Friday, September 29, 2006
Most reliable search tool could be your librarian | CNET News.com
Most reliable search tool could be your librarian | CNET News.com: "No matter how smart and helpful search engines get, they're never going to replace librarians."
SLA Toronto Chapter West Programming Committee - Ulla de Stricker
Attended the SLA Toronto West programme last night by Ulla de Stricker titled "Building a Healthy Workplace Culture : Simple Guidelines Anyone can Use".
As always Ulla was great. There were 14 librarians in attendance a fair number, but it could be better.
Ulla's presentation was an excellent summary with tips and pointers and valuable information on how to be a great manager/leader/supervisor/boss. With personal examples from her own career.
For only $20, which included your dinner, why was the room not packed??
Ulla's presentation is available at her website:http://www.destricker.com/ on the past presentations page.
"Polymers & Liquid Crystals" -- virtual textbook
"Polymers & Liquid Crystals is a pilot program produced by a cooperative effort between the Department of Physics and the Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering at Case Western Reserve University in conjunction with the Center for Advanced Liquid Crystalline Optical Materials (ALCOM) at Kent State University. A part of the ALCOM educational outreach program, this tutorial provides a basic introduction at the college freshman level to the fields of polymers, liquid crystals (LC) polymer LC and LC displays. It is intended to demonstrate the advantages and capabilities of the Hypertext medium as an educational tool.
The Virtual Textbook contains many features that can not be found in a conventional reference. In addition to comprehensive text, 3-D animations help the user understand complex structures. Video footage from actual experiments provides valuable perspective. In the unique 'virtual laboratory', the user is able to perform his or her own experiments in areas such as polymer growth, phase transformations, and crystalline optics. Full color still images and sound complement the entire program.
Polymers & Liquid Crystals is still in the developmental stage. Any suggestions for improving the project or any comments in general would be greatly appreciated. Please visit our contacts page to find out how to communicate your ideas."
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Review Sony's Reader a step foward
Review: Sony's Reader a step foward from PhysOrg.com
(AP) -- Books have been a bit of the orphan in the digital world. Music has the iPod. Video has YouTube. Books have, well, Amazon.com, where you can buy them printed on paper.
[...]
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Book Lust with Nancy Pearl -- Wiki type web site on "WetPaint"
Welcome to the Book Lust Community - Book Lust with Nancy Pearl: Welcome to the online community for readers, booklovers, and fans of Nancy Pearl, author of the popular Book Lust series. Here you can:
* Find out what Nancy's reading right now!
* Get book recommendations from Nancy Pearl.
* In a book club? Find and share book club recommendations.
* Add your favorite author to the 'Too Good to Miss' page.
* Post your Top 10 all-time favorite reads in Desert Island Books.
logical -- my day for silly tests
You Are Incredibly Logical |
 Move over Spock - you're the new master of logic You think rationally, clearly, and quickly. A seasoned problem solver, your mind is like a computer! |
How does your English stack up?
Your English Skills: |
 Grammar: 100% Punctuation: 100% Spelling: 100% Vocabulary: 100% |
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Internal Corporate Podcasts
We all received a note the other day. Not only is this company publishing internal podcasts, but they are giving us all a MP3 player to listen to them. They also have set up an internal company branded podcast receiver from Juice with the internal podcasts already set up as a subscription.
We can also add any other podcast subscriptions we want.
kinda cool
Monday, September 18, 2006
Royal Society to offer free access to over 340 years of landmark science
The Royal Society, UK's autonomous scientific academy, has announced that a complete archive of the Royal Society journals will be made freely available electronically for the first time. The archive, freely available until December 2006, includes some of the most significant scientific papers published since 1665.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
GO ENG Girl!
From an email to UofT Engineering Alumni from Marta Escedi.
GO ENG Girl! is an exciting event for young women in Grades 7 to 10 and their parents. On Saturday, October 14th all Faculties and Schools of Engineering in Ontario are presenting a GO ENG Girl! program which includes activities to showcase the wide range of undergraduate programs and careers that are available in engineering. . There will be opportunities to meet role models, to work on some "hands on" activities in small groups and to learn about student activities outside the classroom such as design projects and student organizations (e.g. Engineers Without Borders, Women in Science and Engineering). There is no cost to attend this event.
More information about the program, the links to the locations and on-line registration can be found at www.ospe.on.ca/goenggirl.
The GO ENG Girl! programs are being coordinated by Ontario Women in Engineering (ONWIE) group with the support of the Council of Ontario Deans of Engineering. All Faculties and Schools of Engineering are working together to encourage young women to study engineering and to make sure that old stereotypes of the profession are dispelled.
