LANL Research Library Newsletter - August 2000
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Researchers can now consult PDF files of volumes in the Nuclear Science Series: Monographs
on Radiochemistry and Radiochemical Techniques issued by the National Academy of Sciences
- National Research Council's Subcommittee on Radiochemistry. Volumes in this series date
back to 1959. Revisions of selected volumes have been published throughout the years. The
LANL Research Library recently obtained permission from the National Academy of Sciences
to scan and produce PDF files of these out-of-print publications which are invaluable to
radiochemists and researchers in other fields such as physics, biochemistry, and medicine.
From the home page for this series, relevant volumes in the series can be retrieved by
element name or symbol, NAS-NS number, or authors. A separate page listing the
radiochemical techniques volumes in the series is also available. The LANL Research
Library extends special thanks to the technical staff of CST Division at Los Alamos
National Laboratory for the loan of copies of many volumes in this series for scanning and
for providing funding for this project.
To access this important collection, go to: http://lib-www.lanl.gov/radiochemistry/ |
|
 
|
Irma Holtkamp
Return to the Table of Contents
During the recent Research Library Open House on July 11th, students and new hires got
an opportunity to hear Tom Meyer, Assoc. Lab Dir. for Strategic & Supporting Research,
review the lab's history and goals as well as stress the importance of publishing in
supporting the laboratory mission.
The most lauded library demonstration was of the new multi-database search engine, FlashPoint. The new
advanced version allows cross-database searching on multiple terms, with enhanced
historical coverage.
Lou Pray
Return to the Table of Contents
The Spring Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS)
included a session with speakers from the sci/tech publishing world discussing future
implementations, ideas and trends.
Chemical Abstracts demo-ed new visualization tools for their SciFinder application. The
user will be able to represent data using 3D graphs, pie charts, colored grids,etc. The
publications arm of ACS noted that PDF is the most popular format for downloading journal
articles -- over 85% of downloads from their electronic journals are in this format. An
overwhelming demand for back issues of specific journals has convinced ACS that they need
to consider scanning and providing PDFs for older issues.
Other future trends were: the use of e-book technology as a medium for downloading journal
articles so they can be read more easily; more multimedia supporting information available
via the web to increase the value of scholarly communication; non-linear documents, or
different versions of the same article written for different audiences; boundary blurring
-- we are seeing the distinction between primary information (journals) and secondary
(abstracting/indexing services) and tertiary (reviews) content becoming blurred as links
to each type of information source become more common; journal/database blurring -- as it
becomes easier to search across journal titles the idea of what a journal is has become
more vague [the Research Library's product, Science Server, is an example of this
technology]. One of the last, but most exciting announcements, was the new initiative by
Elsevier and ChemWeb to host a chemistry preprint server.
Donna Berg
Return to the Table of Contents
Interesting web sites for the theoreticians and just for the folks who enjoy
mathematics. Have fun!
Metamath proof
explorer (http://www1.shore.net/~ndm/java/mmexplorer1/mmset.htm)
“The Metamath Proof Explorer has 60 MBytes of interconnected web pages
containing over 3000 completely worked out proofs in logic and set theory. Each proof is
pieced together with razor-sharp precision using simple rules, allowing almost anyone with
a technical bent to follow it with without difficulty. With point-and-click links, every
step can be drilled down deeper and deeper into the labyrinth until axioms will ultimately
found at the bottom. Armchair mathematicians can spend literally days exploring the
complex tangle of logic leading, say, from 2 + 2 = 4 back to the axioms of set theory. The
proof collection includes many famous theorems of elementary set theory. “
Plus (http://pass.maths.org/)
“Mathematics can be fun.” This is the motto of Plus. Its goal is to increase
public awareness of the importance of math in everyday life. The current issue contains
articles on sundials, compound interest (and why it is a good thing), continued fractions
and fractal expressionism.
