CDLINFO Newsletter, January 13, 2005, Vol. 8, No. 1
CONTENTS
- CSA Unveils New Interface
- New Resource Available
- INSPEC Backfile
- UC-eLinks: Targets and Titles
- Library Staff News
- Patricia Martin Appointed Bibliographic Services Manager
- Dayna Holz Named Office of Scholarly Communication Analyst
- For More Information
- News and Publications
- Contacts for Questions or Problems
- About CDLINFO
1. CSA Unveils New Interface
Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA) had informed the CDL and the UC campuses that they will be moving to a new interface in January 2005. The new interface incorporates many improved features requested by CSA Resource Liaisons and CDL staff, including a cleaner interface, searchable help, and more visible features such as alerts and combining searches.
CSA has notified us that the move to the new interface must be completed by January 31 at the latest. Although the CDL strongly requested that the overlap period between the old and new interfaces be extended, we were advised that this was not possible because of the systems requirements of the new interface.
On their web site, CSA provides the following tools to ease in the transition to its new interface:
- Tutorials suitable for library staff and end-users on quick, advanced and command searching (http://md2.csa.com/help/tutorials.html).
- An online quick reference card is available at http://md2.csa.com/support/QRC.pdf [PDF] that covers the following areas:
- Getting started
- Quick, advanced and command searching
- Search tools (thesaurus, indexes, combine searches, history, alerts)
- Search results
- Search tips
CDL licenses the following Tier 1 CSA databases:
- Earthquake Engineering Abstracts
- ERIC
- GeoRef
- PAIS International
- PsycARTICLES
- PsycINFO
- Social Services Abstracts
- Sociological Abstracts
- ARTbibliographies Modern
- Worldwide Political Science Abstrac
We regret that it was not possible to have a longer overlap period for the new interface.
2. New Resource Available
NOTE: New resources listed below are not yet in the Directory of CDL-Licensed Content; they will be added within the next two weeks. You can access them directly from the URL provided.
a. INSPEC Backfile
By Karen Andrews (Resource Liaison), UC DavisINSPEC, a comprehensive index to literature in physics/astronomy, computer science, electronic engineering, and information technology, has added records covering 1898-1968. The INSPEC backfile was a one-time purchase by CDL, endorsed by the Joint Steering Committee on Shared Collections (JSC). The license provides perpetual access to INSPEC articles for future generations of UC researchers.
All campuses now have access. The current INSPEC file is mounted on Ovid, but the backfile is only available at the
Institution of Electrical Engineers site
(
http://www.iee.org/inspec/archive/). An Ovid representative indicated they plan to finish mounting the INSPEC
backfile by April 2005.
The INSPEC Backfile corresponds to three print resources: Science Abstracts (1898-1902) and its successors Physics (Section A), Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Section B), and Computer Science (Section C). The backfile covers original and translated articles, dissertations, conferences, papers and proceedings, books, book chapters, reports and patents published in Europe and America. Figures and tables are included. Articles contain cross-references to other related articles, but are not linked to full text via UC e-links yet.
The basic search is easily navigated, and allows standard searching of basic index, author, title, abstract, indexing, journal title, publication title, and corporate source. Limits for date range and document type are clearly visible. The advanced search features additional search choices such as conference title. More complex numeric and chemical searches can only be done in command mode, which few researchers or librarians will take time to learn. When the backfile is mounted at Ovid, we will have full search and update capabilities matching the current file, as well as article links.
Important searching notes:
- Be sure to search using both British and American spellings for complete retrieval!
- Old and new indexing terms: Each unique term found in the original Science Abstracts indexes has been mapped to the nearest existing Inspec thesaurus term. Even if terms have gone out of use or technologies have been replaced, a modern alternative description is provided. You can choose to search only new terms, or across the original terms. New and old terms are displayed alongside each other in the full record display.
