Springer Materials Free Trial

Now till Oct 29th, the library has trial access to the Springer Materials, the world's largest resource for physical & chemical data in materials science.

The details:

• Based on Landolt-Börnstein, the unique and top-quality data collection in all areas of physical sciences and engineering
• Includes 165,000 substances and material systems, 3,000 properties and 1,000,000 literature citations.
• User friendly one-stop web platform
• International experts scan the primary literature in more than 1000 peer-reviewed journals and evaluate and pre-select the most reliable and scientifically acknowledged data.
• Researchers save time as they do not need to scan and assess primary literature themselves.

The link:

http://ezproxy.stevens.edu/login?url=http://www.springermaterials.com/navigation/index.html

-OR-

Find it on our Online Resource List

DON'T PANIC

Because we know there's a lot of information (and mis-information) making the rounds out there, we thought we'd provide some links to quality, reliable resources on the H1N1 (swine flu) virus.

First off, two quick posts which provide some clarification about the virus and the current situation:

• What is Swine Flu? How Does an Animal Disease Spread to a Human Host? (via Geeks are Sexy)
• Swine Flu Q & A (via BoingBoing)

For official and scholarly information on the topic, check out:

• The Center for Disease Control's H1N1 Flu page: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/
• Medline Plus's Swine Flu page: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/swineflu.html
• DynaMed's Swine Flu topic collection: http://www.ebscohost.com/dynamed/swineflu/

For even more information, try Dalhousie University's public health subject guide (or you can look at a list of subject guides on this topic here.)

Hope that helps! Be safe, and just remember, wash your hands and stay home when you're sick and we'll be OK.

Source of the Week

'Source of the Week' is back! And what prompted us to revive the weekly feature where we highlight a report or article that focuses on science and/or technology? Why the Interagency Working Group on Digital Data of the National Science and Technology Council’s Committee on Science, of course!

Anyway.... The above-mentioned, lengthy-named agency just released a report on curating digital science data, called "Harnessing the Power of Digital Data for Science and Society" (60 pages; pdf). From the abstract:

"The Interagency Working Group on Digital Data of the National Science and Technology Council’s Committee on Science has released a report describing a strategy to promote preservation and access to digital scientific data.

The report lays out a strategic vision for “a digital scientific data universe in which data creation, collection, documentation, analysis, preservation, and dissemination can be appropriately, reliably, and readily managed, thereby enhancing the return on our nation’s research and development investment by ensuring that digital data realize their full potential as catalysts for progress in our global information society.”

The report includes three key recommendations to pursue this vision. The first is to create an Interagency Subcommittee under NSTC that will focus on goals that are best addressed through continuing broad cooperation and coordination across agencies. The second key element of the strategic framework is for departments and agencies to lay the foundations for agency digital scientific data policy and make the policy publicly available. In laying these foundations, agencies should consider all components of a comprehensive policy to address the full data management life cycle. The third key element is for all agencies to promote a data management planning process for projects that generate scientific data for preservation." Read more...>>

(Source: ReferenceShelf)