1 July 2009

There’s a very interesting article in the THE entitled There are 3,000 ways to cite source material – why not make it one? by Alec Gill, an academic tutor with the Study Advice Service, University of Hull.
He writes: “It is time to change. Academic styles of referencing must be reformed, unified and simplified.” and “The reform of academic referencing styles is long overdue. A pragmatic approach is needed to declutter the Victoriana that has been inherited within our bibliographic styles.”
There’s also a full-length version of the article available on his blog which is also well worth reading.
There are various books in the Library on referencing, and slides from The Cite is Right, one of the Library Workshop seminars, are also available.
Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian
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General | Tagged: academic writing, citing and referencing, library workshops |
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Posted by Roddy MacLeod
29 June 2009

The Springer Computer Science Reading Room offers free access to books and journals in all areas of Computer Science:
- Artificial Intelligence
- Graphics, Vision, and Imaging
- Database Management
- Foundations of Computing
- Information Security and Cryptology
- Software Engineering and Programming
- Human-Computer Interaction
New content is added to the Reading Room ever other month, focussing on one of these subject areas – this July and August the focus is on Artificial Intelligence.
Inside the Computer Science Reading Room you will find free content from Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series and a wide array of Springer journals. Using the functionality offered by SpringerLink, the content is accessible via PDF or HTML files, which you can download and print.
Registration is free.
2 Comments |
Mathematical and Computer Sciences | Tagged: eBooks, free; books; journals |
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Posted by Sarah
22 June 2009

Congratulations to all students who are graduating this week. We hope you enjoy the ceremony – and the strawberries!
We’d particularly like to congratulate Rory Swinson-Reid who worked as a Student Shelver in the Library, and who graduates this week. Well done Rory!
Gill McDonald
Deputy Librarian
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General |
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Posted by Gill McDonald
4 June 2009

TechXtra, one of the Ten science search engines I mentioned a while back on this blog, has recently been improved.
TechXtra is a free service provided by the ICBL and Library at Heriot-Watt University. Using TechXtra you can find articles, books, the best websites, the latest industry news, job announcements, technical reports, technical data, full text eprints, the latest research, theses & dissertations, teaching and learning resources and more, in engineering, mathematics and computing. TechXtra searches over 4 million items from 31 collections in technology, and provides several additional services.
For full details of the improvements, please see the TechXtra News Blog. Changes include:
Further collections will be added to TechXtra in the future. Details will be announced on the TechXtra News Blog.
Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian
1 Comment |
Built Environment, Engineering and Physical Sciences, General, Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Petroleum Engineering | Tagged: searching, TechXtra |
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Posted by Roddy MacLeod
2 June 2009
I read an interesting article the other day in the Business & Media section of The Observer, entitled Will Philadelphia be the place where the American newspaper dies? Several cities in the US are in danger of losing their newspapers, and the article suggests that the same may well happen in the UK – “This is the dying world of newspapers…”
Readers have moved to the Internet for news, and so the circulation of many print papers has declined, and profits have reduced or disappeared. Most newspapers have an online equivalent, but can online newspapers make a profit in the long-run? No-one knows.
There’s a number of interesting websites that can help you keep up-to-date with the news and newspapers. Here are just a few:
Chipwrapper is a tool for easy searching of UK newspapers.
NewsLink provides links to numerous newspapers, as does onlinenewspapers.com.
Newsroom, available to members of Heriot-Watt University, covers the leading newspapers, as well as business magazines and newswires from all regions of the world.
And Newser aggregates headlines from numerous titles.

The Internet may have taken away many reasons for newspapers to exist, but there’s nothing actually like spending a half-hour, or so, flicking through a real, print, newspaper. In Riccarton Library, a number of daily newspapers are available on Level 2, near the Library Cafe. These include:
Daily Telegraph
Financial Times
Guardian
Herald
Observer – term-time only
Scotland on Sunday – term-time only
Scotsman
Times
The Library at Galashiels buys several British newspapers and magazines:
- Border Telegraph (local paper for Galashiels area)
- Financial Times
- Guardian
- Scotsman
- Southern Reporter (local paper for Scottish Borders)
More information is available about newspapers in the Library.
Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian
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General | Tagged: newspapers |
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Posted by Roddy MacLeod
1 June 2009

Microsoft recently made available a new search engine called Bing. It’s been getting mixed reports in the media. Two of the sources I rely on for expert and impartial reviews of search engines were not very positive at all. Phil Bradley reported: It’s awful, and Karen Blakeman said: Don’t bother. Elsewhere, some reviews have been more positive.
About.com has a helpful screenshot walk-through, which is a useful way of getting an overview.
Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian
2 Comments |
General | Tagged: searching |
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Posted by Roddy MacLeod
29 May 2009

ScienceWatch.com, a weekly behind-the-scenes look at the scientists, journals, institutions, nations, and papers selected by Essential Science IndicatorsSM from Thomson Reuters and other products of the Research Services Group, has released a listing of the top 20 countries which, as of the latest bimonthly update of Essential Science IndicatorsSM, attracted the highest total citations to their papers published in Thomson Reuters-indexed journals of Engineering over an 11-year period, (1998-December 31, 2008). These countries are of a pool of 96 countries comprising the top 50% ranked by total citation count in this field.
Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian
1 Comment |
Engineering and Physical Sciences, General |
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Posted by Roddy MacLeod
27 May 2009

The June 2009 issue of the Internet Resources Newsletter is now available.
If you’re interested in new and noteworthy websites of relevance to students, academics and researchers, or news from the scholarly publishing industry, or new academic and library blogs, Twitter, and much more, then check out this newsletter.
The newsletter is edited by Marion Kennedy, Catherine Ure and myself. It’s monthly, and its free!
Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian
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General | Tagged: Internet Resources Newsletter |
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Posted by Roddy MacLeod