LANL Research Library Newsletter

October 1995

DID YOU KNOW that you can submit requests for information, searches, articles, books or reports from the Research Library's Home Page? Click on Library Forms and then select the appropriate form.
See end of Newsletter for publication and access information.

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SCISEARCH http://scisearch.lanl.gov/lanl/sciquery.html
SciSearch via the web is the Library Without Wall's first project to go from pilot to production. Today is the official roll out of this exciting web product. The Research Library (CIC-14) and Advanced Database and Information Technology (CIC-15) collaborated to deliver this scientific tool to the researcher's desktop. This is just the beginning of many exciting products to roll out from the Library Without Walls efforts.

SciSearch is an electronic database based upon Science Citation Index, an international, multidisciplinary index to the journalliterature of science and technology produced by the Institute for Scientific Information. Updated weekly, SciSearch covers 3,300 worldwide journals from 100 scientific disciplines and includes all significant items such as articles, letters, editorials, etc. Also included in SciSearch are an additional 700 journals from the Current Contents series of publications.

In addition to searching by traditional methods such as author, title, and abstract words, cited reference searching is alsoavailable. A known paper is searched to identify more recent papers which cite the earlier work. In this manner other papers can be identified which might be of interest.

This database includes over 7 1/2 million citations, 100 million cited reference entries, and over 41 million hyperlinks within the database. The database covers 1985 to the present.

Training classes have been scheduled during the month of October. Please call 667-5809 or e-mail library@lanl.gov to register for a class.

Please try this new resource. One can access it through the Research Library's Home Page and then choosing Electronic Databases / SciSearch. The direct address is http://lib-www.lanl.gov:4001/.

RICK LUCE

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SCIFINDER
The Research Library is sponsoring a trial of the new end user tool, SciFinder, from Chemical Abstracts Services. Twenty scientists have agreed to test this product and determine if we should offer this tool for laboratory scientists. We believe that SciFinder is a bargain for those individuals who find the present STN and DIALOG command line systems arcane and difficult and for those who perform a lot of searches per year. It includes all of the important journals for biochemistry, chemistry, chemical physics, environmental science, materials science, and much of physics. SciFinder will also automatically perform update searches at an interval you specify, e.g. daily, weekly, monthly. It will also do structure searches similar to STN Express.

Technically, SciFinder is a front end tool that runs on an IBM-PC (or clone) or Macintosh. It is a very simple point and click interface with English language searching capabilities. Searches are phrased by completing the sentence "I want to know..." with something like "about the relationship between metal dihydrogen compounds and illiteracy in scientists". All of the Boolean logic, etc. is taken care of by the system's intelligence. SciFinder accesses the CAPLUS and Registry databases at STN (part of the American Chemical Society) in Columbus, Ohio. CAPLUS contains all of the journals in Chemical Abstracts plus a number of other important scientific journals, a total of 1300 journals. You get to SciFinder either through a network connection or modem.

Structurally, SciFinder is a subscription service that costs $3000 per user per year, no matter how much time you spend on line or how many searches you perform. Some journals(mostly recent ACS journals) have full page downloads at $15 per article. This is primarily due to copyright costs and may come down in the future.

In order to continue this service at Los Alamos a minimum of 20 subscribers are needed. If you are interested in learning more about this new tool, please contact Frances Knudson, (7-5809 or e-mail fknudson@lanl.gov to schedule a demonstration.

Frances Knudson

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DOD REPORTS IN THE REPORT COLLECTION
The Research Library's Report Collection holds a large number of unclassified, limited access, and classified Department of Defense (DoD) reports. Most of the limited accessand classified DoD reports deal with nuclear weapons in some respect (i.e., testing and test results, nuclear weapons effects, delivery systems, and detection). The bulk of the DoD reports come from the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA). The Collection also holds a large set of AFTAC, Phillips Laboratory, Naval Warfare Research Center and smaller sets of other DoD laboratory reports.

The Department of Defense DROLS database is the primary method for identifying DoD reports. Library Research personnel (7-5809) or Report Collection staff (7-4446) can provide assistance in creating subject bibliographies or identifying a particular DoD report.

Jack Carter

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LIBRARY DESKS CONSOLIDATED
As of October 2, 1995, the Research and Circulation Desks have been consolidated into one Library Service Desk. Although this was done as a cost saving measure due to budget constraints, we hope to provide the same high level of service that we have provided in the past. We also anticipate some possible benefits to laboratory staff by the consolidation. There will no longer be any confusion as to which desk to go for the type of services desired. All services will be provided from the front desk. There will be one location for you to come to pick up materials that have been left for you, whether they are books, photocopies, or literature search results. We will eventually go to one information telephone number to make calling us easier and one e-mail address library@lanl.gov. For the present, however, the telephone numbers have not changed. As this is new for us as well as you, we would appreciate any comments from you as to how we could make this work better. Please address any comments to library@lanl.gov or call 7-5809 or 7-4175.

MONA L. MOSIER

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Newsletter Editor: Kenneth Alan Collins

To find the Newsletter from the Research Library's Home Page, click on Library Information, scroll to the bottom -- the link is under Library Publications.

To receive an electronic subscription to the Research Library Newsletter, sent the first of each month to your e-mail address, do the following:

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The name and e-mail address of the Library member who contributed an article appears at the end of the article. If you have comments or further questions, please contact that person. If you have general questions or comments about the Newsletter itself, please contact the Newsletter editor, Ken Collins.

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