Scirus for Scientific Information

Scirus is an openly-accessible Web search engine designed for searching Websites of scientific content—including free Web content and sites where access may be restricted. In this latter instance, UW-Madison users (faculty, staff and students) will be able to enable a Scirus search preference to additionally retrieve available full-text articles and print subscription information from UW-Madison Libraries. (Once set, a Find It button will appear in the retrieval for articles).

The basic search interface to Scirus enables a user to enter his/her search query into a single search window and to select limits to Journal sources, Preferred Web sources (set of open access journals, research e-print sites, government agency sites, patents and digital archives) or Other Web sources. Specific phrase searching can also be indicated.

The advanced search interface enables a user to construct a more complex search query with multiple windows joined by Boolean operators and to apply limits to fields of the online record, date range, Web content sources and subject areas.

Scirus is an Elsevier product.

Find Books and More using MadCat (Workshop, October 2)

MadCat contains information about the books, journal titles, government documents, videos, and other materials available from UW-Madison campus libraries. The hands-on workshop will explore the various search options for MadCat and offer tips and strategies for finding materials on your research topic.

The workshop will also review the convenience services incorporated within the MadCat product for requesting retrieval of library materials and for viewing your library record online.

MadCat: Find Books & More for Your Research

Tuesday, October 2 (4:30-5:45)

Room 105, Steenbock

Public Reading of Banned Books, (Thursday, September 27)

Come celebrate intellectual freedom with a public reading of banned literature. Local authors, media personalities and concerned community members will read selections from frequently-challenged titles. This event, which is free and open to the public, will be held in the Open Book Café, College Library (6:00-8:00pm). Banned Books Week is observed September 29-October 6, 2007.

Some of the most profound and inspiring works of literature have faced challenges to their access from groups or individuals who have felt threatened by their content. The American Library Association, Office of Intellectual Freedom maintains lists and press releases regarding these challenged titles.

Ten Most Challenged Books from 2006

Most Challenged Books of the 21^st Century (2000-2005, so far)

Explore the Issues with the CCBC and Madison Public Library:

The CCBC (Cooperative Children’s Book Center) specializes in intellectual freedom issues—particularly related to children and teen access to works—and can supply support for librarians and teachers. Visit its Intellectual Freedom site: http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/freedom/default.asp

Information from the Madison Public Library System: http://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/calendar/september/bannedbooks.html

Laptops Available!

Steenbock Library has 50 laptops available for three-day loan from the Information Services/InfoLab desk. As a wireless building, the laptops easily facilitate working just about anywhere within the library.

Use the UW InfoLabs’ Laptop Checkout System page to determine where you can find an available laptop (or other equipment such as cameras and projectors). The page shows InfoLab locations and how many pieces of equipment remain available, in real-time, at each location. Laptop policies and due-dates can also be viewed on the site.

PubMed for the Life Sciences Workshop (Wednesday, September 19)

Learn how to successfully mine PubMed (MEDLINE) using such features as Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), limits, citation matcher, and the My NCBI feature for saving searches and search results and for setting up customized tabs or topic/journal alerts. Harness the power of PubMed record links to additional Entrez databases such as Gene, Protein, and PubChem Compound.

PubMed for the Life Sciences
Wednesday, September 19 (4:00-5:00pm)
Steenbock Library, Room 105

Food for Thought Festival, September 14-15, 2007

The ninth annual Food for Thought Festival, sponsored by the REAP Food Group, will explore regional food traditions and the desirability of eating sustainably by tapping the seasonal harvest of local producers.

The Friday Night Forum, 125 Agricultural Hall (7:30-9:30) will feature a panel of speakers including Dan Barber, Leah Caplan, Scott Williams and Anne Strainchamps.

Saturday festival events will be held just off the Capitol Square on Martin Luther King Blvd. from 8:00 AM until 1:30 PM. Enjoy cooking demonstrations, information tables, tasty samples, activities and raffle prize opportunities.

