My reading list – what does it all mean?

 

© MrsMaze Flickr.com

OK. You’ve arrived at University, and now you need to get started on your course work (bah!).  You’ve probably got a reading list of things you need to get hold of (and read!).  But what does all the stuff on your reading list mean, and how does it help you find what you need?

Let’s imagine these books are on your reading list -

Housecroft, C.E. and Constable, E.C. (2006). Chemistry – an introduction to organic, inorganic and physical chemistry. 3rd ed. Pearson. 

Berthoud, R. and Gershuny, J. eds (2000). Seven years in the lives of British families. Policy Press.

Stallings, W. (2007). Data and computer communications. 8th ed. Prentice Hall.

Sounds like an unusual course!  And, of course, your reading lists won’t be multicoloured like this one –  but here’s what it all means -

Who wrote the book (authors) 

Who edited the book (editors – shortened to eds)

When the book was published (publication year)
What the book is called (book title)

How many times the book has been revised and republished (edition number)

Who published the book (publisher)

These who, what and when details of a book are called the bibliographic details. You can use all this information to find the item you need by searching on author and / or word from the title in the library catalogue.  Check the edition or publication year in the catalogue against the ones on your list – and you’re on your way! 

To find the book on the shelf, use the class number you find in the catalogue e.g. 301.42 BER.  In the class number, the number represents the subject of the book and the letters are the first three letters of the author’s surname.  All our books are organised numerically by the class numbers – on Level 3 of the library (apart from 3 hour loan items which are behind the service desk). A label on the spine of each book gives the class number for that item.

If you can’t find what you want, or it all goes a bit wrong, you can use the catalogue help pages, ask in the library, email libhelp@hw.ac.uk, phone ext 3582 or get in touch using our  IM/chat service.

Miss Dewey

Books in demand

In the libraries at Riccarton and Galashiels we keep a copy, and sometimes more than one copy, of books which are in most demand in the 3 Hour Loan Collection.  These include some course texts, plus titles which lecturers have recommended for essays or projects, etc.  They are on 3 Hour Loan so that as many people as possible can get access to them at short notice.

You can keep these books for up to three hours at a time, but you can also have them overnight if you borrow them after 4.30pm.  If you do so, you must return them no later than one hour after the Library opens the next day.

You can also reserve a 3 Hour Loan book for a particular time, one day in advance.

How can you tell if a book is in the 3 Hour Loan collection? 

The Catalogue indicates whether copies of a book are on 3 Hour Loan, or Week Loan, or Standard Loan.  You can also get lists of 3 Hour Loans from the Catalogue, by lecturer or School.

 

All 3 Hour Loan books are kept behind the Service Desk.

Remember – if you do not return a 3 Hour Loan book by the end of the loan period, you’ll be charged a fine of 1p per minute that it’s late.  We don’t like taking your money, so please return them on time!

Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian

Questionnaire design, fashion, logistics – and other new books in the Library

Added to the library recently were books on Questionnaire design, fashion, logistics and several other topics.

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

      

Selected titles added to Riccarton Library include a further copy, on 3 Hour Loan, of Defining a macroeconomic framework for the Euro area, by Alberto Alesina and others (additional information, including Table of Contents. is available), and Global competitive strategy, by Daniel F. Spulber (additional information, including Table of Contents. is available).

Added to the library at Galashiels were several books on fashion, including A cultural history of fashion in the twentieth century: from the catwalk to the sidewalk, by Bonnie English (additional information, including Table of Contents. is available).

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

Information on suggesting books for the library is also available, or you can let the Subject Librarians know if you have any suggestions for new titles.

Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian

Athens no more!

Users of Digimap may have noticed the recent changes to the login process and that Athens usernames and passwords no longer work.

Fear not! You can still access all the Digimap services that you are used to…you just don’t use Athens to authenticate.

1. At the Digimap website (http://edina.ac.uk/digimap/), click the   button
2. After clicking the login button, the next page with present you with a drop-down menu:
   
3. From this list, choose ‘Heriot-Watt University’, and click ‘Select’
4. The next page will show the HW log-in screen:
   

** Your UID and password are the same as those you use for Vision/Outlook/Webmail **
If you do not know these details, please contact the IT HelpDesk

About Digimap
Digimap is a collection of services that deliver maps and map data of Great Britain to UK. Data is available either to download to use with appropriate application software such as GIS or CAD, or as maps generated by Digimap online. HW has an institutional subscription to Digimap, and in addition, all users are required by Ordnance Survey to register before they can access the service. If you wish to use Digimap, and have not yet registered, further details are available from the Digimap website.

If you have any difficulties accessing Digimap, please contact the Library

Sarah Kelly
Subject Librarian

Let’s Get it On(line)!

 

As the song says, come on, come on, come on –  baby. Stop beating round the bush.   If you want to find out how to access full-text articles and books on and off-campus  – let’s get in online.  Well – might have changed the lyrics slightly!

If you can’t make it to the library or want to study at home but need access to library stuff then come along to Let’s Get it On(Line). You’ll find out what you can get online and what passwords you need as well as answers to common questions – like why can’t I view this full-text article or why am I being asked to pay?

This session is a must if you’d rather study at home with your pyjamas on, a cup of tea in your favourite mug and your feet up. No need to book – just turn up.

Let’s Get it On(line)
Wed 8th October, 12.15-1.45
Anderson Room, Library top floor
Coffee/tea provided. Bring your own lunch
More information at Library Workshops

Marion Kennedy
Subject Librarian

Library Workshops for Students

Here’s your chance to get a free cup of coffee, find out what the inside of the Anderson Room looks like and get clued up on some things that will help you with your course work.

