Pulse

The Swansea Science Café offers opportunities for anyone to find out more about new, exciting and topical areas of science. Designed to be informal and entertaining, the café typically runs on the last Wednesday of every month at the Dylan Thomas Centre. Entry is free and talks start at 7:30pm.For future events see http://www.sciencecafewales.org/ 

Leatherback turtles in northern European waters: current patterns and prospects with climate changeProf Graeme Hays,Swansea UniversityWednesday, 30^th April at 7:30pm Dylan Thomas Centre

We now have electronic access to the following journal:  

Journal of Tropical Ecology.1998 Vol. 14(1) onwards. 

Thanks, 

Andrea. 

Andrea Bater

Information Systems Assistant

Library & Information Services

Swansea University

Singleton Park
Swansea SA2 8PP Tel  01792 602753Fax 01792 295851 Email a.bater@swansea.ac.uk 

Libraries Unleashed is an eight-page supplement in The Guardian (April 22nd, 2008) looking at the changing nature of academic libraries. In particular, there are several comments about the Google Generation of students (born in or after 1993).

“But while many are proficient with Facebook and Wikipedia, they may not be information-literate. Many lack the skills to differentiate between authoritative information and amateur blogging.”

“Their ease with computers and technology hides the reality of their information literacy skills: lacking analytical, effective search strategies, they rely on simple solutions for their study needs - parking their critical faculties.”

“They rely heavily on search engines, view rather than read, and lack the critical and analytical skills to assess information they find online.”

Libraries Unleashed is also available online:

http://education.guardian.co.uk/librariesunleashed

ADVANCE NOTICE   –  RSC WEBSITE SERVICE DISRUPTION

The RSC website at http://www.rsc.org will be unavailable as detailed below:  Access to all content is likely to be affected as follows

Monday 28^th April – Journals search will be unavailable all day 9:00 – 18:00 (The website and all journals articles will be available) 

Tuesday 6^th May – Website unavailable from 10:00am – 18:00, FTP & AutoPDF will also be unavailable from 9:00 – 18:00. 

Monday 12^th May – Website Unavailable from 09.00am to 3.00pm. The RSC apologises for any inconvenience this may cause. 

********************************************************************************************************* 

RSC Sales & Customer Care TeamRoyal Society of Chemistry,
Cambridge, UKEmail: usagestatistics@rsc.org

FREE Online Books24×7 Trial until the end of April 2008.
  

Welsh Networking Limited (WNL) currently supplies the University with many online ICT and business eLearning courses and are currently considering adding the Books24×7 offering from ITPro to the services provided. WNL has negotiated a short trial period (until the end of April 2008) to evaluate the Books24×7 offering, and would be very grateful if staff at Swansea University were willing to assist us in assessing the level of interest in this service.Dubbed as ”the ultimate productivity solution for technology professionals” the ITPro solution delivers online the full contents of thousands of books and everything is searchable - great for instant self-directed learning, reference and assistance.  Use a carefully designed search term and you’ll get exactly the answers you want from the very latest books.

Recently added titles include: 

• Windows Vista Step by Step Deluxe Edition © 2008
• 2007 Microsoft Office System Plain & Simple  
• Photoshop CS3 Bible

ICT end-user feedback includes:An extensive list of hits - very easy to access and use.  Very useful and would save an absolute fortune. Feedback from the Head of Systems at Swansea University:

It looks very comprehensive – as mentioned it’s missing the O’Reilly books (not surprisingly) but does include all the useful Novell and Microsoft ones.   

How to Access the books

1.  Use your web-browser to visit http://www.books24×7.com/gatekeeper.asp?site=LKAHS

2.  Insert the details requested.

3.  Wait for the email  response that will give you instant access.

Your participation in this pilot  would be very helpful in assessing whether WNL goes ahead in providing this service. Taking a look at the titles available should not take you much time and may also prove to be extremely useful! 

Request for Feedback

If you  have any comments with the trial please send feedback to me by 1 May 2008.  I shall co-ordinate the feedback and inform you of the outcome of the pilot and of opportunities that result from this.

