Category Archives: Resources

Earth Day 2016, Research, and Salmon Library

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Earth_day (Image courtesy of: Wiki Commons)

The icon above is a globally recognized symbol for Earth Day, celebrated on April 22nd. Reminiscent of the Greek letter theta (often used as a symbol of death or a warning) this icon is meant to evoke a sense of awareness of humanity’s impact on the environment. Global warming, pollution, water resource limitations; these are but a few examples of issues each of us are impacted by and influence as well.

A lot of time, effort, and money have gone toward research in fields of study related to the environmental sciences. Earth Day is a great time to brush up on your eco-knowledge. Fortunately, UAH has you covered! Check out OneSearch here and do a basic search for earth day. You’ll get a great Research Starter at the top of your list to get an overview of the holiday itself, as well as suggested readings and tips on some major environmental issues. Also, UAH subscribes to a great database literally devoted to the environmental sciences: Greenfile. This offers a collection of scholarly and popular literature, as well as some government data, on topics such as pollution, sustainable agriculture, green construction, and renewable energy. You’ll find this resource listed alphabetically in our primary database guide here, as well as in a few of the Science subject guides here.

Salmon Library has many more databases, books, and articles that can help you beef up your Earth Day knowledge. Visit one of your reference librarians or contact us via chat, phone, LibAnswers to learn more!

UAH Library Catalog down for maintenance this evening, March 7th 2016

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The UAH Library catalog will be down for maintenance this evening, beginning at 4:30 pm. While there is not an exact timetable for the work to be completed, we hope to have access restored in a few short hours. As a partial work-around to this issue, you can also search for books and other materials via the OneSearch tool on the library homepage at uah.edu/library. OneSearch actually allows you to retrieve books in addition to periodical materials, so if you find yourself needing to locate a book (in print or electronic form), OneSearch has you covered. Thank you for your patience!

Possible eBook download issues today, February 4th 2016

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If you attempt to view or download/checkout any eBooks today from the EBSCO platform, you may get an error and will be unable to do so. This is due to some maintenance taking place for some of their products. The issues should not persist beyond today, however.

As always, contact Michael Manasco, your Electronic Resource Librarian with any concerns: (256) 824-6965 or email at michael.manasco@uah.edu.

 

A note on Wiley title availability

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Our chief goal at the Salmon Library is to provide the best possible set of resources to serve our research and education mission on The University of Alabama in Huntsville campus. To this end, the selection of resources to which we offer access is regularly changing as we make decisions to improve the overall quality of our collection and to respond directly to the needs of the faculty and students on the campus while balancing needs of budget and usefulness. It is easy to brag about the new purchases and the expanded collections. It is not so easy to bring up the collections to which we have to reduce access, especially when the collection in question is a “de facto” collection, such as Wiley.

As of January 1, 2016, we have migrated our Wiley collection from a package deal – with which we got hundreds of journal titles for one lump sum – and over to an à la carte system, where we purchase key and well used journals on a title by title basis. The reasons for this are numerous, but can basically be summarized into these two criteria:

  1. The number of uses for the majority of the titles (and we mean the vast majority, over 95%) was very low, ranging from zero to one click all year.
  2. There were other key resources that faculty and students requested more often and would be a much greater value to us.

For example, we have recently been able to expand to complete, unlimited access to ASTM Compass. As anyone who has ever needed to use standards in their projects and research knows, timely access to a library of standards can be vital for grant writing and for research proposals.

In the case of Wiley, we are still monitoring patron feedback about titles that were more vital than statistics can necessarily inform. We understand that there are some titles you only use ten times a semester, but those ten times are a bigger deal than average. If you have any title you would like to see returned, please contact our Electronic Resources Librarian, Michael Manasco, at either michael.manasco@uah.edu or by phone at (256)824-6965.

Thank you.

Lunch & Learn with ProQuest at Salmon Library on September 23rd!

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Salmon Library will be hosting a Lunch & Learn with ProQuest event on Wednesday, September 23rd, from 11a-1p in Room 205. All are welcome to attend. ProQuest’s representatives will be on hand to discuss the ins-and-outs of the resources we provide, such as the SciTech Collection, a premier resource when conducting research on a variety of scientific topics. Also of note, EEBO (Early English Books Online) provides a wealth of primary source documents, and ABI-INFORM serves as a multidisciplinary tool for each of our colleges and disciplines. Drop in between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Wednesday for free food and a chance to learn more about our ProQuest resources!

Mango Languages available during August 2015!

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Salmon Library is excited to offer trial access throughout the month of August for Mango Languages, a leading language and culture learning resource. Mango Languages enriches lives with language and culture through self-guided courses that go beyond grammar and vocabulary, introducing language learners to a whole new world.