© Pitel Flickr.com

Not sure how to access full-text books and journals on and off campus?  Come along to Let’s Get it On(line), Wed 8th October, 12.15-1.45.

© B Tal Flickr.com

Confused about citing and referencing? Come on down to The Cite is Right, Wed 29th October, 12.15-1.45.

Both sessions are for students and are held in the Anderson Room on the top floor of the Library. No need to book. Just turn up and bring your lunch with you.

For more information see Library Workshops.

Marion Kennedy
Subject Librarian

Ten science search engines

There are several very good science/technology search engines.  These will usually give much more focussed search results than Google.

Scirus
Scirus searches over 450 million scientific items, and allows researchers to search for not only journal content but also scientists’ homepages, courseware, pre-print server material, patents and institutional repository and website information.

 

Scitopia.org 
Scitopia.org is a free federated vertical search service which retrieves content provided by its twenty-one partner scholarly societies (Acoustical Society of America, American Geophysical Union, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, American Institute of Physics, American Physical Society, American Society of Civil Engineers, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Vacuum Society, Audio Engineering Society, The Electrochemical Society, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Institute of Physics Publishing, International Union of Crystallography, Optical Society of America , Professional Engineering Publishing, The Royal Society, Society of Automotive Engineers, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, SPIE, and The Society for Information Display). 

 

Science.gov
A new version has just been launched. Science.gov is a free, integrated single-search gateway to reliable science and technology information from 17 organizations within 13 federal science agencies.

 

Science Research
A free search engine allowing access to numerous scientific journals and public science databases.

 

Scitation
Searches more than one million documents from scholarly journals, magazines, conference proceedings, and other special publications from prestigious scientific societies and technical publishers.  In addition, through Scitation, members of Heriot-Watt University can access the full text of several journals published by the American Institute of Physics and other learned societies, including the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the Optical Society of America.

 

WorldWideScience.org
WorldWideScience.org is a global science gateway connecting you to national and international scientific databases and portals.

 

 

Science Accelerator
Science Accelerator searches science, including R&D results, project descriptions, accomplishments, and more, via resources made available by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), U.S. Department of Energy.

 

TechXtra
A free service provided by Heriot-Watt University which can help you find articles, books, the best websites, the latest industry news, job announcements, technical reports, technical data, full text eprints, the latest research, thesis & dissertations, teaching and learning resources and more, in engineering, mathematics and computing.

search.optics.org
A much more specific search engine.  This one is a search tool that only returns results from websites that have been selected for their optics content

Yes…well…that’s only nine science search engines!  Tell me what you think should be the tenth, in a Comment to this post.

More searchable databases are listed on our Databases and other electronic resources pages.

Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian

Linux, statistics, marketing, bioinorganic chemistry – and other new books

Added to the library recently were books on Linux, statistics, marketing, bioinorganic chemistry, and several other topics.

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

    

Selected titles added to Riccarton Library include a copy of the 5th edition of Linux in a nutshell, by Ellen Siever and others, and The literature review: a step-by-step guide for students, by Diana Ridley. 

You can see from the Table of Contents of Ridley’s book that it’s full of useful information for anyone undertaking a literature search, or wanting to know about note taking, reference management and more.   If you want to know even more about reference management and citing, come along to the Library workshop session The Cite is Right on Wed 29th October at 12.15-1.45. It will cover what its all about, why you need to be bothered with it and how to make it easy. 

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

Information on suggesting books for the library is also available, or you can let the Subject Librarians know if you have any suggestions for new titles.

Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian

Final reminder – books due back today – Friday 19 September

Final reminder – All the books which you borrowed for the vacation are due for return or renewal today – Friday 19 September.

If you wish to keep them for longer, you can renew them at any time before midnight tonight 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 can only renew a book once you have completed enrolment for 2008-2009. You cannot renew a book if someone else has reserved it, if you have any overdue books, or if you have more than £2.00 outstanding in unpaid fines.

If you need help renewing your books, or of you have any questions about borrowing, contact the Service Desks in the Riccarton or Galashiels Libraries.

Gill McDonald
Deputy Librarian

Some free trade magazines for you

TechXtra (a service which helps you find articles, books, the best websites, the latest industry news, job announcements, technical reports, technical data, full text eprints, the latest research, thesis & dissertations, teaching and learning resources and more, in engineering, mathematics and computing) operates an affiliation scheme through which numerous free magazines are available to qualifying professionals.

Here’s a selection of available titles:

Connector Specifier provides design engineers and specifiers with the most current and innovative information about electronic and optical connectors and related topics.

Telecom Mobile is a weekly newsletter providing up-to-date news and analysis on wireless network strategies.

Recycling Today is published monthly and is edited for the secondary commodity processing/recycling market.

EE Times Europe provides news, analysis, product and design information.

FibreSystems Europe delivers coverage of the technology and business issues affecting the specification, purchase and deployment of optical equipment, networks and services across Europe.

Electronic Design Europe provides leading edge technical information to electronic engineers and engineering managers in the European community – individuals responsible for design and development of electronic original equipment manufactures’ products and systems.

PipeLine and Gas Technology provides information on: engineering, construction, storage, transmission, etc

Hydrocarbon Processing provides job-help information to technical and management personnel in petroleum refining, gas processing, petrochemical/chemical and engineer/constructor companies throughout the world.

Chemical Engineering serves chemical engineering professionals in the chemical process industry including manufacturing, engineering, government, academia, financial institutions and others allied to the field serving the global chemical process industry.

Many more are listed in the A-Z.

TechXtra is based in Heriot-Watt University.

Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian