Materials Science Resources on the Web

This guide includes reference tools and educational resources related to materials that are freely available on the Internet and do not require subscription or registration on the part of individual researchers to access them. Most of these resources were created by educational institutions, scientific organizations, or are personal projects of materials scientists. A few commercial sites were included if they contained educational resources; however, sites were excluded if they were too much of a sales pitch for company products or services. Previous guides to web resources have become outdated and are filled by links to companies, professional societies, and government research agencies. I have chosen not to include such links in this guide, though many of the websites also happen to include a section of links to companies or societies

Darwin’s Citation Impact

This presentation covered basic definitions of impact factors, citation impact and h index. Then, looked at Charles Darwin’s publication record, the process involved in determining his citation impact, and compared Darwin’s citation impact to that of modern day researchers in ecology and evolutionary biology. Science is continually focusing on current research, new techniques, latest discoveries. Once in a while it’s good to reflect back and re-examine the past

Soil Surveys—They\u27re Not Just for Farmers

Soil surveys may sound boring and useful only to farmers; however, nothing could be further from the truth. Soil surveys do contain inventories of the soils of an area; however, they also contain a wealth of tabular data that help interpret whether a location is suitable for a given use, such as a playground, a golf course, or a highway. This guide will describe soil surveys, their uses, and uniqueness. It will also cover information on the variety of ways they can be cataloged and shelved in libraries and provide search tips for locating them both online and in library collections. While the guide is mainly focused on U.S. soil surveys, there is also some information provided on locating non-U.S. soil surveys. The guide is aimed at the novice librarian, or researcher, as well as librarians starting work at a new library

Uncle Albert Needs You! Individual Recruiting Efforts are a Necessity and an Obligation

The terms “recruiting” or “recruitment” are regularly used in two very different connotations: hiring (and retention) practices and also recruiting into the profession itself. This article will focus exclusively on recruiting to the profession. There has been a shortage of science librarians since the 1950’s, or earlier, and yet the problem has still not been adequately resolved. While there is a general acknowledgement that something needs to be done, in many cases, practicing librarians seem to feel they only have impact in one particular area—encouraging library student assistants to pursue a library science degree. There are many other ways individual librarians can participate in recruiting, even on a very small scale. Recruiting need not be a daunting, time-consuming task. This article provides some radical ideas to get people thinking and acting in ways to improve the visibility and attractiveness of science librarianship as a profession...and not just by serving as a good role model for student assistants they may (or may not) supervise

Industry Standards in ARL Libraries: Electronic and On-Demand

Purpose—Little is known about the current state of industry standards subscriptions in U.S. libraries. In this age of electronic access and tightening budgets, many libraries are re-examining whether or not to alter paper subscriptions of standards to electronic versions and/or switch to on-demand delivery. Design/Methodology—Two surveys were conducted in an attempt to gauge the extent to which other libraries are currently collecting standards in electronic format, or providing on-demand purchasing for industry standards. Findings—The number of libraries purchasing electronic standards or providing on-demand purchasing in 2003 appears to be incongruous with comments from both surveys. In the 2001 survey, librarians could not find ways to fund on-demand purchasing and in the 2003 survey, a number of libraries were purchasing some sets on an irregular basis to save money. A little over half (51%) of the responding libraries provide electronic versions of standards and sixty percent indicated they provide on-demand purchasing of individual standards. Originality/Value—Survey responses resulted in several local changes to improve patron success rates at acquiring industry standard including: created a publicly-searchable database of locally-available standards, initiated a purchase on-demand process, worked with Interlibrary Loan (ILL) staff to determine which standards would be better to purchase versus request on ILL, and became more adept at reference interviews involving requests for standards

Internet Subject Guides in Academic Libraries: An Analysis of Contents, Practices, and Opinions

This article describes a research project to determine the uniqueness of Internet subject guides among Association of Research Libraries academic libraries. The authors examined guides in four subject areas (philosophy, journalism/communication, astronomy, and chemistry) at the Web sites of 112 libraries, collecting data on the number of links per guide, the arrangement of resources, the information included about the resources, the kinds of resources included, and the number of nonworking links. As a result of the examination of these guides, a number of questions emerged, which led to the creating of a survey mailed to the heads of reference services in each of the libraries. The authors discuss the results of their examinations and of the survey and make recommendations for further research