Current Awareness and
Professional Aids
For Science Librarians
General Internet Links of Interest
Journal Routings for
Science Librarians
Librarians at ISU can sign up to have newly-arrived issues
of journals routed to them. Most librarians have 5-10 individual titles routed to
them regularly. The following is a composite listing of the titles currently
being routed to science librarians at ISU.
Against the Grain
American Libraries
Change
Choice
Collection
Management
College &
Research Libraries
College & Research
Libraries News
Computers in
Libraries
Cyberskeptic’s Guide to Internet Research
Econtent
Emedia
IFLA journal
Information Bulletin
– Western Association of Map Libraries
Information Science
& Technology Abstracts
Information
Technology and Libraries
Information Today
Journal of the
American Society for Information Science and Technology
Journal of the
Medical Library Association
Libraries &
Culture
Library &
Information Update
Library Journal
Library Quarterly
Library Trends
Online
Publishers Weekly
Quarterly Bulletin
of the International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists
Reference & User
Services Quarterly
Reference Librarian
Reference Services
Review
Science &
Technology Libraries
Science News
Serials Librarian
Journal
Table of Contents & Alerting Services
Many journal publishers offer researchers the ability to
be notified when something of interest has been either published or added to a
database. These can be things on a
specific topic(s) or from a specific journal(s) and are usually referred to as
“saved searches” or “alert services.”
Definitions and terminology vary from one publisher to another, as does
the frequency of the notifications.
The ISU Library currently has a page of
instructions for setting up alerts in major scientific databases and
journals. In other libraries, it will
vary immensely depending on which journals a given library subscribes to and
which software interfaces are available…but, in general, there are 2 ways to
locate instructions:
1) Go to the homepage for your local library. Log into whichever database/journal is of
interest to you – e.g., Library Literature or The Reference Librarian. Once the database or
journal page has loaded, look for a HELP or INFO button. Instructions for saved search or alert
services are usually provided as part of the help screens; however, keep in
mind that these services are not available for all databases.
2) Go to the journal publisher homepage (a search of the journal name
on Google should quickly identify their location). Look for a link labeled “journals” or
“electronic journals.” Once you get to
the main journals page, look for links labeled “alerts” or “my account” and
follow directions for setting up these services with that particular
publisher. Most publishers will provide alerts free
to anyone, even if your local library does not have a subscription to the
journal, but it usually requires a registration process because they
will need to have your email address and preferences on file.
Some electronic
journal publishers likely to be of interest to librarians include:
American Library Association – Products &
Publications section
Electronic Journals
Issues in
Science & Technology Librarianship
Sci-Tech Library Newsletter (from Stephanie Bianchi at the NSF – a great way to keep up on new
Sci-Tech Internet sites and free e-books. The
annual Christmas and Halloween editions cover links to science-related sites
dealing with these 2 holidays – quite humorous.)
SciCentral
Gateway (science news)
Professional Organizations for
Science Librarians
American Chemical Society has a Chemical
Information Division
American Library Association (
Association of College &
Research Libraries (ACRL – a subsection of
Within ACRL – there is also a Science
& Technology Section (STS) –
Atmospheric Science Librarians
International
Engineering Libraries Division of
ASEE
Geoscience Information Society
Iowa Library Association
(ILA)
ILA also has an ACRL chapter
for
and a Health
Sciences Subdivision
Medical Library Association (MLA)
MLA also
has a Midwest chapter
Special Libraries Association (
Environment & Resource
Management
Materials Research & Manufacturing
Pharmaceutical & Health Technology
USAIN –
There are also a number of organizations dealing with more
specialized aspects of librarianship such as Information Literacy,
Bibliographic Instruction, Collection Development, Reference, Serials,
Cataloging, etc. Consult the Library Associations
page from the Internet Library for Librarians for additional organizations.
Listservs
LIBREF-L
(listserv for reference librarians)
STS-L
(listserv for SciTech librarians)
Blogs
Confessions of a
Science Librarian
The Information Literacy Land of Confusion
It’s
a Blogs World (a basic introduction to blogs for librarians)
The Kept-Up Academic Librarian –
Helping Academic Librarians “Keep Up” With News and Developments in Higher
Education
LISNews
– Librarian and Information Science News
Weblogs:
Their Use and Application in Science and Technology Libraries (by Randy Reichardt and Geoffrey Harder)
To identify additional weblogs of interest, consult Library Weblogs
RSS
ABCs
of RSS – (by Gerry McKiernan) a PowerPoint presentation
Getting
Started with RSS: The Fifteen-Minute Tutorial - If RSS hasn't made sense yet, Karen Schneider's directions will
"get you from baffled to 'ah hah' in less than fifteen minutes."
LISfeeds.com – list
of some of the most popular library-related RSS feeds
RSS
and News Aggregators: What do you really
need to know to keep up? (By Steven
J. Bell – speaks against librarians needing to use RSS to “keep up”)
RSS
for Non-Techie Librarians (by Steven M. Cohen)
RSS: Less Hype, More Action (by Roddy MacLeod – gives good general overview & ideas for
exploiting the potential of RSS)
For a good example of RSS feeds in action – check out the Hennepin County Library RSS
offerings. Their option to get RSS
feeds from new content added to their subject guides is particularly nifty.
Things to Watch & Know
Alternative methods
of peer review:
o
Arms, William Y. What
are the Alternatives to Peer Review?, Journal of Electronic Publishing, August 2002.
o
Harnad, Stevan. The Invisible Hand of
Peer Review, Exploit Interactive,
issue 5, April 2000.
Copyright and Fair
Use:
o
Overview
– from Stanford University Libraries website on Copyright and Fair Use
o
Copyright Tutorial from the Crash
Course in Copyright at UT-Austin
Crisis
in Scientific Publishing – includes sections on Faculty Comments, Proposals
for Change, Non-Profit and Scholarly Ventures, Open Access, Peer Review,
Promotion and Tenure Impact, and the Big Deal.
Digital Millennium
Copyright Act:
o
Overview – from UCLA
o
Association
of Research Libraries info page on DMCA
Text messaging use
in reference services:
o
TXTing Librarians @ Curtin – excellent overview of text
messaging and how to set up a text messaging service for reference questions
The Up-to-Date
Techie Librarian: Six Resources Every
Techie Librarian Should Use – from Tame the Web (a blog), January 24, 2005
The USA
Patriot Act in the Library
Twelve Techie
Things for Librarians 2005 – from Tame the Web (a blog), January 12, 2005.
Keeping
Up
Vine, Rita.
2004. “Staying up to
date in the ever-changing Web search world: refine your Web-searching
skills.” Information Outlook, vol. 8, no. 3, p. 30-34.
General Internet Links of
Interest
All that JAS: Journal
Abbreviation Sources
CISTI – large Canadian
scientific library – many of their materials are not listed in OCLC – useful
for conference proceedings verification if not on WorldCat
Internet
Library for Librarians
Library
Anecdotes, Facetiae, Satire, Etc.
Linda Hall Library – large science library
in
Openly Jake (allows
you to search by journal abbreviation)
Pinakes - a subject guide launch pad
Refdesk.com – has
some annoying pop-up ads but also has a very handy search feature and lots of
great links for general facts and news
STS
Continuing Education on the Web – database training guides and professional
education tools
Those
Dark Hiding Places: The Invisible Web Revealed
Last
updated: March 5, 2006 
Created on: June 2004
Links last checked: June 17, 2007
©2007, Lorrie Pellack - Send questions or comments about this page