Science News from Sterne Library

As part of the merger of Blackwell and Wiley, the electronic journals available through Blackwell Synergy will be moved to Wiley InterScience.  The migration will occur during the last weekend in June and both platforms will be unavailable.

On June 30, 2008, all Blackwell content will be accessible via the Wiley InterScience platform and Blackwell Synergy will no longer be available.

Lister Hill Library is offering free training sessions on June 17, 2008 for three ISI Web of Knowledge products.  The sessions will be conducted by Tracy Matthews, Customer Education Specialist at Thompson Reuters.  UAB students, faculty, and staff interested in attending should register using the online form.

9:00 - 10:30 a.m.       Web of Science

11:00 - 11:45 a.m.     Journal Citation Reports

1:00 - 2:00 p.m.          Endnote Web

Sterne Library is celebrating National Library Week with a variety of events from April 14 to 18, 2008.  Some of the events include free computer print-outs, amnesty for overdue library books, prize drawings, and refreshments.  The full schedule of events with more information is available at http://www.mhsl.uab.edu/nlw08/.

The Royal Society of Chemistry is offering free access to their online journals during the month of April.  The journals below are accessible from 1997 to the present using computers on campus.

• Analyst
• Annual Reports on the Progress of Chemistry
• Chemical Communications
• Chemical Society Reviews
• CrystEngComm
• Dalton Transactions
• Faraday Discussions
• Green Chemistry
• JAAS (Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectroscopy)
• Journal of Environmental Monitoring
• Journal of Materials Chemistry
• Lab on a Chip
• Molecular BioSystems
• Natural Product Reports
• New Journal of Chemistry
• Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry
• Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics
• Photochemical and Photobiological Sciences
• Soft Matter

Lister Hill Library has a trial to Springer Protocols until April 30th. 

This database contains more than 18,000 peer reviewed life sciences protocols, including video protocols, with 2,000 added each year.

Advanced search and browse capabilities

• Browsing by subject or via lists of new and popular protocols
• Guided searches with suggested subcategories and time limits
• Advanced searches allowing for targeted field searches, author searches, and limitations by subject area and dates
• Inward linking to other protocols with same keyword and subject terms
• Outward linking to cited references

Personalization features

• New content notification via email alerts and RSS feeds
• My Protocols for saving protocols
• My Account for viewing saved searches and protocols and for managing alerts
• Ability to upload one’s own protocols for personal use
• Ability to email, print, and export citations

Community participation opportunities

• Ability to read and add comments pertaining to a particular protocol

Pi Day is March 14 and celebrates the mathematical constant pi. 

What is Pi?

Pi, represented by the Greek letter π, is the mathematical constant for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter and is approximately equal to 3.14159.  As an irrational number, it continues infinitely without any repeating decimal pattern. 

The earliest known record of this constant dates back to 1650 B.C. when an Egyptian scribe named Ahmes wrote about the relationship between the circle and its diameter and came up with a mathematical approximation of 256/81, or 3.1605.  In 1706, a Welsh mathematician named William Jones proposed that the symbol π be used to represent the circle ratio.  Throughout history, mathematicians from all over the world have attempted to calculate pi to more decimal places.  According to the Guinness World Records (2007, p. 150), Yasumasa Kanada of Japan holds the world record.  It took him 400 hours using a Hitachi supercomputer to calculate pi to 1,241,100,000 places.

What is Pi Day?

Pi Day was first celebrated in 1988 at the San Francisco Exploratorium by its founder Larry Shaw.  On Pi Day, people all over the world celebrate the history and significance of this constant in some very interesting and creative ways:

• Eating all varieties of pies including dessert pies and pizza pies
• Holding contests to see who can memorize the most digits of pi
• Converting all sorts of measurements into pi using 3.14 as a unit of measure
• Playing pie in the face games
• Running pi miles
• Viewing the movie Pi by Darren Aronofsky about a mathematician who is obsessed with calculating and understanding mathematical mysteries
• Beading a pi string to represent the never ending value of pi
• Writing a Pi-Ku (a haiku about pi) 

Reciting Pi by Memory

Akira Haraguchi, a Japanese mental-health counselor, claims that in the fall of 2006, he accurately recited pi to 100,000 decimal places in 16 hours.  He does not hold the Guinness world record, though, having not submitted the documentation.  The official record holder is Chao Lu, a Chinese chemistry student, who recited 67,890 digits in a little over 24 hours in 2005.

