Research Infrastructure

Library and Information Center

Rowland Institute at Harvard
Library News & Notes
September 10, 2004

Internet Sites of the Week

Browsers That Aren’t Browsers
An O’Reilly network article reviews several Mac applications that function like a web browser or in conjunction with browsers or other apps and enable one to save and edit web pages, make browsers run in the background or transparently, even advice on how to build your own browser.
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/09/07/browsers.html

eBrary
eBrary is a searchable collection of electronic books from a wide range of academic and technical publishers including Cambridge, Oxford, Kluwer, the National Academies and others. Over 1500 science titles are included (187 in physics). A free reader is available for download and you can create an account and build your own library of titles from the eBrary selection.
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:ebraryxx
(Source: Harvard Libraries)

Enhanced Public Access to NIH Research Information
The NIH released a draft of a proposal to give open access to NIH-funded research.
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-04-064.html
“Six months after an NIH supported research study’s publication—or sooner if the publisher agrees—the manuscript will be made available freely to the public through PMC.”
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov
See also a Washington Post article which includes comments from scientists, publishers and other stakeholders:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64389-2004Sep5.html
Note: The U.S. House recently approved a bill which included a directive for the NIH to enable broader research results dissemination. See
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?&db_id=cp
108&r_n=hr636.108&sel=TOC_338641&
and http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:h.r.05006:
(Source: Open Access News)

Federal R&D Project Summaries
This site is a gateway to six databases of federally-funded research projects, including those of the NSF, DOE and NIH.
http://www.osti.gov/fedrnd/
(Source: The Virtual Chase)

Rethinking Scholarly Communication: Building the System That Scholars Deserve
Excerpt: “Improvements in computing and network technologies, digital data capture techniques, and powerful data mining techniques enable research practices that are highly collaborative, network-based, and data-intensive. These dramatic changes in the nature of scholarly research require corresponding fundamental changes in scholarly communication. Scholars deserve an innately digital scholarly communication system that is able to capture the digital scholarly record, make it accessible, and preserve it over time.”
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september04/vandesompel/09vandesompel.html
(Source: Open Access News)

Seven Ways to Save Time Searching
Tara Calishain offers this section from her forthcoming Web Search Garage. It includes tips on choosing the right search tool, syntax, current awareness tools and RSS.
http://www.researchbuzz.com/sevenways.pdf
(Source: The Virtual Chase)

Subways
This week’s Scout Reports include a selection of articles about subways. The T is not profiled, but the Big Dig gets a mention, as well as NYC’s transit system and an article titled “Lost subways.”
http://scout.wisc.edu/Reports/NSDL/MET/2004/met-040910-topicindepth.php#1

Wireless Ways to Go Green
UC Berkeley researchers quantify how reading the news on a personal digital assistant or similar device uses less carbon dioxide and water than reading it in print. They have not yet done a related study on wear and tear on the eyes, frustrations with the charming pocket-sized tools and other parameters.
http://www.coe.berkeley.edu/labnotes/0904/horvath.html
(Source: Boing Boing)

NEW BOOKS/VIDEOS

Received September 4 - 10, 2004

None This Week