Of related interest, you may wish to consider taking part in the Eat Local Challenge (Wisconsin). Good for the local economy, the environment and your health—and what a pleasant way to do so given our area bounty of farmers’ markets and CSAs!

Bon appetit!

Steenbock Journal Assessment and Proposed Journal Cancellations

Journal prices continue to increase rapidly, but Steenbock does not receive an annual increase to its acquisitions budget. Therefore the library must reduce its anticipated journal expenditures for next year by about $45,000. To do this, the library plans to discontinue about 70 print subscriptions for which the publisher’s online version is available to you. This will save about $22,000 annually.

To generate an additional $23,000 in savings, the library is also planning to cancel 140 low use and/or high cost journals. A list of titles proposed for cancellation is posted at: http://steenbock.library.wisc.edu/news/journal_assessment07.html. The table also shows cost-per-use data for each title for the past year.

Please continue to request articles you need via Library Express. The library cancels subscriptions because document delivery is more cost effective. Nevertheless, the library continues to provide the articles you need at no cost to you. If you have any questions about document delivery, please contact your liaison librarian.

We also encourage you to work with your liaison librarian to set up table of contents and subject email alerts to keep you informed about new articles of interest to you. To learn more or to request an alert, see: http://steenbock.library.wisc.edu/alerts.html

High journal costs create barriers to sharing research findings with other scholars. You can also help change the scholarly communications landscape. For additional information about managing your rights as an author and about open access publishing, see: http://steenbock.library.wisc.edu/news/journal_assessment07.html#need

Cold Spring Harbor Protocols, Now Available Online

The Cold Spring Harbor Protocols are an interactive source of new and classic research techniques. Coverage includes cell and molecular biology, genetics, bioinformatics, protein science, and imaging.

The Protocols are presented step-by-step and are continuously expanded, updated, and annotated by the originators and users of the techniques and are peer-reviewed by experts to ensure technical quality. The database product can be browsed or searched by keyword and subject and includes such additional features as discussion forums and personal pages.

Campus users can sign up for RSS feeds and email alerts to new protocols appearing in the database.

Access Cold Spring Harbor Protocols

Getting Clued In

Know anyone who could use a refresher on using library resources? If so, then suggest taking the CLUE Tutorial—a multimedia tutorial of five short modules reviewing aspects of college-level research expectations, the UW-Madison Library system, library research strategies, and searching catalog and journal literature databases.

Access CLUE at: http://clue.library.wisc.edu/

Links to the CLUE Tutorial can also be found on the UW Libraries Website, from the Help and Guidance pull-down menu.

Welcome to Campus!

Steenbock Library welcomes students and staff to campus. Many events are scheduled during the first few weeks of the semester.

The campus has issued its welcome for new students at:

http://www.newstudent.wisc.edu/wiwelcome/

Welcome Week(s) events are posted at:

http://wisconsinwelcome.wisc.edu/ww/schedule.aspx

Additionally, campus libraries offer free tours and drop-in workshops. Visit the campus libraries’ schedule at: http://library.wisc.edu/workshops/workshop-date.html#september

Or Steenbock Library’s schedule at: http://steenbock.library.wisc.edu/instruct/dropin.html

Fundamentally Sound, September 4 (6:30 PM)

Performance update, Fundamentally Sound will perform at 6:30 PM (and not 4:30 as previously posted). Come, check them out--in front of the Steenbock Library building, corner of Babcock and Observatory.

Original post:

Come listen to the sweet sound of UW-Madison men’s a cappella group, Fundamentally Sound. The group will give a short performance on Steenbock Library’s front terrace, September 4th at 4:30 PM.

As the group will be looking to recruit some additional talent, do plan to nab a brochure and schedule a time with them to audition. For more information and a schedule of future appearances, visit the Fundamentally Sound website.

http://www.fundamentally-sound.com/

Steenbock Library staff thanks Fundamentally Sound for supplying this great Welcome Week entertainment!