Below are some books available at Sterne Library that have been selected as the best science and technology books of 2007.

Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson  [QC16 .E5 I76 2007]

Introduction to Polymer Chemistry by Charles E. Carraher Jr.  [QD381 .C37 2007]

Why Darwin Matters:  The Case Against Intelligent Design by Michael Shermer  [QH366.2 .S494 2006]

Silent Deep:  The Discovery, Ecology, and Conservation of the Deep Sea by J. Anthony Koslow  [QH541.5.D35 K67 2007]

Under a Green Sky:  Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past, and What They Mean for Our Future by Peter D. Ward  [QE721.2.E97 W384 2007]

Terra: Our 100 Million Year Old Ecosystem and the Threats that Now Put It at Risk by Michael Novacek  [QE721.2.E97 N68 2007]

Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning by Christopher M. Bishop  [Q327 .B52 2006]

Greene’s Protective Groups in Organic Synthesis by Peter G. M. Wuts  [QD262 .G665 2007]

Poincare’s Prize: The Hundred Year Quest to Solve One of Math’s Greatest Puzzles by George Szpiro  [QA43 .S985 2007]

Making Sense of Data: A Practical Guide to Exploratory Data Analysis and Data Mining by Glenn J. Myatt  [QA276 .M92 2007]

Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast by David Archer  [QC981.8.G56 A73 2007]

Darwin Day is February 12th and commemorates the birthday of English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882) who is famous for his theory of evolution and natural selection and his seminal work On the Origin of Species.

To learn more about the life, work, and influence of Charles Darwin, check out the books below available at Sterne Library.

Charles Darwin: The Man and His Influence by Peter Bowler  [QH31.D2 B743 1991]

Darwin by Adrian Desmond and James Moore  [QH31.D2 D47 1994]

Cambridge Companion to Darwin by Jonathan Hodge and Gregory Radick  [QH31.D2 C185 2003]

Darwin for Beginners by Jonathan Miller and Borin Van Loon  [QH31.D2 M54 1982]

From So Simple a Beginning (four works) by Charles Darwin  [QH365.A1 2006]

Indelible Stamp: The Evolution of an Idea (four works) by Charles Darwin [QH365.A1 2005]

Are you writing a scientific paper and don’t know where to start?  Or have you finished your paper but don’t know if your citations are correct?

If so, you may want to sign up for Sterne Library’s Research and Citation Clinics to get expert help from the Science Librarian.

At a research clinic, the Science Librarian will help you develop an effective search strategy and find books, articles, and web sites on your topic.

At a citation clinic, the Science Librarian will help you format your paper and citations using a scientific style such as APA (American Psychological Association), AMA (American Medical Association), CBE (Council of Biology Editors), and ACS (American Chemical Society).  More information about the different scientific styles is available in the Citing Your Sources research guide.

You can sign up for a research clinic or a citation clinic using the online forms or by calling 934-6364.  You can also contact Jennifer Long, the Science Librarian, directly at jmlong@uab.edu to schedule a session.

Sterne Library has purchased the Springer eBooks collection for computer science which includes the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series.

Electronic access for the computer science collection covers 2005 to 2008 and for the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series covers 1997 to 2008.

The eBooks are available through Springer Link by clicking on Computer Science under Subject Collection.  Accessible content is indicated by a green square next to the item.  Please contact Jennifer Long at jmlong@uab.edu for more information about the Springer eBooks collection for computer science.