Database News: August 2005

With the assistance of the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, the University Libraries are pleased to provide the Knovel Library of scientific and technical information to the campus.

Knovel is just that a novel way to search for, browse, and use the technical data locked in hundreds of science reference sources. Through Knovel, users can locate data on particular materials or chemicals, including physical constants, strength, permeability, electrical characteristics, thermodynamics, and more. A unique set of "productivity tools" allow users to perform calculations using retrieved data, and to export the data in Excel or other formats.

Of the 650+ titles in the Knovel database, the University Libraries have subscribed to 400, covering chiefly the areas of:

• Chemical Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering
• Safety
• Biochemistry, Biology & Biotechnology

Handbooks in the collection include titles such as:

• Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook (7th Edition)
• Food Chemical Risk Analysis
• Hazardous Chemicals Handbook
• Patty's Industrial Hygiene (5th Edition) Volumes 1-4
• Harris' Shock and Vibration Handbook (5th Edition)

A complete list of titles in our collection is available online; records will be added to InfoLinks in the near future. If you would like to learn more about Knovel, including integrating this resource into your class assignments or research programs, contact Patricia Kirkwood, librarian for Engineering and Mathematics.

GeoScienceWorld is a new portal to journals and information in geology, geography, and earth sciences. It offers:

• 30 leading geoscience journals from 22 scholarly societies such as the Geological Society of America, the Geological Society of London, and the Mineralogical Society of America
• the GeoRef index to geology literature; with updates scheduled weekly
• hyperlinks to and from journals from HighWire Press journals, GeoRef, ISI’s Web of Science, CrossRef, and Medline
• searching across all GSW journals and all of GeoRef simultaneously
• map coordinates for geography-based searching in GeoRef
• map and image links to the Alexandria Digital Library
• bibliographic references can be downloaded to various citation managers, including file formats for EndNote, Reference Manager, ProCite, and BibTex
• email alerts for new journal issues, tables of contents, new content matching your search criteria, and notice that a paper has been cited by another author
• the “Topic Map” data-visualization tool

Users may search the GeoRef index of geology literature either on the GeoScienceWorld platform or on our new CSA Illumina interface. Illumina offers quick links to the Libraries' online catalog, to the ILLiad interlibrary loan request form, and to full text at hundreds of online journals.

With funding from the Philosophy Department, the campus now has access to the Patrologiae Graecae (PG) online. Sister to the Patrologia Latina, this series of 160 volumes remains the most comprehensive record of Greek patristic material in existence. This project has digitized the PG as page images, supplemented by new "elenchi" (tables of content) for each author or volume. The project plans to encode the full text in future to allow searching for specific words or phrases.

The University of Arkansas Little Rock has joined University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the University Libraries here in Fayetteville to share a subscription to ScienceDirect online journals published by Elsevier. Researchers at all three campuses now have access to more than 500 scholarly journals in fields such as biology, computing, economics, medicine, psychology, sociology, mathematics, engineering, chemistry, and physics.

UALR titles that Fayetteville students and faculty now have access to include: Applied Ergonomics, Aquatic Botany, Computer Communications, Computers And Education, Computers In Human Behavior, Contemporary Educational Psychology, Environmental Research, and more. A complete list of subscribed Science Direct titles can be found in InfoLinks. In most cases, coverage extends back to 1999 / 2000.

The WebSPIRS interface to popular databases such as AGRICOLA, AGRIS, CAB Abstracts, FSTA, Zoological Record, and more was has several new features, including:

• direct export to RefWorks, EndNote, and other bibliographic citation managers
• "find similar" a new search that finds articles with related subject and identifier terms
• "find citation" a quick lookup for known citations
• quick year limit to items published since 1997

Learn more about WebSPIRS databases from our Searching Guide.

On Wednesday August 17th, the InfoLinks server will be upgraded. During that time, remote users will not be able to access databases and electronic journals. Most electronic resources will still be available on campus during that time.

Because InfoLinks, the library catalog, will not be available on the 17th, users may wish to check:

• WorldCat for books and other materials help by the Libraries
  • limit to library AFU
• Our e-journals list for links to electronic journals