Biomedical Engineering Library News

A new SMART Commons opened up in Walter Library over the summer up on the Second Floor of the building.

SMART offers a wide variety of equipment for checkout, including:
• Video Recorders
• Tripods
• Microphones
• External Hard Drives

There are also a wide variety of both popular and academic DVDs and videos available for checkout. And a small group viewing room, available for reservation with a 65-inch plasma screen and Blu-Ray Player.
Along with these items for check out, there are computers loaded with useful software. Including programs such as:
• Adobe Creative Suite
• iPhoto
• iMovie
• Final Cut Express
• Microsoft Office
• And much, much more

There are consultants available to help if you’re using this software for the first time.

To learn more about this great new learning resource or to access their online instructional handouts visit their website at http://www.lib.umn.edu/smart/walter/

Posted by jeffryes at 09:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What better way to start off the semester than getting started with RefWorks?

RefWorks is an online citation management software that the libraries subscribe to, intended to help students, faculty and staff with their research. In this one hour workshop you’ll learn how you can use Refworks to:
• Organize your research
• Store citations and full text copies of articles
• Format bibliographies and in-text citations
• Facilitate group work through easy sharing of citations.

All at no extra cost to you.

The class will be taught be Jan Fransen and myself on Tuesday, September 9, at Walter Library, Room 310 (2:30-3:30). To learn more or register, click here

Posted by jeffryes at 08:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(This image comes from .Bala via Flickr CC)

Welcome back to campus and classes! Good luck with the start of your semester. If you have any questions or need any library assistance, just let me know.

Posted by jeffryes at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Did you notice that MNCat, the library catalog, has been looking a little different lately?

The libraries have upgraded our catalog—we’re calling it MNCat Plus. Here are some new features:
• Google-style Searching
• Real-time Availability Features
• Reviews and Tagging—Add your thoughts
• Easy saving to RefWorks and Del.ci.ous

For more information here’s a link to the campus-wide library blog’s entry on the new features. If you prefer the older version of the catalog, it’s still available (We’re calling it MNCat Classic). If you have any questions or comments, let me or another librarian know.

Posted by jeffryes at 02:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As we come to the beginning of the semester I just wanted to let you know that the libraries are also happy to support your labs and research groups.


(Photo provided by Stacina via Flickr CC)

If you have new students joining your lab or want to provide some skill refreshers for your returning staff, I can offer instructional support in:

• Database searching
• An overview of Google Tools
• RefWorks
• EndNote

If you’re interested in scheduling a session, setting up a series of handouts on different topics, or the creation of tutorials, feel free to get in touch, I’d be happy to help.

Posted by jeffryes at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One more workshop coming up this week at Walter that might be of interest: Research Made Easy: Discover the Web of Knowledge. Tomorrow (Tuesday August 19, 3:30-4:30) Lisa Johnston will be teaching an introductory workshop to this great resource.

If you don’t know, Web of Science is a huge article database that covers a wide variety of science and technology-related topics. It indexes over 8,000 international journals.

In this workshop Lisa will cover:
• Search Strategies
• Getting Articles
• Journal Ranking
• Exporting Citations

If you’re interested, save yourself a seat and register here.

Posted by jeffryes at 09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Next Wednesday (August 20) we’ll be offering another workshop to help get you ready for the upcoming Fall Semester. This workshop is called Google for Researchers and it will be team taught by Lisa Johnston, the Astronomy, Geology,Geophysics and Physics Librarian, and me.

This workshop will quickly go through a variety of Google search tools (Google Scholar, Google Books, etc.) and productivity tools (Google Docs, iGoogle, etc.). We’ll show you how you can use these tools effectively to make your research process flow even smoother.

(image provided by Keso via Flickr CC)

You can expect to learn:
• How to connect Google Scholar to library resources such as our online print subscriptions and RefWorks.
• How to use Google Docs to easily collaborate with colleagues all over the world…for free!
• How to locate physical copies of the books you find search Google Books.
• How to personalize you iGoogle page to maximize it’s efficiency

All that and much, much more. It’s a fast-paced, hands-on workshop that should be a good time.

Once again the date: Wednesday, August 20. 1:00-2:00 Walter 310.

Save yourself a seat--Register here. Email me with any questions.

Posted by jeffryes at 01:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Are you just starting to publish in your field? The Physical Sciences and Engineering Library wants to help. Math Librarian Kris Fowler will be offering a workshop for scholars just starting the publishing process.

(Photo comes from Gonzalo Barrientos via Flickr CC).

In this workshop Kris will discuss:
• Identifying appropriate journals to submit your work to
• Managing your rights when signing publisher contracts

There will be time to share your questions and ideas with other emerging authors on campus.

The workshop will be held Tuesday, August 19 from 2:00-3:00 in Walter 310. Save yourself a seat by registering here
.