We hope that if you have a daughter or granddaughter in this grade grouping that you will bring her. Please feel to pass this on to your friends at work, community groups and your neighbours.
Márta Ecsedi, P.Eng., 7T6 Civil, Chair - Go ENG Girl Committee
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
The Role of Information In Innovation
I am looking for references to how having a library and professional library staff increase a company's innovation and R&D output.
any suggestions?
Ei.org - The Role of Information In Innovation: "Ei Announces Results of Independent Research Study: The Role of Information In Innovation
Engineering Information announces the release of an independent study 'The Role of Information in Innovation' focusing on the research needs of scientists and engineers working in corporate and industrial sectors. The study examines attitudes of R&D workers related to changes in the research environment, the value of information tools, and the impact these tools have on their work. The study was conducted by independent market research organization Akel and Associates of Chester, New Jersey.
The full report includes situation studies highlighting responses and quotations from 20 R&D workers and provides additional texture to the statistical findings of the report. To view the summary report of 'The Role of Information in Innovation', please click Report Summary.
To obtain the full report, please email eicustomersupport@elsevier.com with the subject 'Innovation Study.'"
Monday, September 11, 2006
Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts Book Study
Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts Book Study: "Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts Book Study
This blog is designed to fascilitate ongoing discussion and learning through best teaching practices, book studies, and collaboration in Highland Park ISD"
Found this when looking for something else.
A quick summary of interesting links and items from the past few months. PART I
I am doing this so I can get them out of my email and somewhere I can find them again!!
- Site24x7 is a web page monitoring service
- Library Branding resources - by David Dillard. Found via "librarian in black" via "resourceshelf"
- WorldCat Open for Searching -- found multiple places
- SirsiDynix TechTalk via Stephen's Lighthouse
- CUFTS Journal Search via Phil Bradley's Weblog
- 1901 UK Census Free Access via Peter Scott's Library Blog
- Google Calendar Gadget
- Linda Hall has a blog http://linda-hall-library.blogspot.com/
CAS Press Release -- SciFinder® 2007 Will Deliver Researchers' Most Requested Feature, "Combine Answers"
San Francisco, CA, September 10, 2006 - With the release of SciFinder 2007 in fourth quarter 2006, Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) will make it easier for scientists to fine-tune their answer sets for chemistry-related literature, substances and reactions. Other features of SciFinder 2007 will enable users to process records more conveniently, including those for commercially available chemicals. CAS demonstrated the SciFinder enhancements during the American Chemical Society national meeting occurring September 10 through 14 in San Francisco.
"Our soon to be released SciFinder 2007 will give users the capability they have asked for most often, permitting them to combine answer sets to arrive at the optimal results," said Dr. Catharina Maulbecker, CAS Vice President, Marketing and Sales. "This latest edition of SciFinder increases its value as part of the process in drug discovery and many other research fields."
SciFinder 2007 will introduce a slate of new options and features to enhance the exploration of CAS' extensive information resources:
* Combining answer sets for substances, reactions, and references - users will be able to combine a saved answer set with an "active" set of answers in SciFinder, to arrive at a focused set of answers; for example, references for a given research topic can be combined with the results of a saved author search; options to "Combine, "Intersect," or "Remove" answer sets allow the user to include only the desired references from the saved and active sets;
* Export of commercial chemical records from CHEMCATS® into Excel - users can move catalog information for commercially available chemicals into spreadsheets for sorting and manipulation;
* Explore from substance display - for added convenience, users will be able to easily capture a chemical structure from a substance answer display, then use it to search by structure in the massive CAS RegistrySM database;
* Printing structures in thumbnail display format - multiple chemical structures can be printed in a grid arrangement for an efficient comparative view; and
* More value from journal titles - SciFinder users will derive added value from journal literature searches, using new options to view full journal titles and use the full or abbreviated titles in the bibliographic software packages Reference Manager, EndNote and ProCite.
SciFinder was created with the vision of providing scientists easy, point-and-click access to chemical information. The new intelligent research tool for the desktop was an immediate hit with scientists, assisting them and other researchers worldwide with access to the multidisciplinary CAS databases. Today, scientists at pharmaceutical, biotech and chemical companies around the world use SciFinder as "part of the process" in their daily work to explore research topics, browse scientific journals and stay up-to-date on the latest scientific developments.
CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society, provides the world's largest and most current collection of chemical and related scientific information, including the most authoritative database of chemical substances, the CAS RegistrySM. CAS combines these databases with advanced search and analysis technologies to deliver the most complete, crosslinked and effective digital information environment for scientific research and discovery, including such products as SciFinder®, SciFinder Scholar™, STN®, STN Express® and STN AnaVist™, among others. The CAS web site is at www.cas.org.
Press Releases Index
Contact:
Eric Shively
Public Relations Group Leader
CAS
614-447-3847
eshively@cas.org
Thursday, September 07, 2006
SLA Toronto Chapter West Programming Committee presents Ulla de Stricker "Building a Healthy Workplace Culture : Simple Guidelines Anyone can Use"
Building a Healthy Workplace Culture : Simple Guidelines Anyone can Use
Thursday September 28, 2006
When a workplace "works", key success factors go far beyond technical and professional competencies. Leaders and team members alike need to manage interpersonal interactions, handle unforeseen events, deal with potential conflicts of priorities and interests, cope with changes imposed by technology and staff turnover (etc), find ways to survive stressful times, and so on. Ulla de Stricker outlines some simple yet effective approaches to building a workplace culture in which everyone is supported and gains maximum job satisfaction (based on the simple fact that people want to feel respected, appreciated, useful, and proud). Regardless of the organizational structure and formal practices governing a workplace, everyone in it can -- and should be encouraged to -- contribute to a trusting and healthy environment.
The presentation is based on a lecture given previously at a Symposium in Mexico and through the Dynix Institute, with extremely positive feedback.
Speaker
Ulla de Stricker — President, de Stricker Associates -- www.destricker.com
Ulla de Stricker, in consulting practice since 1992, helps clients deal with the full gamut of knowledge management challenges, bringing to bear decades of experience. Since the late 1970s, Ulla held information industry positions with responsibility in the areas of strategy, design, and market client relations. She managed the Canadian operations for DIALOG in the 1980s and built the electronic publishing venture for a Canadian unit of Thomson in the early 1990s. She is well known for her bold vision of the future of the library profession and is a popular speaker at information conferences internationally. In recent years, her consulting focus has been strategic planning for information-centric operations.
Schedule
5:30 pm: Check-in and pick up badge
6:15 p.m. : Meeting / Presentation
Light dinner will be available.
Location
Oakville Public Library Auditorium
120 Navy Street
Oakville, ON
(parking – free after 5 pm - at library accessible from Water Street (lower level around the back)
Registration
The SLA Toronto Chapter requires payment with registration. Payment must be made via PayPal no later than Thursday September 21. To register, please submit your registration form electronically via the website .
PayPal is a free electronic service which offers a simple and straightforward process for electronic payments. To use this free service, you will need to establish an account with PayPal. PayPal can be accessed on the Internet at http://www.paypal.com. Select New User? and then choose Personal Account [in Canada] and fill in the boxes. The PayPal email address for the Chapter is SLAToronto1@yahoo.ca. If you have questions about using the PayPal service, contact Helle Arro, Treasurer, SLA Toronto Chapter.
Cost
SLA Members $20.00
Non-members $25.00
Students $15.00
Contact for this meeting
Susan Salhia
AECL
Email: salhias@aecl.ca
Library programming in the area just West of Toronto
SLA Toronto Chapter
West Programming Committee
Call for Volunteers for 2007 Executive
Keep excellent professional development programs and networking opportunities alive in the Mississauga-Oakville-Hamilton area!
The SLA Toronto Chapter West Programming Committee has had a successful year and a half since its inception. The Committee executive have fine tuned the mechanics of running professional development programmes in the Mississauga to Hamilton area.
Come January 2007 it will be time to pass the torch to a new Committee executive for the 2007 year. We need people to step forward to fill the following positions:
• Program Sub-Committee Chair: This position is responsible for co-ordinating the planning and budgeting of programmes; promoting the programmes; facilitating the programme meetings; communicating with the SLA Toronto executive.
• Program Sub-Committee Convenors (2 positions): these volunteers are responsible for helping develop the year’s programme plan and making all the arrangements for the programmes (eg. arranging speaker, facility, food; setup and running the programme). The convenors also distribute and summarize programme evaluations.
There are five programmes per year, with the majority being held in the evening at the Oakville Public Library.
We would like to have these positions filled by the end of October 2006 to allow the existing Committee an opportunity to support the incoming Committee with the transition of responsibilities.
