Friday, June 30, 2006

New Book in Manoa

Annual review of earth and planetary sciences
REF QE 1 A674 Vol 34 2006

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Finding Citations - Web of Science

For those who need to look for citation counts for authors, here is a quick handy guide for using Web of Science.

This guide also appears on the IfA Library Website in the FAQs page.


Hamilton Library subscribes to Web of Science, which is "a multidisciplinary index covering the journal literature of the sciences (Science Citation Index Expanded) as well as both the Social Sciences Citation Index and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index. Approximately 70% of the records have author abstracts. Online coverage from 1980 to present."

To access Web of Science, click here or go to the IfA Library homepage. Under Quik Info, go to Bibliographic Indexes and scroll down to Web of Science. This will take you to Hamilton's Electronic Resources Gateway access to electronic journals and databases.

After clicking on "Web of Science" you will need to log in as you would for electronic journals (login with your UHM ID barcode and last name OR your email@hawaii.edu account note: not your IfA email).

Near the top of the page are three boxes. Click on the "Cited Ref Search" box. At the search page, choose the databases you wish to search and the timespan. Below that are "Cited Author", "Cited Work", and "Cited Year(s)" search boxes. NOTE: Cited Work is not consistent, so this search parameter does not work very well.

You can also limit the year of publication in the "Cited Year(s)" box.

Follow the examples given for each search parameter (e.g. putting an author's entire first name hampers results. Use only the first initial).

Results will be a list of the author's work by publication (for common surnames, the list may be exceptionally long). Check all that apply and be sure to check all pages.

Click the "Finish Search" button near the top.

The results are the citations of articles that had included the "cited author" in their bibliographies. Reverse chronology is the default.

Select the records you want by checking their boxes to the left. In the Output Records box on the right, select by record number and email the results, save or print them.

For a large number of records, you can select all, email them, and dump them into EndNote or other software for easy control, sorting, etc.


Should you have any questions, comments, tips to pass on, etc., in using this resource please don't hesitate to contact the librarians.



And as always, don't forget to visit the FAQs page for questions about other IfA library resources! It is ever-evolving, so if you have a question that's not listed, let us know!

Monday, June 19, 2006

New Books in Manoa

Atlas of the world, Deluxe edition
REF G 1021 .G4125 2005 ATL/CAT Folio

Atlas of North America
De Blij, Harm J.
REF G 1105 .A8 2005 ATL/CAT Folio


IAU Symposia:

230. Populations of high energy sources in galaxies
Meurs, E. J. A.
REF IAU Symp. 230

232. The scientific requirements for extremely large telescopes
Whitelock, P. A.
REF IAU Symp. 232

Monday, June 12, 2006

New Book in Manoa

IAU Colloquium:
200. Direct imaging of exoplanets : science and techniques
QB 820 .D5 A5 2005

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Astronomische Nachrichten (AN)

Via a UHM Hamilton Library license, we now have an electronic subscription to Astronomische Nachrichten covering v.320 no. 1 (1999: Mar) to the present.

Founded in 1821, Astronomische Nachrichten – Astronomical Notes (AN), bills itself as the oldest astronomical journal in the world. AN is peer reviewed and has short publication times of about 18 weeks, offering cutting edge research. The current issue contains the proceedings of the international conference The origin and evolution of cosmic magnetism, held in Bologna (Italy) from August 29 to September 2, 2005. Included are articles on SKA, CMB and galactic disks.

ADS provides access to the archival full text of v.1-319 (1823-10/1998).

IfA Library’s JOURNALS web page has quick links to AN and most astronomy journals. If you have trouble accessing titles via the Full Text links, contact IfA Library for assistance.

Fudging the impact factor

A journal’s impact factor can have an economic effect on its future. Libraries regularly use impact factors in cancellation projects during tight budgets. The impact factor is also used in hiring and tenure decisions.

Reports of abuses by journals seeking to boost their factors are not new, see:

“The Number that's Devouring Science,” by Monastersky in the 10/14/2005 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education (vol. 52, no. 8, pA12-A17)[UHM login required- if you have difficulties with this contact IfA Library]

But an item in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, “
Science Journals Artfully Try To Boost Their Rankings,” spotlights this problem.

The impact factor sometimes seems like a robust neutral measure. But, in addition to weighting quantity over quality, it’s not an objective measure that can be used with uncritical confidence.