Chemistry Category

SpringerMaterials Database

– November 3, 2016Posted in: Chemistry, Physics

The UI Libraries now has access to the SpringerMaterials database, a unique and authoritative source for numerical and graphical data on the properties of materials. This database contains more than 500,000 online documents covering 3,000 properties spread across 250,000 materials and chemical systems. It consists of seven major parts:

The Landolt-Börnstein Series: 461 volumes, 290,000 substances and 1,400,000 citations.
The complete Linus Pauling Files: A comprehensive database covering the properties of inorganic solid phases and containing 255,000 documents with 129,000 interactive structures.
A subset of the Dortmund Database of Software and Separation Technology which covers the thermophysical properties of pure liquids and binary mixtures, with 472,000 data points.
An Adsorption Database covering over 1,500 reversible, equilibrium isotherms on 66 adsorbents.
A Polymer Thermodynamics database containing 30,000 data points covering 150 polymers.
The MSI Database, a collection of 4,100 critically evaluated reports on binary/ternary elemental systems and 7,500 interactive phase diagrams.
Corrosion Database, compiled from various literature sources by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), contains 24,724 unique records of corrosion rates/ratings of 1,026 different materials in 288 different environments, under various exposure conditions.

You can use SpringerMaterials to search by keyword, element, or structure. There’s also a separate Corrosion Search. If you’re not sure what you’re looking for, you can also browse by collection. Property information is already collected and formatted, so you don’t need to retrieve and analyze the primary literature sources.

UI students, faculty, and staff can access SpringerMaterials on or off-campus using the links on the Libraries’ websites. It is linked from the Chemistry and Physics subject guides. It’s also listed in the A-Z Databases list and in the library catalog. If you are off-campus, you will be prompted to login with your HawkID and password.

If you have questions about SpringerMaterials or would like a demonstration, please contact the Sciences Library for assistance.

Tags: database

Use Google Scholar to access library subscriptions

Sara Scheib

– October 18, 2016Posted in: Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Geosciences, Math, Physics

Question: How do I access articles the library subscribes to through Google Scholar?

Answer: The answer to this depends upon where you are when searching Google Scholar. If you are using a computer connected to the campus network, Google Scholar automatically detects that and provides a text link to UILink. Follow that link to see if we have access to the article.

If you are searching Google Scholar from off campus, you have two options for getting Google Scholar to recognize that you are affiliated with UI. If you use our link (http://purl.lib.uiowa.edu/GoogleSch) from Databases A-Z, you will be prompted to log in with your Hawk ID and then UILink will appear in Google Scholar results.

If you are working off campus and prefer to go directly to Google Scholar, you can show it that you are UI-affiliated if you have a Google account. When logged in to your Google account and on the Google Scholar search page, go to Settings in the upper right, then Library links on the left side of the Scholar Settings page. Use the search box to locate University of Iowa, then the check box to turn on University of Iowa – ViewIt@UILink in results.

Note: You may need to uncheck “UIowa InfoLink:Full Text” first. And if you want to retain your settings across devices, you must turn on cookies.

If you have any questions or problems with setting up UILink in Google Scholar, please contact Sara Scheib.

Tags: database

ORCiD Researcher Identifier – sign up today!

Sara Scheib

– September 28, 2016Posted in: Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Geosciences, Math, Physics

The UI Libraries, partnering with Information Technology Services, the Office of the Provost, the Division of Sponsored Programs, and the Big Ten Academic Alliance are leading an initiative to help all research active University of Iowa staff and faculty obtain an ORCID iD and/or link their existing identifier to their University of Iowa email address.

ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is a non-profit, platform agnostic registry of unique author identifiers. Many publishers, funders and academic institutions have already adopted ORCID and may be requiring its use in the near future.

Having an ORCID iD

makes your work discoverable by others
connects your research to you throughout your career, no matter how your name appears in publication
distinguishes you from other researchers with similar names
minimizes the time you spend filling out forms when submitting research or applying for grants
is being required by major journal publishers and funders
gives you access to an ImpactStory page (an altmetrics tool)

Click the green button below to sign up for your ORCID iD (Hawk ID and PW required)

To learn more about ORCiD at the UI, see the UI Libraries information page.

If you have any questions about ORCiD please contact the Sciences Library.

See an example ORCID iD page.

See an example ImpactStory.

Tags: ORCiD

Coming soon: ChemRxiv

Sara Scheib

– August 15, 2016Posted in: Chemistry

The American Chemical Society has announced it plans to launch a preprint server for chemistry, called ChemRxiv. The launch date for the service has yet to be released.

From American Chemical Society News Releases, August 10, 2016:

“The American Chemical Society (ACS) today announced its intention to form ChemRxiv, a chemistry preprint server for the global chemistry community, proposed as a collaborative undertaking that will facilitate the open dissemination of important scientific findings. The Society is presently in the process of inviting interested stakeholders to participate in helping to shape the service ahead of its anticipated launch.”

“”ChemRxiv is expected to follow the established models of arXiv in physics and bioRxiv in the life sciences by enabling researchers working across diverse areas of inquiry to share early results and data with their scientist-colleagues ahead of formal peer review and publication,” says Kevin Davies, Ph.D., who, as Vice President within the ACS Publications Division, will be spearheading the effort as part of a joint undertaking with the Society’s Chemical Abstracts Service.”