Commitment to volunteer or any questions should be directed to:
Linda Pauloski
(linda_pauloski@dofasco.ca)
905-548-7200, ext 2794
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
E-resources designed for institutions with small print collections -- not
E-resources: "ScienceDirect Logo
Specifically designed for institutions with small print journal collections, E-Select™: E-journals from Elsevier, provides individual online-title access to more than 1,300 titles in the areas of social sciences and STM.
With E-Select: E-journals from Elsevier, you can:
* access a backfile of subscribed content dating back to January 1995
* search all articles available on the ScienceDirect® platform, including access to nearly eight million abstracts
* arrange to receive alert notifications for new issues as soon as these titles are available electronically (often prior to print)
* use individual password access for up to five unique users
* benefit from unlimited viewing, downloading and printing of subscribed e-journals."
It all sounds good until you read the pdf "Fact Sheet" and there you find out that an institution is defined as academic or government. So, not mine.
I need to talk to a representative to see if they have a package for me. I have. I cannot afford it.
Monday, September 04, 2006
Back from Vacation and now have a cold
Back home with a terrible summer cold. I have not been sick with a cold for years. I remember why I hate colds. I will be catching up with a lot of things from over the last few weeks.
CAS Press Release -- SciFinder® 2007 Will Deliver Researchers' Most Requested Feature, "Combine Answers"
San Francisco, CA, September 10, 2006 - With the release of SciFinder 2007 in fourth quarter 2006, Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) will make it easier for scientists to fine-tune their answer sets for chemistry-related literature, substances and reactions. Other features of SciFinder 2007 will enable users to process records more conveniently, including those for commercially available chemicals. CAS demonstrated the SciFinder enhancements during the American Chemical Society national meeting occurring September 10 through 14 in San Francisco.
"Our soon to be released SciFinder 2007 will give users the capability they have asked for most often, permitting them to combine answer sets to arrive at the optimal results," said Dr. Catharina Maulbecker, CAS Vice President, Marketing and Sales. "This latest edition of SciFinder increases its value as part of the process in drug discovery and many other research fields."
SciFinder 2007 will introduce a slate of new options and features to enhance the exploration of CAS' extensive information resources:
* Combining answer sets for substances, reactions, and references - users will be able to combine a saved answer set with an "active" set of answers in SciFinder, to arrive at a focused set of answers; for example, references for a given research topic can be combined with the results of a saved author search; options to "Combine, "Intersect," or "Remove" answer sets allow the user to include only the desired references from the saved and active sets;
* Export of commercial chemical records from CHEMCATS® into Excel - users can move catalog information for commercially available chemicals into spreadsheets for sorting and manipulation;
* Explore from substance display - for added convenience, users will be able to easily capture a chemical structure from a substance answer display, then use it to search by structure in the massive CAS RegistrySM database;
* Printing structures in thumbnail display format - multiple chemical structures can be printed in a grid arrangement for an efficient comparative view; and
* More value from journal titles - SciFinder users will derive added value from journal literature searches, using new options to view full journal titles and use the full or abbreviated titles in the bibliographic software packages Reference Manager, EndNote and ProCite.
SciFinder was created with the vision of providing scientists easy, point-and-click access to chemical information. The new intelligent research tool for the desktop was an immediate hit with scientists, assisting them and other researchers worldwide with access to the multidisciplinary CAS databases. Today, scientists at pharmaceutical, biotech and chemical companies around the world use SciFinder as "part of the process" in their daily work to explore research topics, browse scientific journals and stay up-to-date on the latest scientific developments.
CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society, provides the world's largest and most current collection of chemical and related scientific information, including the most authoritative database of chemical substances, the CAS RegistrySM. CAS combines these databases with advanced search and analysis technologies to deliver the most complete, crosslinked and effective digital information environment for scientific research and discovery, including such products as SciFinder®, SciFinder Scholar™, STN®, STN Express® and STN AnaVist™, among others. The CAS web site is at www.cas.org.
Press Releases Index
Contact:
Eric Shively
Public Relations Group Leader
CAS
614-447-3847
eshively@cas.org
Thursday, September 7, 2006
SLA Toronto Chapter West Programming Committee presents Ulla de Stricker "Building a Healthy Workplace Culture : Simple Guidelines Anyone can Use"
Building a Healthy Workplace Culture : Simple Guidelines Anyone can Use
Thursday September 28, 2006
When a workplace "works", key success factors go far beyond technical and professional competencies. Leaders and team members alike need to manage interpersonal interactions, handle unforeseen events, deal with potential conflicts of priorities and interests, cope with changes imposed by technology and staff turnover (etc), find ways to survive stressful times, and so on. Ulla de Stricker outlines some simple yet effective approaches to building a workplace culture in which everyone is supported and gains maximum job satisfaction (based on the simple fact that people want to feel respected, appreciated, useful, and proud). Regardless of the organizational structure and formal practices governing a workplace, everyone in it can -- and should be encouraged to -- contribute to a trusting and healthy environment.
