New books in the Library this week

New books added to the Library this week include:

Marine microbiology: ecology and applications, by C.B. Munn.  This book is on standard loan, in the Riccarton Library.

Also added to Riccarton Library was Drugs in sport, edited by David R. Mottram.  A copy has been placed on Three Hour Loan in Riccarton Library.  You can search inside this book at Amazon.

Copies of the 3rd edition of Management: an introduction, by David Boddy, have been added to the Galashiels Library.

A copy of Terrorism & oil, by Neal Adams, has been added to the Petroleum Engineering Library.

For the full list of new books, go to the New Books section of the Catalogue.

Information on how to place a reservation for a book is available.

Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian

Scientific American - latest issue

Amongst the items in the latest issue (May 2007, Vol. 296 Issue 5) of Scientific American are:

• Structured Settings -  discusses scientific research regarding nanotechnology.
• Codon Spell Check -  discusses scientific research regarding genetic mutations and cancer.
• Motion Pictures - discusses how digital television broadcasters may enter the market of mobile video delivery.
• Escape from the Nucleus - observations on ionization.
• Dialing In - discusses the design of cellular telephones for illiterate people in developing countries.
• Microchips with Heart - discusses the work done  on transforming cultured rat heart muscle cells.
• Data points: Big bang of bits - statistics related to the growth of digital information.
• Rat-Think - rats possess a form of thinking known as metacognition.
• …and more

Scientific American, with back issues from 1995, is available to all members of Heriot-Watt University.

For off campus users, access is via the Virtual Private Network (details here).

Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian

New books in the Library this week

New books added to the Library this week include:

Traditional building craft skills: assessing the need, meeting the challenge, National Heritage Training Group, 2007, and Coursebook on pragmatic translation, edited by Mengzhi Fang and others. These are both on standard loan, in the Riccarton Library.

Petroleum engineering handbook: volume III : facilities and construction engineering edited by Kenneth E. Arnold, has been added to the Petroleum Engineering Library

For the full list of new books, go to the New Books section of the Catalogue.

Information on how to place a reservation for a book is available.

Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian

Final Reminder - Library Books due for return or renewal

Reminder to all borrowers Any Standard Loan books which you borrowed for the Easter vacation are due for return or renewal by Friday 20 April. Any books which have been recalled from you during the Easter vacation are due for return by Friday 20 April. If no-one else has requested your books, and you want to keep them for longer, you can renew them at any time before the deadline by logging on to your Library record (via Patron functions) in the catalogue. Simply select the books you want to renew, and then click on the “Renew Items” button. Remember - You cannot renew your books through the computer if you have already renewed them 3 times, if you have any overdue items, or if you have unpaid fines of more than £2.00. If you need help renewing your books, please contact the Service Desk in Riccarton or Martindale Libraries. Gill McDonald Reader Services Manager

Research Information

The latest issue of Research Information, a magazine which is aimed at people who use or manage scientific, medical and technical information, has several interesting items.

These include an article entitled ‘Scientists are wary of open-access journals‘, a further article about how RSC Publishing is publishing semantically-enriched articles, plus news items about the plans for a UK national e-theses service, and how industry groups have agree on fundamentals of scholarly communication.

The product news section features items about the new journal Nature Photonics, plus more.

Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian

New books in the Library this week

New books added to the Library this week include:

Several copies of the 4th edition of Construction technology, by Roy Chudley and Roger Greeno.  These are on week loan, in the Riccarton Library.

Also added to Riccarton Library were Sustainable energy systems engineering: the complete green building design resource, by Peter Gevorkian, and several copies of Introduction to residential layout, by Mike Biddulph.

Oil & gas pipelines in nontechnical language, by Thomas O. Miesner and William L. Leffler has been added to the Petroleum Engineering Library

For the full list of new books, go to the New Books section of the Catalogue.

Information on how to place a reservation for a book is available.

Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian

Open Access - more updates

I don’t intend to give updates on items about Open Access after this post (with its predecessors here and here), as there are various ways to keep up to date with the topic, not least The SPARC Open Access Newsletter. However, the following are of particular interest.

The Editorial in the April issue of Learned Publishing raises some questions about the costs of Open Access, which have to be balanced against the undeniable benefits.  Peter Suber has written a riposte.

There’s an informative and entertaining article in American Scientist Online, by Alma Swann, entitled: Open Access and the Progress of Science.

Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian

Nature - latest issue

The latest edition of Nature (Volume 446 Number 7136 pp583-700 5th April, 2007) is available, and features the following articles:

• Attosecond real-time observation of electron tunnelling in atoms
• Multimodal fast optical interrogation of neural circuitry
• Mechanism of auxin perception by the TIR1 ubiquitin ligase 

Plus Research highlights, News, Business, Correspondence, Letters, etc.

A reminder about the subscription to the electronic edition of Nature.  This journal, with back issues from Vol. 385 (1997) to date, is now available to all members of Heriot-Watt University.

For off campus users, access is via the Virtual Private Network (details here) or via Athens Authentication (click on Login on the top right hand corner of the Nature home page, then select Login via Athens).

A Nature podcast is available.  Today’s podcast includes “An illuminating discovery about brain control, climate change on Mars, plant hormones, seafloor carbon control, the origin of Earth’s magnetic field, unravelling the remains of Joan of Arc.”

Nature, published by NPG, is the world’s foremost weekly scientific journal, and was launched in 1869.  The Martindale Library, Scottish Borders Campus holds print copies of Vol. 283 (1980) to vol. 378 (1995), and Riccarton Library holds print copies of Vol. 37 (1887) to date.

Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian

Library Opening Hours - Easter weekend

We wish you a Happy Easter.

Our opening hours for Riccarton & Martindale Libraries over the holiday weekend are:

Friday 6 April - both libraries closed
Saturday 7 April - both libraries closed
Sunday 8 April - both libraries closed
Monday 9 April:
Riccarton Library open 09.15 - 20.00
Martindale Library closed

Details of all our opening hours are available here.

Gill McDonald
Reader Services Manager

New ScienceDirect e-journal titles available.

An additional 13 e-journal titles have been added to the ScienceDirect collection, and are now available through the Library.

ScienceDirect contains over 25% of the world’s science, technology and medicine full text and bibliographic information, and offers a rich journal collection of over 2,000 titles. These titles, many new for 2007, are now included within nearly 5000 e-journals currently available through the Library catalogue. Links within the catalogue provide access to the full-text e-journals.

You can search across these tiles and all others available through ScienceDirect:

• CIRP Annals - Manufacturing technology
• Diabetes and Metabolic Syndrome : Clinical Search and Reviews
• Diabetes and Metabolism
• Forensic Science International : Genetics
• International journal of Greenhouse Gas Control
• Mendeleev Communications
• Metamaterials
• Nonlinear Analysis : Hybrid Systems
• Obesity Research and Clinical Pracice
• Primary Care Diabetes
• Russian Geology and geophysics
• Seminars in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery
• Seminars in Vascular Surgery

New e-journals will continue to be made accessible as we make more of our subscriptions available electronically. A simple search box on the Library home page lets you search for all journals, or for books, in one or all of the Library’s branches.

If you need help accessing the electronic journals, or in identifying useful articles within them, contact our Enquiry Service at any time.

Iain Young
Metadata Librarian