Search

Topic development and focus are relatively neglected areas of the student research process. This study examined how students in a freshman engineering writing class developed initial research paper...

Students in Organic Chemistry for Majors were required to write a paper as the culminating course assignment. Prior to completing this assignment, students could attend a library instruction session covering relevant databases and resources. Upon submission of their papers, bibliographies from 53 students were collected. Calculations were made to attempt a holistic account of costs associated with completing the assignment. Factors such as the cost of journals, databases, and librarian time were all included in the overall cost estimate, totalling $7,189.22 for this single assignment.

Technological advances in tea production are critical to meet global demands for tea consumption. To illuminate differences in the scientific and commercial relevance of research programs between major tea-related research organizations around the world, we conducted a bibliometric analysis comparing the scientific outputs, including peer-reviewed publications and patents, of six major research organizations published between January 01, 2008 and July 11, 2020. For this competitive ranking analysis, we examined a number of papers, research topics, academic influence, capacity for development, capacity for collaboration, and capacity for technological innovation. Among the six research organizations, Anhui Agricultural University (in China) had the most publications, while the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Tea Research Institute showed a higher capacity for development. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (in India) and the University of Shizuoka (Japan) both showed high academic influence, while the University of Shizuoka, Tea Research Association Tocklai and National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (Japan) showed a high capacity for collaboration. The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Tea Research Institute applied for the most patents, while the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research applied for the most international patents.

The potential intrinsic to electronic publishing provides conference conveners with the opportunity to position the papers presented to greater advantage of both authors and readers. Unfortunately, conference papers are being increasingly published in the most expensive vehicle, the formal peer-reviewed journal. This circumstance is counter-productive to the legitimate role of conference papers in scholarly communication. The experience at Caltech in electronically publishing the proceedings of an international conference shows that conference papers can be more effectively published online at significantly less cost thus increasing dissemination and access

Chemical lecture demonstrations have been used as a pedagogical tool since at least the founding of chemistry as a discipline in the 1600s. This paper describes how science librarians can engage ch...

Evidence-based librarianship drives initiatives and priorities in today’s research centers. To evaluate the effectiveness of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Library’s Editing Service, librarians conducted a pilot study comparing edited manuscripts with the published versions. Using a random number generator, five published journal articles were chosen for evaluation from a pool of NIH manuscripts (n = 147) edited between January 2008 and February 2012. A rubric delineating categories of frequently checked writing elements was used to facilitate quantitative analysis. Findings showed that 84 percent of editors’ suggestions were accepted for three of the published papers that were submitted to the originally intended journal.

Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) are among the most ubiquitous and successful creatures on earth. They are the subject of research by ant biologists worldwide, and with over 8,800 identified species, access to quality information is important for those researchers. AntWiki (http://www.antwiki.org/) was created originally as an online listing of all ant taxonomists and their papers, and librarians have assisted the project by finding, scanning, and uploading articles and contributing to a page on Human Culture and Ants.

Corrections, errata, and corrigenda have played a vital role in maintaining the integrity of the scholarly journal record. Being cognizant of these corrections has always been a challenge for researchers and their management a bane to librarians. Identification of corrections has been made easier with the indexing of corrections by a few commercial databases and more recently by some publishers linking corrections to articles on their e-journal platforms. Few studies have examined the nature of these corrections, especially outside of the biomedical literature where article retraction has been the primary focus. This paper quantifies and qualifies the nature of corrections within the field of chemistry and compares the effectiveness of Scopus and Web of Science in locating corrections within scholarly journals. The study found that the correction rate averaged about 1.4 percent for the journals examined. While there were numerous types of corrections, chemical structures, omission of relevant references, ...

SUMMARY This article examines the potential changes to the information-seeking behavior of scholars and how they manage their own collection of research article “reprints.” With bibliographic databases and electronic journals provided by academic libraries now available at the science scholars' computer desktops, they can now locate and acquire a portion of needed research articles on their own at any time. They also, in some cases, have older paper copies scanned and delivered by libraries as image files at Web retrieval locations. Bibliographic citation management software is now in use by many scholars. Personal information management software is available and could also be used. This article reviews possible scenarios scholars can use to manage this new electronic collection of research articles and possible ways libraries can help them in this scholarly activity.

Innovations in scholarly communication have resulted in changing roles for authors, publishers and libraries. Traditional roles are disappearing and players are actively seeking or reluctantly assuming new roles. Library roles are changing as they become involved in building and indexing electronic (e-) repositories and support new modes of e-research. A library-run service, the SPIRES particle physics databases, has not only weathered, but also lead, many of the transitions that have shaped the landscape of epublishing and e-research. This has been possible through an intense and in-depth partnership with its user community. The strategies used and lessons learned can help other libraries craft cost-effective roles in this new environment., 17 Pages, Invited paper to be published in Science & Technology Libraries