The presentation is based on a lecture given previously at a Symposium in Mexico and through the Dynix Institute, with extremely positive feedback.
Speaker
Ulla de Stricker — President, de Stricker Associates -- www.destricker.com
Ulla de Stricker, in consulting practice since 1992, helps clients deal with the full gamut of knowledge management challenges, bringing to bear decades of experience. Since the late 1970s, Ulla held information industry positions with responsibility in the areas of strategy, design, and market client relations. She managed the Canadian operations for DIALOG in the 1980s and built the electronic publishing venture for a Canadian unit of Thomson in the early 1990s. She is well known for her bold vision of the future of the library profession and is a popular speaker at information conferences internationally. In recent years, her consulting focus has been strategic planning for information-centric operations.
Schedule
5:30 pm: Check-in and pick up badge
6:15 p.m. : Meeting / Presentation
Light dinner will be available.
Location
Oakville Public Library Auditorium
120 Navy Street
Oakville, ON
(parking – free after 5 pm - at library accessible from Water Street (lower level around the back)
Registration
The SLA Toronto Chapter requires payment with registration. Payment must be made via PayPal no later than Thursday September 21. To register, please submit your registration form electronically via the website .
PayPal is a free electronic service which offers a simple and straightforward process for electronic payments. To use this free service, you will need to establish an account with PayPal. PayPal can be accessed on the Internet at http://www.paypal.com. Select New User? and then choose Personal Account [in Canada] and fill in the boxes. The PayPal email address for the Chapter is SLAToronto1@yahoo.ca. If you have questions about using the PayPal service, contact Helle Arro, Treasurer, SLA Toronto Chapter.
Cost
SLA Members $20.00
Non-members $25.00
Students $15.00
Contact for this meeting
Susan Salhia
AECL
Email: salhias@aecl.ca
Library programming in the area just West of Toronto
SLA Toronto Chapter
West Programming Committee
Call for Volunteers for 2007 Executive
Keep excellent professional development programs and networking opportunities alive in the Mississauga-Oakville-Hamilton area!
The SLA Toronto Chapter West Programming Committee has had a successful year and a half since its inception. The Committee executive have fine tuned the mechanics of running professional development programmes in the Mississauga to Hamilton area.
Come January 2007 it will be time to pass the torch to a new Committee executive for the 2007 year. We need people to step forward to fill the following positions:
• Program Sub-Committee Chair: This position is responsible for co-ordinating the planning and budgeting of programmes; promoting the programmes; facilitating the programme meetings; communicating with the SLA Toronto executive.
• Program Sub-Committee Convenors (2 positions): these volunteers are responsible for helping develop the year’s programme plan and making all the arrangements for the programmes (eg. arranging speaker, facility, food; setup and running the programme). The convenors also distribute and summarize programme evaluations.
There are five programmes per year, with the majority being held in the evening at the Oakville Public Library.
We would like to have these positions filled by the end of October 2006 to allow the existing Committee an opportunity to support the incoming Committee with the transition of responsibilities.
Commitment to volunteer or any questions should be directed to:
Linda Pauloski
(linda_pauloski@dofasco.ca)
905-548-7200, ext 2794
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
E-resources designed for institutions with small print collections -- not
E-resources: "ScienceDirect Logo
Specifically designed for institutions with small print journal collections, E-Select™: E-journals from Elsevier, provides individual online-title access to more than 1,300 titles in the areas of social sciences and STM.
With E-Select: E-journals from Elsevier, you can:
* access a backfile of subscribed content dating back to January 1995
* search all articles available on the ScienceDirect® platform, including access to nearly eight million abstracts
* arrange to receive alert notifications for new issues as soon as these titles are available electronically (often prior to print)
* use individual password access for up to five unique users
* benefit from unlimited viewing, downloading and printing of subscribed e-journals."
It all sounds good until you read the pdf "Fact Sheet" and there you find out that an institution is defined as academic or government. So, not mine.
I need to talk to a representative to see if they have a package for me. I have. I cannot afford it.
Monday, September 4, 2006
Back from Vacation and now have a cold
Back home with a terrible summer cold. I have not been sick with a cold for years. I remember why I hate colds. I will be catching up with a lot of things from over the last few weeks.
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