Many thanks,

Chris

——————————————
Chris Price 
Library & Information Services
Swansea University
Singleton Park
Swansea
SA2 8PP
email: c.a.price@swansea.ac.uk
phone: 01792 513690
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The latest quarterly update to the Beilstein database, 2008/01, has now been loaded on the Mimas CrossFire server.Statistics for the new Beilstein database are as follows:Number of compounds: 10,311,643

IMPORTANT - Cylinder labels - potential risk - immediate action required

I am writing to inform you that our quality and assurance procedures have identified a potential problem with a small number of our large Oxygen cylinders. This issue concerns Oxygen ‘W’ size cylinders filled by BOC between February 25th and 8th April 2008. A small number of recently refurbished ‘W’ size Oxygen cylinders may have been incorrectly labelled as Nitrogen (Oxygen Free). All BOC Oxygen cylinders which may have been supplied by BOC directly, or via a third-party, must be checked immediately to ensure they are labelled correctly. You can do this by checking the following: Oxygen cylinder: White shoulder, with black body - must have an ‘OXYGEN’labelIn line with European standard (EN 1089-3), BOC are progressively changing the colour of cylinders.Note: Any ‘Oxygen’ cylinders not yet carrying the new colour (white shoulder for Oxygen) will be entirely black and carry the ‘OXYGEN’label. These cylinders do not require checking. For completeness, please also perform immediate checks on Nitrogen cylinders. You can do this by checking the following: Nitrogen cylinder: Black shoulder, grey body - must have a ‘NITROGEN (OXYGEN FREE)’ label. Under no circumstances should any incorrectly labelled cylinders be used. If you have any doubts about the cylinder, do not use it. What you should do1. Immediately check both Oxygen and Nitrogen (Oxygen Free) cylinders - as detailed above2. Identify any cylinders that are incorrectly labelled3. Quarantine incorrectly labelled cylinders4. Contact BOC’s Customer Service Centre on 0800 111 333 and then press 3 to talk to our enquiries team to arrange collection and replacement If you have any questions please contact the BOC Customer Service Centre on 0800 111 333, then press 3 to talk to our enquiries team. We believe that the risk of cylinders being incorrectly labelled is small,however safety is our highest priority which is why this communication is necessary. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause you. Yours sincerely, Steve Thompson Business Manager - Gases Graham Jones CEng CMIOSH
Health & Safety Officer / Swyddog Iechyd a DiogelwchSwansea
University / Prifysgol AbertaweSingleton
Park / Parc Singleton

Swansea / Abertawe
SA2 8PP
Phone / Ffon: 01792 295631
Email / E-bost: g.w.jones@swan.ac.uk

SWANSEA UNIVERSITY

ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH COORDINATION GROUP

Invitation to an Open Forum

on Environmental Research

Friday, 18^th April 2008, commencing 10-30 am

Lecture Theatre

Civil & Computational Research Centre

School of Engineering

Aims

The Open Forum will provide an opportunity for researchers engaged in all aspects of environmental research (business, engineering, health, law, science, etc) to discuss University-wide coordination and out-reach proposals, which have the aims of creating research synergies, expanding the University’s research profile in the environmental theme and establishing better support for academic and related research staff.

Programme

10-30 hrs        Welcome and Introduction by Professor Mike Sullivan, Chair of the University’s Environmental Research Coordination Group.

10-45 hrs        The University’s developing research strategy by Professor Nigel Weatherill, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research).

11-00 hrs        Presentations by Schools on their environmental research activities, visions and perspectives.

12-00 hrs        Open discussion.

12-30 hrs        Close

The catalogues of the Natural History Museum and the Royal Academy of Music have been loaded onto Copac, the free access national, academic & special library catalogue:http://copac.ac.uk/.The Natural History Museum is a reference library for biology, zoology and earth sciences including resources on ecology, biodiversity, molecular biology, taxonomy and the history of science. The catalogue included on Copac contains monographs and serials acquired since 1989 and approximately 80% of earlier items.The Royal Academy of Music library contains over 125,000 items including considerable collections of early printed and manuscript materials. The holdings include valuable items such as a partly-holograph manuscript of Purcell’s Fairy Queen. The special collections include a Sir Arthur Sullivan archive, a Sir Henry Wood archive, the Robert Spencer collection of early English song and music for lute and guitar and the Foyle Menuhin archive.These catalogues have been added to Copac as part of the Challenge Fund project supported by CURL, the BL and the RIN.

You might like to know (if you don’t already) that online access to this publication is now available from 1994 to the current issue both on and off campus. The online content appears to exactly match the coverage of the print version and is available on the website on the day of publication.http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/

Paul Reynolds***********************************