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December 22, 2005
BioMed Central Journals & Impact Factors
Have you been thinking of publishing in one of the BioMed Central open access journals, but were concerned because they might not be construed as a quality journal? One measure of the quality of a journal is it's Impact Factor, a value calculated by ISI from journals that they track (index) in their citation indexes such as Science Citation Index (which is available to UIUC on the web as Web of Science.) The impact factors are reported in Journal Citation Reports. ISI does not track all journals, but rather relies on a board of scientists to select which journals to index. Thus, to be chosen as a journal that ISI will index is something of a coup.
BioMed Central, one of the largest publishers of open access journals, has created a site where they list the BMC titles that are being indexed by ISI. As reported elsewhere, one of the BMC journals, BMC Bioinformatics, recently received nearly the same impact factor as the most well established journal is this field, Bioinformatics. This suggests that open access journals are being widely read and cited by others...which, after all, is a goal of most researchers.
Also posted to the Scholarly Communication newsletter.
Posted by Katie Newman at 1:49 PM
December 19, 2005
InVitrogen Providing Free Access to Selected Current Protocols
You may have seen the recent press release that Invitrogen is providing free access to selected titles from Wiley’s Current Protocols lab manuals via its newly launched iProtocol web site.
While this is really cool news, I want to remind you that UIUC researchers have access to ALL the Current Protocols series!!!
So, please spread the word to all your colleagues who do not have full access to Current Currents about the Invitrogen deal.
But for your own research purposes, please use the UIUC subscription!
Speaking of which, these will be up for renewal soon, and while some of the titles are getting a lot of use (Molecular biology, Immunology, Bioinformatics) others are not. Please see the April 28th BIC news item for New Bio-Medical Resources for a hot-linked listing of all the Current Protocols.
Posted by Katie Newman at 10:51 AM
December 2, 2005
James Watson's Dissertation Available Online
From a colleague at Indiana University:
This note might be of use to those with an interest in the history of science. Dr. Watson did his Ph.D. work at Indiana University. The two copies of his dissertation that I know of are located in a "locked case" in the Life Sciences Library and in our rare book library. Our Digital Library Program just completed the digitization work. So, with Dr. Watson's permission, here is the digital version
http://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/general/pageturner/VAA2040
Roger Beckman
Head, Life Sciences Library and
Chemistry Library
Indiana University
Jordan Hall A304
1001 E. Third
Bloomington, IN 47405-3700
Posted by Katie Newman at 3:34 PM
"Discover" Full Text for Research Articles!
Starting this week, you will begin to see a new button, the Discover Button, next to all the citations in many of our electronic resources, including index and abstract databases.
WHAT IS THE PRIMARY FUNCTION OF THE DISCOVER BUTTON?
The primary function of the button is to give you a link to the full-text version of the article, if UIUC has rights to it.
While many of the databases already have links to the full text in them (e.g., PubMed, Web of Science), through the Discover button, you should uncover e-access for even more publications! If we don't have e-access to the article, the Discover window will provide you with other tools for obtaining the article.
WHAT DOES THE DISCOVER BUTTON DO?
When you click on the Discover button, a new window will pop up that will contain links to various types of resources:
1] Links to the full text of the article (if UIUC has e-access).
2] A link to the UIUC Online Catalog record for the journal (so you can see if we have print / e-access to the journal)
3] A link to Interlibrary Loan, with the citation information already filled in.
4] A link to RefWorks, which will automatically add the citation to RefWorks ***
5] A link to Google Scholar, so you may search for other articles by this author, or other articles on the topic in the Google Scholar database.
WHERE CAN I FIND THE DISCOVER BUTTON?
We're starting by putting the Discover button in all the citations in the Engineering Village databases (Compendex and Inspec), and the databases and journals that we get access to via the ScienceDirect interface. It's also already available in RefWorks*** and in Google Scholar.
The Discover button will appear in most other indexes and abstracts (e.g., PubMed and Web of Science) before the start of the Spring term, 2006. Stay tuned for announcements!
Learn more about the new Discover service, go to:
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/biotech/discover.htm
***RefWorks:
If you don't know about RefWorks, please go to: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/refworks.
Training is available in December, see:
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/blog/bicnews/archives/2005/12/refworks_traini.html
RefWorks is like a web-based "EndNote"! That is, it's a place where you can build your own database of citations, and then pull these citations out of the database to use in your papers -- automatically formatting the citations in the proper format for whichever journal you're submitting your paper to! And, pertinent to this e-mail, ALL of your citations in RefWorks will have a Discover button, providing you with easy access to the full-text of the article!
Faculty: Get your students, grad and undergrads, using RefWorks! It's available for free (courte$y of the Library and CITES) for everyone on campus to use.
Katie
Posted by Katie Newman at 3:21 PM
RefWorks Training Sessions
[Sorry! all these sessions are full... but there will be more held in January / February. Stay tuned!]
Passing along an announcement from the Library's Coordinator for Information Literacy Services and Instruction, Lisa Hinchliffe about some RefWorks training that's available. See below.
But first, a couple of words about RefWorks!
Many of you are familiar with EndNote, but I'd like to urge you to consider telling your students about RefWorks. (Some faculty have already made the switch, too!) Some of it's features:
- It is free to all at UIUC ($upported by Library and CITES)
- It is web based, so you don't need to update the program, and aren't tied to one computer for your references
- Multiple users can share an account -- so everyone in a lab could contribute to and use a common database of references. Of course, you can have multiple accounts too -- so one to share, and others that you alone use.
- Like EndNote, RefWorks has a "Write and Cite" feature, that lets you painlessly select references from your RefWorks account for inclusion in papers that you are using Word to write.
- Also like EndNote, RefWorks will format your Word document citations and references according to a multitude of different publication styles.
- EndNote libraries can be imported into RefWorks, and vice versa.
**** Training Announcement ****
Fulfill Your New Year's Resolution Early!
Put Your Research in Order with RefWorks Citation Software
RefWorks, a Web-based service, allows faculty members and students to create customized databases using online resources and automatically format the content and bibliographies of their papers. (http://www.library.uiuc.edu/refworks/) It also provides quick search and advanced search functions. Keep track of your research citations, notes, etc.
Workshops will be held in Undergraduate Library Room 291 multiple times in December! Register at: http://130.126.32.16/evanced/lib0/eventcalendar.asp
Questions? Email Lisa Hinchliffe, ljanicke@uiuc.edu
Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe
Coordinator for Information Literacy Services and Instruction
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
434 Main Library
1408 West Gregory Drive
Urbana, Illinois 61801
217-333-1323 (v)
217-244-4358 (f)
ljanicke@uiuc.edu
Posted by Katie Newman at 3:09 PM
Reaping the Benefits of Genomic and Proteomic Research: Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation, and Public Health
Some of you may be interested in this new report published by the National Academy of Sciences, from the Committee on Intellectual Property Rights in Genomic and Protein Research and Innovation, National Research Council:
"Reaping the Benefits of Genomic and Proteomic Research: Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation, and Public Health" (2006)
http://www.nap.edu/books/0309100674/html/
Posted by Katie Newman at 3:07 PM