This summer, we are reducing S&E’s on-campus book and journal collection by moving selected materials offsite if they are: lesser-used, available online, or if enough copies are already held in the UC system. This project will also free up needed space as the Libraries reorganize and consolidate the collections in the Geisel building, including the ones being relocated here because of branch closures. 

As these items are moved, it will take a while for the information in the library catalogs (Roger and Melvyl) to be updated.

If you need S&E Annex books with a Roger or Melvyl status of unavailable, or S&E books with a Roger or Melvyl status of withdrawn:

• Request a copy from another library, using either Circuit (from another San Diego universities) or Melvyl (from another UC library). You’ll see links for both to the right on the page for that book’s catalog record.

If you need an article from a journal that should be on the shelf, but most or all of the volumes are gone:

• Use our interlibrary loan form to request the article(s) you need.

And if you have trouble finding the books or journals you need, please come to the S&E Service Desk or call [858] 534-3258 for assistance.

Comments and suggestions? Contact Mary Linn Bergstrom, Head, Science & Engineering Library: [858] 534-1214 or mlbergstrom@ucsd.edu.

This new video series from ACS Publications is intended to assist authors and reviewers in understanding and improving their experience with the processes of writing, submitting, editing, and reviewing manuscripts with topics like:

• The essential elements of a scientific journal article
• Ethical guidelines for authors and reviewers
• Criteria to consider when selecting a suitable journal for submission
• Writing a good cover letter
• Suggesting peer reviewers
• Responding to reviewer comments and editorial decisions
• Guidance for authors who may need assistance with English language writing skills.

In the first video, How to Write a Paper to Communicate your Research, ACS asks Harvard professor George Whitesides:

• When should you begin to think about writing up your research for publication?
• How do your students handle your approach of writing while you research?
• How do new technologies help scientists communicate their work?
• How many drafts does each paper undergo? Do you have your papers undergo an internal review?
• Do authors need to be thinking of marketing their articles?
• How concerned should I be about the title and abstract of my papers?

For the next two months, the UC Libraries will be testing bX,

an academic library recommender service that points users to relevant scholarly articles on the topics they’re researching via the UC-eLinks window. bX is a service of Ex Libris, UC’s vendor for UC-eLinks (SFX), and is similar to other recommender tools such as Amazon’s “Customers who bought this item also bought…” or Netflix’s preferences feature. bX generates its recommendations based on actual use of link resolver services using anonymized data contributed by academic institutions from all over the world.

This is what is it will look like, but please note that it will not appear every time you access UC-eLinks. Under the “Get Help” section you’ll find a links to give feedback on the bX Beta, and we encourage you to do so.

The UC-Springer Open Access Pilot has ended effective March 1st, 2011. During the two-year pilot negotiated between the California Digital Library (CDL) and Springer, UC-authored articles accepted for publication in 2009 and 2010 in most of the 2,000+ Springer journals were published as open access under Springer’s Open Choice program. Unfortunately, Springer has decided to discontinue this arrangement. Articles published as part of this pilot remain fully accessible through CDL’s eScholarship publishing platform as well as on the Springerlink platform. An assessment of the pilot will be conducted this spring.

UC authors wishing to make their articles freely available to readers will now need to pay to participate in Springer Open Choice or they can submit their work to one of the new open access journals published as part of SpringerOpen. Authors may also wish to consider other open access venues for disseminating their work.

Please feel free to contact Ivy Anderson at the California Digital Library with any questions.

AIP Advances is a fully open access (no subscription required for any reader), online-only community-based journal, covering all areas of applied physical science, including those topics not currently covered by the existing AIP journals. As an open access journal with advanced web 2.0 tools, the global research community will be able to find, share, evaluate, and discuss scientific research in new ways.

AIP Advances is a publication funded via an author-pays model. Authors publishing manuscripts in AIP Advances retain copyright and grant the publisher a license to publish under a Creative Commons agreement. The pre-publication peer review process focuses on whether the manuscript is technically correct and original. Concepts of ‘timeliness’, ‘significance’, or ‘importance’ are evaluated by the community post publication through the implementation of web 2.0 commenting and ranking tools.

Thomson Reuters has released its 2009 Journal Citation Report, [available electronically through the UC San Diego Libraries] cataloging journals’ impact factors, and shuffling in the top few spots has some analysts scratching their heads.
Read more: New impact factors yield surprises – The Scientist – Magazine of the Life Sciences – 21st June 2010 04:00 PM GMT

Current information on communications between UC Faculty and Nature Publishing Group is in the News and Issues section of UC’s Reshaping Scholarly Communication website.

As of June 1, the UC’s no longer have access to the Scientific American Archive online, the 1993 to date backfile that was on EBSCO.  The collection was pulled by Nature Publishing Group, who then moved the archive to nature.com, and the 10 UC campuses have chosen not to renew through NPG.

• Selected articles (text, not PDF) are available from 2005 to date in Academic Search Complete. However, this is not perpetually guaranteed access.  If you had search alerts in SAA, you’ll need to recreate those alerts in Academic Search Complete.
• The S&E Library continues to receive Scientific American in print, and we keep the older volumes onsite.

More information about the SAA discontinuation is available from CDL, and please feel free to contact Deborah Kegel or Teri Vogel if you have any questions.