September 1999 Newsletter - LANL Research Library

LANL Research Library Newsletter - September 1999

Did you know that LANL staff can borrow books from University of New Mexico, Sandia National Laboratory, and other libraries in the state through the Library Services Alliance Passport Program?

A new look and feel to xxx.lanl.gov

e-Print arXiv is a new interface to xxx.lanl.gov (or arXiv.org), the fully automated electronic archive and distribution server for research papers hosted at LANL. The archive started in August 1991 and covers primarily physics and related disciplines, as well as mathematics, nonlinear sciences, computational linguistics, and neuroscience. The new interface offers searching across all the archives of xxx.lanl.gov, multiple indexes, limiting, and sorting of search results.

The development of this interface stems from two goals of the Research Library and Library Without Walls Project. The first goal is to integrate preprints more into the traditional library literature. The second goal is to provide a common interface to as many scientific/technical literature resources as possible.

The first step has been to create a search interface into the xxx.lanl.gov e-print archive that mirrors the SciSearch� at LANL search interface. Library customers should find the navigation and the searching techniques very familiar. This interface is currently also available for INSPEC at LANL, and the consolidation of interfaces will continue through the fall as we move other citation databases into the SciSearch� at LANL model.

Frances Knudson
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Library Electronic Product Development Survey

We have been interviewing many Laboratory personnel to discover what the Research Library can do to facilitate their research projects. We have sifted through the resulting answers and boiled it down to 12 areas. Now we need your input to rank these areas in current satisfaction and future importance. Please take a few minutes to fill out this survey at:
http://lib-www.lanl.gov/market/bsurvey/

Thanks.

Frances Knudson
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Getting your reports online at the Research Library

Formal Los Alamos reports are required to go through the CIC-1 writing and editing process. One step in this process is the sending of both paper and electronic copies of the report to the Report Library. LA-UR's, however, are not required to go through this process. Therefore, there is no automatic mechanism for adding these informal reports to the Report Library's collection. We would like to get copies of those LA-UR's which are appropriate for addition to the Library.

If you have published any such LA-UR's we would like to receive copies of these reports in both paper and electronic form. We prefer PDF or postscript files, however, most other formats are acceptable. (The exception is Tex files.) The Report Library will process the report to make it available on the Web. If you only have paper copies of the report, we can scan the report to place it on the Web. The address for submitting electronic files has changed to la-pubs@lanl.gov. Please call the Report Library at 667-4446 or email la-pubs@lanl.gov if you have any questions. The reports will be then be easily accessed over the Web from the Library's online catalog or Los Alamos Unclassified Publications database.

Mona Mosier
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New electronic journals from the Research Library

Carol Hoover
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Hot news on search engines

Try some of the new Web search engines such as www.matchsite.com, www.startingpage.com or www.monstercrawler.com. Each has unique offerings and the last two would like to serve as personal portals. MatchSite compiles responses from all the major search engines and then provides a ranked response.

At least one organization is trying to encourage standardization of commands across search engines; you can look at this effort at http://searchenginewatch.internet.com/standards.

The Google! Site continues to develop, you might want to try their engine again now that it supports phrase searching (be sure to use the "double quotes").

Top Search Engine still seems to be Northern Light, with the largest number of search results, followed by AltaVista, HotBot, Snap, Google!, and Infoseek.

Some other search engines of interest: EuroSeek, SavvySearch, Cyber411 and MetaBug.

Donna Berg
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Visitors from afar visit the LANL Library

Thanks in part to the recent Online article about our "cutting-edge" library, the LANL Research Library has been receiving numerous requests from research libraries across the globe, to see first hand what we are doing in the world of hi-tech research libraries. This month, Uliricke Krause, Scientific Information Manager for the Max Plank Institute of Chemistry Ecology Library, visited our library for an entire week to learn more about the digital library environment and web-based information management and to observe how we cope with the changing paradigm of information technology in libraries.

Lou Pray
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Research Library Training

The LANL Research Library offers a variety of training opportunities for the Laboratory community. Available sessions focus on specialized library databases and other electronic resources. A complete list of course offerings can be found on the library web site . All sessions are available to individuals or groups, at the library or your site. Arrange for a session by contacting the Library, phone 7-4175 or e-mail library@lanl.gov. Library tours are available on a drop-in basis every Wednesday at 1:00 p.m.

Susan Heckethorn
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Need a reminder?

Newsletter Editorial Team: Donna Berg, Helen Boorman, Jack Carter, Lou Pray, and Kathy Varjabedian.

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 Editor, Kathy Varjabedian.

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