And more information from Nature: “Chemists to get their own preprint server”

This is an exciting announcement with the potential to change scholarly publishing in the chemistry community. The Sciences Library will provide more information about this new resource as it becomes available. Stay tuned!

Tags: preprints

Public Seminar on Research Data

Sara Scheib

– October 13, 2015Posted in: Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Geosciences, Math, Physics

On Wednesday, November 11 at 10:30 – 11:30 a.m., the University of Iowa Libraries will host guest speaker Heidi Imker, director of the Research Data Service (RDS) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Imker’s seminar, “Capitalizing on Research Data: Management, Dissemination, and Archiving,” will explain how researchers can meet new funder requirements for research data management and leverage public access requirements to increase the visibility and impact of their research. Discussion will follow her seminar.

The seminar will be held in the Illinois Room (348) IMU. An informal meet and greet with refreshments will follow. RSVP is requested.

New data sharing requirements

Recently, many federal funding agencies have expanded their requirements for public access to research results. Researchers in all disciplines must now “better account for and manage the digital data resulting from federally-funded research.”

Imker urges researchers to view this requirement as an opportunity to regard research data as an important product of scholarly work. Sharing data widely can enhance visibility for researchers, as well as create a collaborative environment of research process verification and results validation.

Such activities will be key to increasing the pace of discovery and demonstrating the importance of research.

In addition, Imker says higher demand for efficient data management tools means researchers may have better options to choose from when it comes to gathering, analyzing, and depositing data in public access repositories.

About the speaker

As director of RDS, Imker oversees a campus-wide service headquartered in the University of Illinois Library. RDS provides the Illinois research community with the expertise, tools, and infrastructure necessary to manage and steward research data.

Prior to joining the Library, Imker was the Executive Director of the Enzyme Function Initiative, a large-scale collaborative center involving nine universities, funded by the National Institutes of Health and located in the Institute for Genomic Biology.

Imker holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois and completed her postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School.

For more information, please visit http://guides.lib.uiowa.edu/data. To RSVP, please visit: http://tiny.cc/Data11-11-15. Please contact us at lib-data@uiowa.edu if you have any questions.

Pharmaceutical Substances Structure Query

Sara Scheib

– September 16, 2015Posted in: Chemistry

There is a known problem with the Thieme Pharmaceutical Substances Structure Query function. The error messages differ based on your browser. In Internet Explorer: Application Blocked by Java Security. In Chrome: This plugin is not supported. Thieme is aware of the problem and it will be fixed with the next version, scheduled for release early next year.

In the meantime, there is a workaround for Internet Explorer, but you must manually add it to the Java Security Exception Site list:

Go to Control Panel > Java > Security
Click “Edit Site List…”
Click “Add”
Type http://pharmaceutical-substances.thieme.com/prod/ in the Location field
Click “OK”
Click “Continue”
Click “OK and “OK” again to exit the Java Control Panel and save the changes

There is no work around for Chrome.

If you have any problems or questions, please contact the Sciences Library at lib-sciences@uiowa.edu or 319-335-3083.

Tags: database

Data Management for Researchers

Sara Scheib

– September 14, 2015Posted in: Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Geosciences, Math, Physics

Image courtesy of University of Virginia Library

Are you confused about funding agencies’ new data management and sharing policies? Or do you need some help managing your research data? You’re not alone and we can help! Join us for one of five upcoming workshops (each session is identical):

Thurs. Sept. 24 3 – 4:30 PM, Main Library 1015
Wed. Sept. 30 3 – 4:30 PM, Pappajohn Business Building W401
Tues. Oct. 6 2 – 3:30 PM, Hardin Library Information Commons East
Wed. Oct. 21 2 – 3:30 PM, Engineering Library 2001C
Wed. Nov. 4 12:30 – 2 PM, Sciences Library 102

The purpose of this workshop is to explain research data management and its importance, help identify some common data management issues, and learn about best practices and resources that are available. This workshop is open to all UI students, faculty, and staff. Registration is requested. To register, please click on one of the dates above.

If you have any questions, or if you’d like to request a session for your group, please contact Sara Scheib or Marina Zhang.

Tags: workshop

ACS Journals on Mobile Devices

Sara Scheib

– August 11, 2015Posted in: Chemistry

The American Chemical Society has a new mobile site called ACS2GO. If you have an Apple, Android or Blackberry device, you’ll be able to use this site to access our institutional subscriptions both on and off-campus for 120 days. But first, you need to set it up:

On your mobile device, make sure you’re connected to the campus network “eduroam”.
Go to http://pubs.acs.org.
You will be prompted to add ACS2GO to your home screen using the download button.
Use the navigation button and go to My Account.
If everything worked properly, it should say “Your device is paired with UNIV OF IOWA.”

If your access expires, you can renew by repeating this process. If you have any problems or questions, please contact the Sciences Library at 319-335-3083 or lib-sciences@uiowa.edu.

Finals Week

Pamela Kacena

– May 8, 2015Posted in: Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Geosciences, Math, Physics

Need a place to study? Stress getting to you? If you said yes to either of these two questions then you need to come to the Sciences Library. We will have KNex, Legos, color pages and stress bags to help you get ready for your finals! If you need something to keep you awake we will also have coffee, tea, cookies and brownie bites. Come take a load off, relax and let us give you a quiet place to study!