LANL Research Library Newsletter - January 1998

Did you know that the Research Library now provides links to over 100,000 electronic journal articles? Access a particular journal through the Electronic Journals web page, or follow the links appearing in the library's citation databases.

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Barschall files and the impact of publishing

In the mid-80s Henry Barschall of the Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, published an article analyzing the cost of physics journals. Barschall's research surveyed physics journals to determine their cost and cost-effectiveness--the impact factors of the journal literature in physics. As a result of this study Barschall, the American Institute of Physics, and the American Physical Society were sued by the publisher Gordon & Breach. The suit was taken to one U.S. court and three European courts. The U.S. court and two of the three European courts supported Barschall's studies. A mirrored web site now contains the texts of the decisions of Judge L.B. Sand of the U.S. Second District Court and the entire testimony of the witnesses at the trial as well as some related links: http://barschall.stanford.edu or http://www.library.yale.edu/bar schall. More materials from the U.S. and from the European trials are expected to be added to the sites.

The emphasis is now changing to electronic journal publication. Unfortunately there is no decrease, but generally added costs for the electronic format. In this context we continue to need to discuss and think about what does create value in journal publication. Does publishing in journals with the highest cost per character create the impact we desire? Does publishing in journals with extreme subscription costs benefit the discipline? Is the publish or perish paradigm dead?

Donna Berg
Marie Harper
Frances Knudson

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GeoRef now available at your desktop!

The Research Library is pleased to announce Web access to the GeoRef database at http://muscat.gdb.org/repos/geore f/ or via the Research Library's Electronic Databases page.

GeoRef was established by the American Geological Institute in 1966, which provides access to the geoscience literature of the world. GeoRef is the most comprehensive database in the geosciences and continues to grow by more than 60,000 references a year. The database contains over 1.8 million references to geoscience journal articles, books, maps, conference papers, reports and theses and is updated twice a month.

The GeoRef database covers the geology of North America from 1785 to the present and the geology of the rest of the world from 1933 to the present. The database includes references to all publications of the U.S. Geological Survey, and to Masters' theses and doctoral dissertations from U.S. and Canadian universities. More than 3,500 journals in 40 languages are covered.

This Web version of GeoRef lets you:

Select a search interface designed for your level of search experience
Search for abstracts in specific journals
Download search results in citation formats for use with most citation management software packages.

A variety of search interfaces are available to access the GeoRef database. Selecting the search interface that meets your experience level and information needs can help you retrieve the best search results.

The Research Library appreciates your feedback. Please feel free to contact us at library@lanl.gov to register for the 2/11 class or to schedule group or individual training onsite.

Lou Pray

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New web page for authors

A new page has been added to our Resources by Subject Page:

Style Manuals and Instructions for Authors has links to the style and submission requirements of various publishers and societies.

The new page has links directly to the guidelines and submission instructions for the major scientific publishers and societies. Often the publisher's page includes such important journal information as whether the title is indexed and abstracted, tipcs for presenting a paper, and tips for electronic. Most journals now have an electronic presence and provide a list of editorial members, scope notes covering journal content, a method for ordering sample issues electronically and online status--which allows you to look up the production status of your submitted article.

The new page also links to a tipsheet giving other ways to find this type of information. As usual, if you cannot find what you need, please contact the Research Library at 7-5809 for assistance.

Sharon Smith

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New earth sciences resources web page

A recent addition to our Resources by Subject page is a collection of web Earth Sciences Resources.

Included are links to agencies and organizations, such as American Geological Institute, USGS Global Change Research Program Home Page and the Geological Society of America; links to databases such as latest earthquake information, the Crystal Dynamics Data Information System (CDDIS) at NASA, GeoRef, and more. Also on this page are links to general survey resources and metals and minerals information. Please send your suggestions for additions to this page to lpray@lanl.gov. Thanks!

Lou Pray

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Over 600 electronic journals available

The number of electronic journals available to Laboratory staff has more than tripled in the past year. The Research Library now provides access to over 600 electronic journals from a wide variety of disciplines. Direct links to these online journals are available from the Library's Electronic Journals Web page, as well as from the Web version of our online catalog.

Some of the latest additions to the Electronic Journals Web page include:

American journal of mathematics
Bulletin of environmental contamination and toxicology
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Bulletin of the Global Volcanism Network
Informationweek
Journal of corrosion science and engineering
MRS internet journal of nitride semiconductor research
Nuclear physics. A
Nuclear physics. B
Particle physics
Reviews of Modern Physics
S.A.I.S. review
Theory and applications of categories
World politics.

Besides the convenience of being able to access electronic journals from your desktop, many of the new electronic issues are now available much earlier than the print version. Please send any comments or suggestions about electronic journals to jrnlinfo@lanl.gov.

Anne Menefee

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SciSearch� at LANL Tip of the Month: Looking for top cited papers

In SciSearch� at LANL there are two ways to find top cited papers. The first is to change the Sort Results By pulldown box to Times Cited. The top cited paper will appear first. If you are just looking for papers which have been cited more than 50 or 100 times, change an input box to All Fields and enter cites > 00050 or cites > 000100. Remember to use preceeding zeros to make six digits.

Jeane Strub

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Search Techniques: Finding journals in the online catalog

The Research Library online catalog offers access to journal subscriptions in many ways. If you know the title of a journal, use the Journal Title index, which includes the exact titles of journals, for example, "Communications of the ACM." If you don't find your journal there, try the regular Title index. This includes all forms of titles in the journal catalog records, including abbreviations, for example "Commun. ACM" (as commonly found in published citations), and title variations, such as "ACM communications" or "Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery."

To look for journals on a particular subject, you can include the subject word "periodicals" in a subject word search. For example, search for the subject words "metals" and "periodicals".

Note that journals can also be searched on the Research Library's web site, which offers a journals page and an electronic journals page, which provide hyperlinks to electronic journals.

Kathy Varjabedian

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Research Library January Training Schedule

DATE SESSION & DESCRIPTION TIME
1/6 Research Library Catalog via the WWW 1-1:30
1/7 Finding Addresses and Phone Numbers on the WWW 1-1:30
1/7 Research Library Tour 1-1:30
1/8 Search Engines, Advanced Web Searching 1-1:30
1/8 InfoSurfing: Basic Web Searching Strategies 2-4
1/13 Introduction to Electronic Library Resources 1-1:30
1/14 Research Library Tour 1-1:30
1/15 What the Report Collection Can Do for You 1-1:30
1/20 MELVYL (U of CA specialized databases) 11-11:30
1/21 Research Library Tour 1-1:30
1/21 Finding Addresses and Phone Numbers on the WWW 1-1:30
1/22 BIOSIS at LANL 1-1:30
1/22 InfoSurfing: Basic Web Searching Strategies 2-4
1/27 Environmental Resources on the WWW 1-1:30

Classes are free, but you must pre-register by using the email links above to send a message to library@lanl.gov or calling the Library Service Desk at 7-5809. Please include your name, the date and title of the session, and your email address in your message.

Special classes and orientations can also be arranged; call 7-5809 for more information.

Sandi Blackburn

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Newsletter Editorial Team: Donna Berg , Jack Carter, Lou Pray, Kathy Varjabedian, and Eileen Vela.

To receive an electronic subscription to the Research Library Newsletter, sent the first of each month to your e-mail address, do the following:

subscribe lib-news end

The name and e-mail address of the Library member who contributed an article appears at the end of the article. If you have comments or further questions, please contact that person. If you have general questions or comments about the Newsletter itself, please contact the Newsletter Coordinator, Kathy Varjabedian.

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5 January 1998 KV(MLM)

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