Category: Physics

SpringerMaterials
Nov 03 2016

SpringerMaterials Database

Posted on by Sara Scheib

The UI Libraries now has access to the SpringerMaterials database, a unique and authoritative source SpringerMaterialsfor 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:

  1. The Landolt-Börnstein Series: 461 volumes, 290,000 substances and 1,400,000 citations.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. An Adsorption Database covering over 1,500 reversible, equilibrium isotherms on 66 adsorbents.
  5. A Polymer Thermodynamics database containing 30,000 data points covering 150 polymers.
  6. The MSI Database, a collection of 4,100 critically evaluated reports on binary/ternary elemental systems and 7,500 interactive phase diagrams.
  7. 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.

Oct 18 2016

Use Google Scholar to access library subscriptions

Posted on by Sara Scheib

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.

UILink in Google Scholar

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.

Google Scholar Settings

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.

Sep 28 2016

ORCiD Researcher Identifier – sign up today!

Posted on by Sara Scheib

ORCiD member logoThe 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)

Click to create and ORCID iD or Connect Your ORCID iD

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.

NASA
Aug 26 2016

Public access to NASA-funded research

Posted on by Sara Scheib

NASA made an exciting announcement this week. It’s launching a new research portal to provide free public access to the data and publications resulting from NASA-funded research. The portal points to two new services.

The first, called “NASA’s Data Portal” is a catalog of publicly available datasets, APIs, and visualizations. You can use it to explore by category, or search to find a specific dataset.

The second service, called “PubSpace“, will provide free public access to peer-reviewed journal articles and other publications resulting from NASA-funded research. It is an extension of PubMed Central (PMC), which is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and operated by the National Library of Medicine (NLM). PubSpace will be fully functional in Fall 2016.

If you have question or would like to learn more about accessing federally-funded research data or publications, please contact the Sciences Library.

Feb 17 2016

Exhibit: 350th Anniversary of Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation

Posted on by Sara Scheib

Newton ExhibitThe new exhibit at the Sciences Library celebrates the life of Isaac Newton and the 350th anniversary of his Universal Law of Gravitation, presented for the first time in 1666.

We’ve all heard the story about Newton and the apple, but how did Newton really come to understand gravity? Our exhibit describes Newton’s life and work, with an emphasis on the Universal Law of Gravitation and its evolution over time. Many thanks to the Department of Physics & Astronomy for loaning us several items for the exhibit, including an antique refracting telescope and a prism like the one used in Newton’s famous light refraction experiments.

To learn more about Newton and his Universal Law of Gravitation, ask a librarian or check out these excellent resources:

Oct 13 2015

Public Seminar on Research Data

Posted on by Sara Scheib

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

Imker_sqAs 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.

May 08 2015

Finals Week

Posted on by Pamela Kacena

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!