Posted by jeffryes at 09:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Monday, August 18 at 2 p.m. Jan Fransen and I will be offering a workshop on getting started with RefWorks. RefWorks is an online citation management system that makes storage and organization of your research more efficient and accessible. Have you ever sat down to start a paper only to realize that the you’ve left your list of important citations back at your apartment? Or have you experienced not being able to remember in what notebook you jotted down that great article you found in Google Scholar last week?

RefWorks can make those problems obsolete. AND it can format your bibliographies and in-text citations in a matter of seconds.

Here’s what Jan and I will be covering:
• Setting up accounts
• Importing Citations
• Organizing Your Research
• Formatting your bibliography and in-text citations
• Collaborating with your colleagues

If you’ve got a free hour next Monday register here for the class. If this class time doesn’t work for you—send me an email or give me a call. I’m happy to meet with you individually to get you set with a RefWorks account as well.

Posted by jeffryes at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let the library’s help! Next week (Thursday, August 24, 9:00-10:15 a.m.) librarian Jody Kempf will be offering a workshop on searching grant databases to locate sources of funding for your research projects. Knowledge of these resources will help you throughout your academic and post-academic career.

(image provided by Yersinia via Flickr CC)

Jody will give demonstrations and searching hints for the following resources:
Community of Science (COS)
Sponsored Program Information Network (SPIN)
Illinois Researcher Information Service (IRIS)
Foundation Directory Online

You will also learn how to set up alerts to get notifications of funding opportunities sent directly to your email account.

If you’re interested you can register for the class here: http://www.lib.umn.edu/registration/

Posted by jeffryes at 09:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In two weeks (August 21) we’ll be offering an introductory EndNote workshop at the Science and Engineering Library. The workshop will cover the fundamentals of EndNote. Topics that we’ll cover are:

1.) Setting up a library
2.) Customizing your library
3.) Adding citations
4.) Formatting a bibliography and in-text citations
5.) Using EndNote Web when you’re away from your computer
6.) The new features of version X2

If you’re just starting to use EndNote and you think this workshop would be helpful, please feel free to sign up here.

Coming up in October (October 2nd) we’ll have an instructor from EndNote visiting campus to give a Question and Answer session on more advanced EndNote topics.

If you have questions about the upcoming workshop please let me know. If you have a pressing EndNote question, EndNote’s website offers great customer support.

Posted by jeffryes at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just put together Course Lib pages for all of the course being offered by the Biomedical Engineering Department for the Fall 2008 semester. On these pages I tried to match students with relevant library resources for their classes. Resources such as article databases, the library catalog, and online reference materials.

(example Course Lib Page)

The pages can be found at http://courses.lib.umn.edu/. Each course’s page has its own url that you can link to, bookmark, or include on handouts. If you’re offering or taking a course and you don’t see a page, let me know and I can make one (I tried to be thorough, but a class or two may have missed my notice).

Also if you’re using a page and have suggestions for additions just let me know…these pages are easy to update.

Posted by jeffryes at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Next Wednesday, I’ll be co-teaching a workshop on RefWorks. RefWorks is a citation management software which you can use for free if you’re affiliated with UMN-TC. Some of the things you can do with RefWorks include:
• Store and organize your citations
• Import citations directly from most databases into your personal account
• Generate formatted bibliographies in seconds
• Format in-text citations in your research papers
• Attach electronic copies of the articles to the citations you’re storing

If this software sounds like it might be useful to you, then you can register for the class here: http://www.lib.umn.edu/registration/#eventidXX75

The workshop will meet from 1:00-2:00 Wednesday, July 23, in Walter 310. If you can’t make it to the workshop, and are interested in learning more, feel free to send me an email and I’d be happy to discuss RefWorks with you one-on-one.

Posted by jeffryes at 03:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The library recently purchased access to a new electronic reference book, SAGE Sourcebook of Modern Biomedical Devices: Business Environments in a Global Market . A print version lives at Wilson Library (HD9999.B442 S24 2007) but now you can access the material remotely as well.

The book states that it "covers an important area of the commercial performance of major existing biomedical devices in today's global markets." You can search by keyword or browse by thematic categories.

Posted by jeffryes at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Are you using Scitopia? Scitopia is an Internet search engine that searches the research of 21 professional and academic societies in the hard sciences. Societies such as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the Society of Automotive Engineers allow their material to be searched using this search engine. So instead of wading through the millions of results you might find in a generic search engine, you can limit your search to only retrieve information provided by your colleagues in the field.

Scitopia is a free search engine--you don’t have to be affiliated with the university to search it. Some of the results will have links to full text. If full text isn’t available and you're affiliated with UMN, get in touch with me or another librarian and we can help you get access to the document you need.

Posted by jeffryes at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)