USF in Lakeland Library

April 13 to the 19 is National Library Week. Actress and author Julie Andrews is the Honorary Chair this year.

Tuesday the 15th is National Library Workers Day, a day for library staff, users, administrators and Friends groups to recognize the valuable contributions made by all library workers.

The USF Lakeland Library and its staff are wishing you a great week. Do drop by and say Hi!

The Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA) databases are being very slow these past few days. The slowdown is due “enhancements” that they rolled out on Monday (4/7) that are having a negative impact on their servers. This is affecting all U.S. customers. The problem is being worked on.

Some databases affected include Sociological Abstracts, Health and Safety Science Abstracts, Social Services Abstracts and versions of ERIC and MEDLINE.

The Wiley InterScience database is down since this morning. Efforts are being made to reinstate the database.

For fun and a good cause:
First Book is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books. They partenered with cereal-brand Cheerios and actor/author John Lithgow in a book donation challenge. Cheerios will be distributing 100,000 children’s books by John Lithgow to programs serving children in need across the country.

Visitors can “help decide where the books will be donated by answering trivia questions [...] from now through Sunday, June 15, 2008. Every correct answer counts as one vote [...] Cheerios will donate 20,000 children’s books to programs in each of the 5 states that receive the most votes. Cheerios’ nonprofit partner First Book will be identifying programs that will receive the books in each state where the books will be donated.”

As of today, Florida is in the 13th position.

John Lithgow has written 7 children’s books, including Marsupial Sue, Micawber, I’m a Manatee and The Remarkable Farkle McBride.

The USF Libraries have acquired the following three online reference works from the publisher, John Wiley & Sons.

• The Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science
  

  The Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science captures contemporary thinking about the workings of the mind and brain with approaches and techniques that have emerged since the 1980′s. This reference work covers the cognitive sciences in the broadest sense. It reviews the common themes of information and information processing, representation, and computation, with in depth coverage of the core areas of psychology, philosophy, linguistics and neuroscience. Includes over 16,500 references and 1,500 illustrations.

• Encyclopedia of RF and Microwave Engineering
  

  Based on the six-volume Encyclopedia of RF and Microwave Engineering, the online version of this resource represents the most comprehensive single source of information on RF and Microwaves. It serves as a compendium of theory, design methods, and applications as well as an examination of technologies and future trends. Each article includes an overview of each subject, followed by in-depth descriptions of important theory, technology developments, and applications. Features such key topics as Electromagnetics, Wave Propagation, RF Circuits, RF Receivers, Microwave Antennas, RF and Microwave Photonics, CAD Techniques and Modeling, Noise, Communications Systems, Radio Technologies, and Remote Sensing. It is well illustrated with over 5000 figures and photos.

• Encyclopedia of Environmetrics
  

  The Encyclopedia of Environmetrics covers the development and application of quantitative methods in the environmental sciences. It provides essential tools for understanding, predicting, and controlling the impacts of agents, both man-made and natural, which affect the environment. Basic and applied research in this area covers a broad range of topics. Primary among these are the quantitative sciences, such as statistics, probability and applied mathematics, chemometrics, and econometrics. Other applications included are important in ecology and environmental biology, public health, atmospheric science, geology, engineering, risk management, and regulatory/governmental policy.

For these reference works and other library resources visit http://www.lakeland.usf.edu/library.

The Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database (CLCD) provides more than 315,000 reviews of children’s books. All are full text searchable from 37 review sources.

CLCD is an independent review source with reviewers that include book authors, librarians, writers and editors, teachers, and children’s literature specialists. Children’s Literature reviewers read and critically review more than 4,000 books annually. Each month Children’s Literature features interviews with children’s book authors and illustrators, and several sets of themed reviews which are archived for continued reference. There are links to author illustrator sites, publishers, kids, parent and teacher resources, children’s literature collections, and upcoming events relating to children’s literature.

This trial ends 4/30/08.

For this database and other library resources visit http://www.lakeland.usf.edu/library/. Click on “Search the databases” to search by name. You may also find this database listed under “By Subject” under Trial Databases.

At approximatively 11:30 AM, power was restored to LTB. The Library is now open, as well as the Open Use Lab.

Again, our apologies for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

This morning, due to the power outage, the Library (and the Open Use Lab) are closed until further notice.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Some enhancements to the still new OvidSP interface have been announced:

• French, Spanish, and German speakers now have the option to view OvidSP in their native language.
• Users can now export search results annotations to EndNote®, Refworks®, and other standard citation managers.
• After performing a search, the OvidSP screen remains at the search field rather than “jumping” down to the results.
• Users can now choose to subscribe to an AutoAlert RSS feed using Google, My Yahoo!, or Bloglines.
• The “Actions” portion of the Results Manager now appears at the bottom as well as at the top of the page; users no longer have to scroll up to the actions box to select preferences.

MEDLINE and PsychINFO are two of the databases offered by the USF Libraries through OvidSP.

Some problems have been reported about connecting to LexisNexis Academic. IP recognition is at fault here. It is being worked on by the database vendor as we speak.