Geosciences Subject Guide

Now that we have a new major, we needed a new subject guide. The Geosciences subject guide is available by clicking here or going to the library home page and clicking on Subject Guides. The guide is designed to give majors a place to start their research and includes pertinent encyclopedias, dictionaries, databases, and Web sites. Please let me know if there are additions you would like to see.

Lecture on Obama's climate policy

An announcement from Professor Gaskill...

Speaker: David W. Orr, PhD, Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics, Oberlin College

Title: Some Like it Hot... Lots More Don't: Climate Policy with the Obama Administration

Location: Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, Sarasota, FL, Activity Center Great Room

Date: January 24, 2009 3 pm, reception following lecture.

Ticket Price: Member: $25 Non-Member: $30

Special Offer for Eckerd College Faculty and Students: $10

2009-Year of Science begins

It is officially the Year of Science, and if you have not checked out the Web site yet, take a few moments to see what's happening locally and virtually at http://www.yearofscience2009.org/home/. For example, our own governor Charlie Crist was the first in the nation to issue a proclamation on the Year of Science. Other interesting sections in the Web site include statements on the importance of scientist from scientists, reporters, teachers, authors, and presidents.

Some local events coming up are as follows:

• Jan 30: Carbon Neutral: Teaming Up to Make a Difference For Our Climate Mark Van Soestbergen, International Carbon Bank and Exchange, Inc.
• Feb 12: Darwin: His Enduring Legacy in an Age of Ecological Crisis, H. Bruce Rinker, Ph.D., Director Environmental Lands Division

St. Petersburg participants include the following:

• U. S. Geological Survey-Florida Integrated Science Center
• Science Center of Pinellas County
• University of South Florida College of Marine Science
• Suncoast Earth Force

Search multiple databases from DOE

Science Accelerator is a federated search engine for the U.S. Department of Energy's science and technical information. Using Science Accelerator, users can search Research & Development reports, e-prints, conference proceedings, patents, and Web sites. Using a basic search or an advanced search, users can access primarily full text information. In addition, Science Accelerator has a number of features usually found in subscription databases, such as the ability to download results to bibliographic citation software, automatic spell-checking, and topic clustering to assist in narrowing your search. Basic searches in various topics yielded results in energy, environment, computing, physics, geology, chemistry, and marine science.

Web resources for science topics

A consortium of seven UK universities has put together Intute, which is a collection of vetted, educational Internet resources in many topics. There are many useful resources to be explored for science students. Subject booklets have been created in Science and Technology and Health and Life Sciences. Each booklet contains an annotated bibliography of web resources.

In the Science and Technology section, the following booklets are available:

• Internet resources for environmental science
• Internet resources for materials engineering
• Internet resources for environmental engineering
• Internet resources for physics
• Internet resources for chemistry
• Internet resources for computing

In the Health and Life Sciences section, the following booklets are available:

• Internet resources for biological sciences
• Internet resources for pregnancy and childbirth
• Internet resources for animal health
• Internet resources for physiotherapy and orthopaedics
• Internet resources for agriculture, food and forestry
• Internet resources for healthcare and medicine

Many of the resources are international or British organizations, which may help expand your personal favorite sites list beyond the United States.

Another valuable resource at Intute is the Virtual Training Suite. The VTS offers tutorials on conducting research on the Internet in a number of different scientific, social science and humanities disciplines. First the tutorials give you a "tour" of the best available. As you read about sites, you can add the ones that interest you to your own "basket."Next there is a research section that offers information on finding and evaluating sites. Finally you can read success stories on how others use the Internet effectively. At the end you can add the links you collected in your basket to your favorites, or you can email or print them off.

Scifinder Scholar accessible on the Web

Happy New Year and welcome back for Winter Term!


I know many students and faculty are experiencing Winter Term off campus. I was going to wait until Spring semester for this announcement, but I am too excited. Plus, as most of you know, I will be having a baby around the start of Spring Semester, and I did not want you to miss this news.

Scifinder Scholar has migrated to its Web platform for Eckerd College. This means you do not have to access Scifinder Scholar via the desktop platform, which is only available in the library and the chemistry lab.

The new Scifinder Scholar interface is available through the library web page in the database list and on some of the science subject guides:

• A to Z Database List
• Biology
• Chemistry

To use the new interface, you have to establish an account with Scifinder Scholar. This will be a free account, and it will only accept your Eckerd email. To sign up, click here. Once you have an account, you can log in to use the database.

Not only is the platform different, but so is the search interface. I think many of you will find it similar to other databases you may use, such as Web of Science. Web training, how-to guides, and strategies for new search interface are available from CAS.

Note that while the access point has changed, our access limits are still in place. We share 2 seats among 3 colleges. Therefore, you may encounter times when you cannot enter the database. Try again later. For this reason, I also urge you to log out when you are finished so you are not blocking another user. (You will be logged out automatically if you leave the interface idle for too long.)

UPDATE: Jan 20. I have learned that you cannot register for Scifinder Scholar off campus, and at this time, you also cannot access the web version off campus. However, the latter issue is being worked on by our It department. Soon you should be able to access the Web interface from off campus AFTER you register on campus.