- Language: Care should be taken when searching the language field prior to 1946, because language of original article was not consistently recorded until then. Many English language articles prior to 1955 are excluded if searches are restricted to English language because of lack of indexing.
- Author searching: Marie Curie was referred to in the literature as M Curie but also as Mme Curie or Mme Sklodowska-Curie. Try various combinations when you search, and replace initials with any known prefixes or suffixes, or add these after the initial. Other examples of names appearing in a different format are: Lord Kelvin, Lord Rutherford, E Witschi, Jr.
3. UC-eLinks: Targets and Titles
The campus libraries are full participants in adding their campus-licensed resources to the UC-eLinks program. Along with the CDL, they have added many new targets (including journal aggregators, library catalogs, full text books, journal publishers and more) and titles in the past year. This expansion enables users to easily discover and have immediate access to a growing array of materials.
The CDL currently has activated 121 targets reaching more than 19,000 titles. The campuses have turned on from one to 60 targets, with the average being 28 targets representing an average of 2,696 additional titles.
The more targets and titles activated by the libraries, the better the situation is for users. If a campus has not turned on a target, but has a subscription to full text, the user can only discover the full text by clicking through to the campus catalog or the Melvyl Catalog. The more campuses participate in adding their resources, the less often this extra step will have to be taken for titles the libraries have actually licensed.
4. Library Staff News
a. Patricia Martin Appointed Bibliographic Services Manager
Patricia Martin joined the CDL on January 5 as the new Bibliographic Services Manager, reporting to Laine Farley, Director of Digital Library Services. Originally from New York, Patti received her MLIS from UCLA in 1989, and has spent the last 11 years working for Microsoft. She has extensive experience with complex projects involving managing vendors in three countries, building special collections of speech data, entertainment metadata, and handwriting data, and serving as the main technical communication liaison both internally and externally.
She has worked on specifying search and browse functions, controlled vocabularies, and relevance metrics, and managed a team of seven catalogers. She is also experienced in developing product strategies and evaluation metrics. All of these experiences will come in handy in working with Melvyl, UC-eLinks and Request.
Please join us in welcoming Patti to the CDL.
b. Dayna Holz Named Office of Scholarly Communication Analyst
With the conclusion of an open recruitment, we are pleased to announce that Dayna Holz has accepted the position of Office of Scholarly Communication (OSC) Analyst. The OSC analyst will provide a wide array of program assistance to eScholarship, and data analysis and other analytic support to other OSC initiatives.
Dayna will draw from her recent experience providing part-time assistance to eScholarship for its new postprint service for UC faculty, and providing data acquisition and analysis for OSC's Mellon-supported copyright and postprints study.
Dayna joins us from UC Berkeley where she worked at both the Environmental Design Archives and the Water Resources Center Archives managing image digitization projects, and various metadata, finding aid, and web related work. Dayna, who recently completed her graduate studies in information science with a focus on archives and copyright law, brings fresh energy and valuable experience to CDL. Please join us in welcoming her to the CDL.
5. For More Information
a. News and Publications
News and events, press releases, reports and guidelines, and articles published by CDL staff are posted on the CDL web site. Please share news of this resource with your colleagues!
In addition, status information about CDL resources, reports, and working documents of particular interest to library staff are available on the Inside CDL web site.
b. Contacts for Questions or Problems
If you have problems accessing CDL resources or have questions, including questions about the status of electronic journal collections and Internet resources, contact the CDL:- For immediate assistance, call the CDL Helpline at 510-987-0555. Callers with TDD equipment, please call 1-800-735-2929 in California for the telephone relay operator.
- Or, send an email to cdl@www.cdlib.org.
For information about whether your UC campus has access to a particular electronic journal or Internet resource, contact your local collection development officer.
c. About CDLINFO
CDLINFO informs UC librarians and the UC community about the progress of the CDL, policy issues under discussion, and newly available electronic resources. Please share selected information from this newsletter with faculty, staff, and students on the campuses.
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