With apps available for Apple, Android, Kindle and Nook devices, Mango Languages has more than 70 foreign language and English as a second language courses, including unique culturally thematic specialty courses, like Medical Spanish, Soccer Celebration (Brazilian Portuguese), Endangered Languages, Pirate, Spanish for Librarians, etc. Mango also features Mango Premiere, the first of its kind program to teach language through full-length international films.

Contact Michael Manasco at Salmon Library for login details. You can email him at mdm0027@uah.edu, or give him a call at (256) 824-6965.

Scheduled outage for Mendeley, ScienceDirect, and Scopus / evening of Aug. 01

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ATTENTION: If you use any of the following Elsevier products (including ScienceDirect, Scopus, Mendeley and more), please be aware of the following scheduled maintenance outage on Saturday evening, August 1st, starting at 5 PM CDT.

UPDATE: Three of the Elsevier support blog posts discussing this outage can be found here:

Scheduled Service interruption for Elsevier Research Platforms,
Research Intelligence and R&D Solutions on August 1.

Dear Customer,

We would like to give you advance notice of an interruption of service for Elsevier platforms and solutions due to scheduled maintenance.

On Saturday, August 1, access to Elsevier platforms will be unavailable due to a scheduled maintenance for approximately 4.5 hours starting at 06:00 PM EDT. Please check the World Clock Time Zone Converter to convert the time in your local time.

The platforms and solutions involved are:

  • Elsevier Research Platforms: ScienceDirect, Scopus (including Author Feedback Wizard), Engineering Village, Mendeley
  • Research Intelligence: SciVal Funding
  • R&D Solutions: Reaxys, Embase, Geofacets

Each platform will be displaying a warning to users of this scheduled downtime, and during downtime, there will be a message informing users of the temporary unavailability of service.

To stay up to date with any developments follow the individual Twitter accounts for the products.

Thank you for your patience as we strive to update our products.

Elsevier Customer Service Team

Don’t Miss Your Chance To Access the CCDC!

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The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) is a leading provider of structural databases and software for pharmaceutical discovery, materials development, research and education.

The CCDC compiles and distributes the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD), the world’s repository of experimentally determined organic and metal-organic crystal structures, and related applications software including GOLD and Relibase+.

     

(Exported images from Mercury showing some of the latest visualization enhancements  The images show the structure DL-alanine (DLALNI01) with glide planes shown in pink and the [200] crystal slice shown in the RHS picture.)

 Why is this important to the students at UAH? Because, now for a limited time (until the 2015 calendar runs out) YOU can gain full access to the CCDC!

Through the CCDC, UAH students can Deposit Structures – Upload your data to the CCDC for inclusion in the Cambridge Structural Database, Get Structures – view and retrieve structures in the Cambridge Structural Database, Browse Structures – view a subset of structures from the Cambridge Structural Database, assembled for use in teaching, and Search Structures – search for structures in the Cambridge Structural Database using our advanced search functionality.

   

If you are interested in learning more about the CCDC or installing it for full access you can contact Michael Manasco at mdm0027@uah.edu or (256) 560-1564. Don’t miss your chance to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity today!

New OVID Database trials from now until April 1st!

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From now until April 1st, we have access to a free trial period of two of Ovid’s premier visual learning databases: Visible Body’s Anatomy & Physiology, and Visible Body’s Human Anatomy Atlas! Per Ovid’s website:

“Visible Body is a suite of online programs that cover anatomy, physiology, muscles, the skeleton and the circulatory system through interactive 3D models, animations, quizzes and more.”

These two resources are also optimized for use on iPads and Android devices; in fact, using a touch screen for certain features (navigating through layers of the body, etc.) provides a truly interactive experience.

View 3D visualizations with learning tools to explore the systems of the human body. Over 4,000 medically-accurate anatomical structures—developed by medically trained medical illustrators and vetted by leading anatomists—cover both systemic and regional anatomy. If you’re interested in detailed visualization of human anatomy, check out these tools for the month of March, and let us know what you think!

Click the links below to authenticate, or contact Michael Manasco, our Electronic Resources Librarian, at (256) 824-6965 or at mdm0027@uah.edu for help with login access off campus.

Visible Body’s Anatomy & Physiology

Visible Body’s Human Anatomy Atlas

 

Interlibrary Loan Announces Holiday Deadlines

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Faculty, staff and students wishing to use Interlibrary Loan services between the dates of December 12, 2014 and January 4, 2015 should take note of the following deadlines and plan research materials accordingly.

  • Book requests submitted after December 12, 2014 may not be processed until January 5, 2015.
  • Article requests submitted after December 16, 2014 may not be processed until January 5, 2015.
  • The Interlibrary Loan Department will be closed December 22. 2014 through January 4, 2015.
  • The Interlibrary Loan Department will resume normal operations January 5, 2015.