in 1997 and went on display this
week. At the site, visitors can learn about Sue and her history, how the
skeleton was prepared for display, some quick facts, a FAQ, and an image
gallery. [From the Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project, 1994-2000]
