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Newsletter March 2001 
Newsletter index 
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Table of Contents
The Research Library/Library Without Walls Project is planning the next generation of electronic information products and services. SciSearch® at LANL is great but we are interested in developing that and other tools further. The first step is to gather "voice of the customer" data from Laboratory employees who are consistent and sophisticated information users. We hope you will be willing to participate in an interview session to provide new ideas and vision for the Library. We would like to discuss your individual research information needs and how these needs are being met - or not being met. This feedback session is an opportunity for you to help us create a Research Library that will be a more valuable information tool for your research. The interview should take 30-45 minutes. Location can be your office or the Research Library. Once these meetings have been conducted, the data will be analyzed identifying customer needs and ideas for new services and products. A significant development that resulted from the last voice of the customer effort is FlashPoint, a multi-database search tool. We will, of course, provide you with a summary of the results of the survey and will share with you our plans for implementing your suggestions. If you are interested in being interviewed, please send email to Lou Pray (lpray@lanl.gov). We look forward to listening to your thoughts and ideas about the future of the Research Library.
Research Library staff and management have been reviewing library circulation policies. In most cases, the Research Library owns only one copy of a book, and the library's collections are intended to be a shared resource. To improve the availability of materials, we have instituted a limit on the number of items borrowed. The total number of items that can be borrowed by one person is now 100. Library staff will notify users who currently exceed this limit and provide any assistance needed to bring the total down to 100 or fewer. The return of materials will allow for pending holds to be satisfied, as well as make the collection more readily available for others.
Online access to Nature and the Nature monthly titles through the LANL Research Library has ended as of February 28, 2001. The terms of the institutional site license include a 12-issue delay for select portions of Nature including the news, scientific correspondence and review articles and a 3-issue delay for select portions of the Nature monthly titles, an extremely high online cost relative to peer publications, and a lack of perpetual access to licensed content. For LANL-wide access, Nature Online is priced at $12,300.00, and the Nature monthly titles are priced at an additional $5,655.00. In contrast, Science Online at $2,450.00 is about one fifth the price of Nature with full and timely content. The LANL Research Library finds the above licensing terms for Nature Online to disenfranchise institutional users as personal subscribers have immediate access to full content at the time of publication. With the value of Nature Online greatly diminished in this manner, we find it very difficult to agree to these terms. We know that our customers value online access to Nature, however we
do not feel that their needs will be served by subscribing to an inferior
version of the product. We encourage our customers to express their opinions
on the Nature institutional site license policy. The contact at Nature
is below. Please include Carol Hoover (hoover@lanl.gov) as a courtesy
copy of your email message. Titles affected by this policy: Please feel free to contact Carol Hoover
at the LANL Research Library if you have questions or comments.
IEEE and IEE conferences are now available full-text at your desktop. The Research Library has provided full-text access to all IEEE sponsored and co-sponsored meetings, and IEE meetings, held throughout the world from 1988 to the present. The following features are available: all abstract and full-text is searchable, full-page PDF images, backfile to 1988 and multiple search options. The IEEE/IEE conferences are part of Science Server® at LANL and are also searchable through FlashPoint, the Research Library's multi-database search tool. Send comments or questions to: eteam@lanl.gov
All Kluwer Academic Publishers journals are now available full-text at your desktop. There are 400 titles available from 1997 to the present in such as fields as physics, mathematics, biology, medicine, chemistry, environment, geology, history, ethics, law and economics. There are links to the PDF images through the Research Library databases. The Kluwer ejournals are part of Science Server® at LANL and are also searchable through FlashPoint, the Research Library's multi-database search tool. Send comments or questions to: eteam@lanl.gov
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is now available electronically for LANL researchers at http://dictionary.oed.com/. For more than a century, the Oxford English Dictionary has been the undisputed authority of the history and development of the English language. With more than 2.5 million quotations illustrating how words are used, the OED is a unique source of information on the evolution of words and meanings, from the earliest times to the present day. The searchable version of the OED allows you to search a word not only by its entry term (similar to the alphabetical arrangement of the 20 volume printed set), but also by any part of the full text entry: the definition, etymology, usage date or the quotation author, document title or text term. For an overview of the online dictionary's capabilities, enter the site
(lower left of entry screen), then use the search function (again, the
lower left of the screen) and type in the word 'alamos' for its various
entries.
The Report Library has received the following: Backworth's Encyclopedia (CD-ROM) - The Biological and Chemical Warfare Online Repository and Technical Holdings (BACKWORTH) contains detailed information on 66 CB agents. Entries include both at-a-glance summaries and detailed descriptions. There are also 9 overview functional chapters addressing critical CB defense topics in a non-agent specific format. The Encyclopedia cites more than 1,400 references. Critical Review on Anti-Crop Biological Agents and Associated Technologies (Limited Access) (Hard Copy) - Topics addressed include fungal agents, bacterial diseases, viral diseases, new emerging diseases, genetically modified anti-crop pathogens, agent production and dissemination, prevention, detection, treatment, and consequence management. Weapons Of Mass Destruction-Force Protection: Joint Service Training (CD-ROM) - PDD 39 directs that U.S. forces give the highest priority to developing effective capabilities to detect, prevent, defeat, and manage consequences of nuclear, biological, or chemical (NBC) materials or weapons used by terrorists. The current Force Protection training for DoD personnel consists of four levels. Level 1 training must be conducted for military, DoD civilians, and family members prior to deployment. Level II training is a resident course to prepare officers and NCO's to serve as advisors to unit commanders for Force protection (FP) matters. Level III is part of the 05/06 level pre-command course, while Level IV is the senior commander/executive level seminar. This CD ROM contains slide shows to assist instructors in giving Level I and Level II courses, along with additional information that will assist officers assigned as advisors for Force Protection matters.
Did you know that 89% of journal articles published by Los Alamos authors
have links to the full-text of the article within SciSearch® at LANL?
This means that the LANL Research Library is providing electronic full-text
access at your desktop to 89% of the journal articles in SciSearch in
which Los Alamos authors publish.
Recently, many of the LNCS volumes have been made available electronically to LANL researchers at their desktops: to date, more than 200 volumes, some as far back as 1983. In the library catalog electronic volumes can be searched by title, author or subject, and are identified by the location 'WWW,' followed by a URL. Individual papers also are indexed in INSPEC® at LANL and MathSciNet. To view the entire collection of LNCS electronic titles, see: http://link.springer-ny.com/link/service/series/0558/tocs.htm
The following new electronic journals have been added to the library
collection and are available from your desktop: Environment General Mathematics Physics
Almost monthly I manage to sing the praises of Google, a favorite search engine. Just this week (March 1) Google was praised in a Wall Street Journal column as the "best sleuth on the Web." A young Seattle-based tech company, i5 Digital, is setting their sights on Google, which they view as the most successful search engine. Project Pandango will use the peer-to-peer model of Napster, instead of Google-like technology which ranks pages based on how many other pages link to them. Pandango will determine relevance by examining a network of "referrers.” To use Pandango you download the software and join the network. Your keyword search would examine the bookmarks and Web histories of a starting network of 100 referrers. Then the network of each of those 100 referrers would be searched. The system is designed to refine itself; so eventually you have a group of like-minded referrers. The idea comes from collaborative filtering -- that people who have similar interests will be the best guides. Building this kind of community of practice should result in a strong supportive network. So, as much as we find Google to be speedy, smart and relevant, keep your eyes peeled for an interesting new approach. Want a reminder? Newsletter Editorial Team: Donna Berg, Helen Boorman, Jack Carter, Lou Pray, and Kathy Varjabedian. 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, Kathy Varjabedian. |
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