The Axiom of Choice
(http://math.vanderbilt.edu/~schectex/ccc/choice.html)
“The Axiom of Choice (AC) was formulated about a century ago, and it was
controversial for a few of decades after that; it may be considered the last great
controversy of mathematics. It is now a basic assumption used in many parts of
mathematics. “
Frances Knudson
Return to the Table of Contents
The following new electronic journals have been added to the library collection and are
available from your desktop:
Biology
Immunology and Cell Biology
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/member/institutions/issuelist.asp?journal=icb
Chemistry
Biomacromolecules http://pubs.acs.org/biomac/
Separation and Purification Methods http://www.dekker.com/e/p.pl/0360-2540
Engineering
Instrumentation Science and Technology http://www.dekker.com/e/p.pl/1073-9149
Mechanics of Structures and Machines http://www.dekker.com/e/p.pl/0890-5452
General
Armed Forces and Society
http://www.catchword.com/rpsv/catchword/tranpub/0095327x/contp1-1.htm
Journal of Information Science http://www.ingenta.com/journals/browse/bks/jis/
Mathematics
Annales Henri Poincare http://link.springer-ny.com/link/service/journals/00023/index.htm
Annals of Combinatorics http://link.springer-ny.com/link/service/journals/00026/toc.htm
Physics
Transactions of the Society of Rheology http://ojps.aip.org/joro/
Carol Hoover
Return to the Table of Contents
If you haven't heard of octopus, snippets, dodots, katiesoft, websplit or netcaptor,
get ready for an onslaught of applications that will enable you to turn the web into a new
animal. Called "metabrowsers," these services allow you to see all or part of
multiple Web pages simultaneously on your screen. If you have a collection of sites that
you check frequently -- perhaps several times a day, then you'll want to try one of these
services. Most home pages for these metabrowsers have very good demos, so walk through
them to determine which would be most appropriate for your use.
Quickbrowse.com The simplest of the new services,
you list a batch of addresses for the pages you check regularly and then Quickbrowse
strings them together in a single location for your easy retrieval on what are called
Masterpages. This is so easy to use it will probably slip into our virtual world just the
way Napster did.
Onepage.com Not as simple as Quickbrowse, but it
allows you to choose subsections from pages. This can result in confusing, visually
disorienting pages.
Octopus.com This service still has some glitches, but
you can create a better layout for your page and this can make the information more
useful. You may have a steeper learning curve with Octopus than with other products.
CallTheShots.com Highly praised by Web companies
Red Herring and Jupiter, only a beta version is available at their site. CallTheShots
incorporates favorite pieces from various sites on a single page to decrease download time
and search time while focusing on your personal view.
Katiesoft.com Katiesoft allows you to work
simultaneously on four separate browser windows concurrently, each with its own
navigation. This is a dream application; you can surf several sites at the same time and
have complete control of them!
DoDots.com The name is more fun than the product, which
is limited to the Web sites that have signed up as partners. You download their Dots
software which allows you to collect a set of icons, or “dots”, that are
interactive. This is a product that could grow into a VERY useful service.
If you are a fan of My Yahoo then you are ripe to
investigate some of these promising new applications. Some other services you might look
at: Websplit.com, NetCaptor.com,
Yodlee.com, ezlogin.com, Snippets.com. All of these sites change frequently and
often have only beta applications for you to try.
Donna Berg
Return to the Table of Contents
FindArticles.com
(http://www.findarticles.com/PI/index.jhtml) is a specialized search engine that allows
access to hundreds of thousands of articles from more than 300 magazines and journals,
dating back to 1998. FindArticles.com even brings some print-only publications to the Web
for the first time. The system allows you to search words in article titles, authors, and
article text.
LookSmart entered into an exclusive partnership with the Gale Group, a division of the
Thomson Corporation. The partnership will make business and premium magazine and
periodical content, from a variety of publications ranging from Scientific American to
Rolling Stone, available for free to users who search the LookSmart directory. Once the
Gale collection is added to the LookSmart directory, users will be able to access business
and magazine content for free by searching the Internet through any of LookSmart's 400
partner Web sites.
Lou Pray
Return to the Table of Contents
In a July 27th press release, LookSmart announced that
is has been selected as the exclusive web directory by AltaVista
and will develop a customized directory available to the 65 million AltaVista users.
How would this work? Owners of web sites can submit their sites into the LookSmart
directory through AltaVista and be guaranteed that their site will be reviewed within 48
hours for a one-time fee of $199, and, if approved, included in the directory.
In addition to AltaVista, LookSmart distributes its search and directory to Microsoft,
Netscape Netcenter, Excite@Home, Time Warner Inc., Sony, BT, Road Runner, Prodigy, US
West, NetZero, and 370 other partners. LookSmart's distribution network of partner sites
reaches more than 58 million users -- more than 3 out of 4 Internet users (77 %) -- in the
United States each month.
LookSmart's directory will be fully incorporated into AltaVista in August.
Lou Pray
Return to the Table of Contents
Want 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.
Newsletter home
page | Research Library
L O S A L A M O S N A T I O N A L L A B O R A T O R
Y
Operated by the University of California for the US Department of
Energy
Comments/Questions Copyright � 2000 UC Disclaimer
Last updated: 01 Aug 2000
KV
URL: http://lib-www.lanl.gov/libinfo/news/2000/20008.htm
