New research shows that fewer papers are being cited than in the days before the internet. A study by the University of Chicago indicates that researchers are now citing fewer papers than ever before. What’s more, these citations are selected from fewer and more recent articles. Read more.

Google Maps now lets you collaborate with others as you create a custom online map. Google Earth Outreach offers a tutorial that describes exactly how to do this in Google Maps. Once you and your colleagues have created your map, you can export it and view it in Google Earth.

From 09:30 GMT on Saturday August 2, to 05:30 GMT on Sunday August 3, ScienceDirect (and Scopus) will be unavailable due to an upgrade of the administrative system.

As a consequence, Email alerts and RSS feeds for ScienceDirect and Scopus will not be sent from 15:30 GMT on August 1 until the downtime has finished. Email alerts and RSS feeds can still be created until 09:30 GMT on August 2, but they will not be sent until after the upgrade is completed.

The Networked Digital Library of Theses & Dissertations (or NDLTD) offers theses and dissertations electronically in full-text and abstract form, dating back to 1900. The collection is mainly U.S. focussed, but there is some representation from the U.K. Engineering & earth science are well represented.

The site has 2 search engines available to search for theses:

1. VTLS Visualizer

2. Scirus ETD Search

On the evening of Tuesday 22 July, the service machine which runs all Digimap facilities suffered a serious hardware failure. This meant that all services became unavailable and engineers were unable to access the machine. This morning, Wednesday 23 July, engineers have managed to identify the problem, and have temporarily restored full service capability.

However, until the faulty hardware is replaced, all Digimap Collections will remain unstable and may become unavailable at any time. Engineers are monitoring the service closely, and further information will be posted when available.

REPAIRS NECESSARY
Later today (23 July), it will be necessary to withdraw access to Digimap in order to replace the faulty hardware.

Citation Mapping is powerful new Web of Science visualization tool which allows you to visualize citation relationships and understand the meaning of a cited reference search. You can map citations by author, institution, country, subject etc.

To access the citation mapping feature, do the following:

1.       Carry out a search in Web of Science;

2.       In your list of results you should see a field labelled ‘Times Cited’. This must be more than zero for the citation mapping feature to work fully. If this figure is more than zero, go to step 3.

3.       Click on the one of the hyperlinked titles in your results list;

4.       Once you have accessed the full record of an article you should see a link labelled ‘Citation Map’. Click on this link;

5.       Select which kind of map you want (you should get a choice of 3) and then click on the ‘Create’ button in the bottom right of your screen.

6.       Your citation map should be created.

For more details on citation mapping take look at this online tutorial provided by Thomson Reuters:

ISI Web of Knowledge will be undergoing an upgrade on Sunday 20 July 2008 from 14:00 (British time).  This means there will be disruptions to WoK access including personalisation services and EndNote Web throughout the day.

Research is Cool is a website designed specifically for postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows. You can find the site at:
http://www.researchiscool.com

The site combines academic research recruitment services with social networking features that allow you to make yourself known to researchers with similar research interests across the world, create research discussion groups and communicate with other researchers across disciplinary and geographical boundaries.

You can alos use the site to find research jobs and postgraduate courses & studentships, as well as to communicate with other researchers with similar research interests from across the globe.

Research is Cool was founded by a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh.

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) has freely accessible webcasts on its IET.tv site. A search engine is available to help you find relevant presentations/lectures. Some of the many webcasts include:

P. Boulton: Development and use of a Web Based Traffic Manager, 21 May, 2008.
Presentation from the ‘Road Transport Info Control’ event.

Dr Alan Stevens: Creating the Future of Transport, 11 July 2007.
Presentation from The IET Academic Insight Talks: Savoy Place, Council Chamber, London.
(Dr Stevens, TRL, Editor-in-Chief of IET Intelligent Transport Systems)

Professor David Infield: Renewable Power Generation for a Sustainable Future, 11 July 2007.
Presentation from The IET Academic Insight Talks: Savoy Place, Council Chamber, London.
(Professor David Infield, Director of CREST, University of Loughborough, Editor-in-Chief of IET Renewable Power Generation).

]]> http://civeselib.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/live-webcasts-from-the-institution-of-engineering-and-technology/feed/ http://civeselib.wordpress.com/2008/07/16/top-downloads-in-spiral-for-june-2008/ http://civeselib.wordpress.com/2008/07/16/top-downloads-in-spiral-for-june-2008/#comments Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:12:38 +0000 Lawrence http://civeselib.wordpress.com/?p=196

See this link to the Spiral top twenty for the top twenty downloads during June from Imperial’s institutional repository.

Spiral is the Imperial College-wide digital repository & has been designed to hold the College’s research publications. The aims of the repository are:

• to be a central point for collecting research publications across the College
• to increase the College’s research publications’ visibility
• to allow open access to all deposited work
• to provide links to academics’ professional web pages

For any further questions on Spiral see the Spiral Digital Repository pages of the library website or contact the Spiral team on spiral-help@imperial.ac.uk.