The Central Library offers extended loan periods on books over the Christmas vacation. You can see the full list on the library website.

The following special arrangements will apply at the Central Library:

• From Saturday 12 December, short and standard loans will be issued on request to Monday 11 January to all borrowers, providing there are still 4 copies in the library.
• From 09.00 on Friday 18 December, core texts will be issued to 11.00 on Monday 4 January.

Please ask if you want any books issued for the vacation, otherwise the usual loan periods will apply.

You can also check the Christmas Vacation opening hours on the Library website.

The library survey is still underway, and we’d love to hear your views! You have until Monday 30th November to fill in the survey and be in with a chance of winning a £50 Amazon voucher. So far we’ve had 134 responses from Chemistry students, which is great, but we’d like to get more!

There’s more information about the survey on the library website, or you can just go straight to the survey itself.

As of November 17th 2009, new SciFinder enhancements are available via your web browser. Reflecting CAS’ commitment to continuous improvement of SciFinder performance, this release includes several performance and usability enhancements, such as:

• Improved navigation and search speed for faster retrieval of answers
• Increased ease-of-use when switching between reaction and substance structure search types within the drawing editor
• Improved access to the structure drawing editor, via Java 1.5 or earlier versions*

If you have any questions, please contact CAS at help@cas.org

*Java versions prior to 1.6 are no longer supported by Sun Microsystems or CAS.

Complete the 2009 Library Survey now!

The library wants to know what you think about our services and how you use them. Do you love e-books or want more books on the shelves? Is it easy to find what you want? Is the library too noisy or too quiet?

Tell us what you think by completing our survey – it only takes five minutes of your time and you could win one of three £50 Amazon vouchers in our prize draw!

Take the survey now at – http://www.imperial.ac.uk/library/survey

The survey closes on Monday 30 November so don’t wait too long!

We’ll be publishing the results of the survey in early 2010 and what you say will help inform us how we can improve services for you.

Paper copies of the survey are available on request.

The top twenty most viewed papers for October are now available from the Spiral site.For more information on Spiral, Imperial College’s digital repository, please visit the Spiral Repository page on the library website, or see the Spiral FAQ.

There’s a new poll on the library website. This time, we’d like to know what you think of ebooks. The poll is located on the right hand side of the page. It only takes a second to vote, so please tell us what you think!

You can see results of previous library polls here.

The latest update of the Gmelin database, 2009/03, was made available
on Friday 23rd October.

Statistics for the new Gmelin database are as follows:

Number of compounds: 2,710,511
Number of citations: 1,408,491
Number of reactions: 2,060,290

There are no changes to the DST files from the previous version, 2009/02.

ISI Web of Knowledge has some new tools that may be of interest. The tools allow you to conduct a search across the ISI Web of Knowledge and easily perform an ‘All Databases search’.

1. Web Browser search extension

The search extension allows you to easily perform an ‘All Databases search’ directly from your browser’s search bar.

(Please note that only Firefox 2 and above and IE 7 and above are supported.)

Internet Explorer at: http://isiwebofknowledge.com/webtools/browsersearch/

Firefox at: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/11624

2. The ISI Web of Knowledge Widget for your Desktop

The widget is an icon that you can download directly your desktop to perform a search of ISI Web of Knowledge. Search terms can be entered directly into the box. You can download the widget here: http://wokinfo.com/webtools/widget/

If you have any problems using these tools or widgets, please contact the Mimas ISI Web of Knowledge helpdesk at: wok@mimas.ac.uk.

RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’. What this means is that it’s a handy way to keep track of what’s new with your favourite websites – without having to visit them every day. Essentially, you need an aggregator to read feeds, and then you need feeds to read!

To get an idea of what RSS feeds are, watch this short video from CommonCraft:

We’ve also produced a guide in the library with the information; you can download it below.

Quick guide to RSS

Two of the most popular aggregators, or feed readers, are Google Reader and Bloglines. You can sign up for an account with one of these for free.

Once you’ve got an account, you need to add some feed to it. Some useful chemistry ones are:

The RSC publishes a news feed for its Chemistry World section – you can find it here

Nature Chemistry offers three feeds – they are available here

The BBC offers several different news feeds. You can also set up a search feed through them, so for example you can be alerted to all news stories which mention ‘Imperial College’. Instructions on how to do this are here.

If you like to keep track of Tables of Contents (ToCs) of journals, you can set up RSS feeds to alert you using a service like ticTOCs or Zetoc.

Similarly, you can often set up RSS feeds of searches in many databases, which can free up yet more space in your email inbox!

The library also has some tutorials available on:
How to search for RSS feeds
How to set up RSS feeds for specific searches
How to use Bloglines
How to use Google Reader

Come and learn how to find information for your projects at the library’s introductory database sessions on the following subjects:

Business and related subjects using EBSCO Business Source Complete
Ebsco provides access to a wealth of business information including company and country reports and full-text journal articles. This session is for business and non-business students who need to find business information for their projects.

All subjects using CSA Illumina
CSA covers major areas of research, including environmental sciences, materials science, biological sciences, engineering and computer science.

All subjects using Web of Science
This multidisciplinary database covers a wide range of subjects including science, engineering, humanities, medicine and social sciences. It also includes cited references for all articles.

Medicine and related subjects using PubMed
This is the most comprehensive source for biomedical articles. This session is for students who need to find information in medicine and related subjects.

Engineering using Engineering Village
This is the most comprehensive database for engineering information and is a key resource for all engineering students.

Engineering using IEEE Xplore
IEEE Xplore provides full text access to technical literature in electrical engineering, computer science and electronics

Intelligent use of the Internet – learn which sources on the Internet to trust
We all use the internet but we don’t always know how reliable it is. This session will show you how to decide whether the information you find on the internet is valuable research or just plain rubbish!

Cross-search multiple databases using Metalib, the library’s portal
This information portal provides access to databases and electronic journals subscribed to by the Library. Many of the resources can be cross-searched, where a single search is carried out on more than one database.

RefWorks – learn how to store your references and create a reference list

Reading and Note Taking – learn techniques for improving your reading and note taking skills

For a complete timetable, and to book your training session please visit the library website.