Holiday hours at the Sciences Library

The Sciences Library will deviate from its normal schedule during the holiday season:

Thanksgiving Recess:

  • Sat., Nov. 21 – Sun., Nov. 22: CLOSED
  • Mon., Nov. 23 – Wed., Nov. 25: 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.
  • Thu., Nov. 26 – Sun., Nov. 29: CLOSED

Normal hours will resume on Mon., Nov. 30th.

Winter Break:

  • Sat., Dec. 19 – Sun., Dec. 27: CLOSED
  • Mon., Dec. 28 – Thu., Dec. 31: 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.
  • Fri., Jan. 1 – Sun., Jan. 3: CLOSED
  • Mon., Jan. 4 – Fri., Jan. 8: 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.
  • Sat., Jan. 9 – Sun., Jan. 10: CLOSED
  • Mon., Jan. 11 – Fri., Jan. 15: 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.
  • Sat., Jan. 16 – Mon., Jan. 18: CLOSED

Normal hours will resume on Tues. Jan. 19th.

View all our hours and upcoming events on our calendar. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us.

Exhibit: The Science of Frankenstein

We’ve installed a new exhibit at the Sciences Library, just in time for Halloween!

The Science of Frankenstein explores the scientific practices that inspired Mary Shelley’s famous novel, Frankenstein.

body snatchingVictor Frankenstein collected body parts for his monster through body snatching, a common, though gruesome, practice of the time. Historically, a shortage of cadavers available for medical students created an industry of enterprising thieves who would prowl graveyards for recently buried corpses to sell for medical research. The corpses allowed medical students to learn more about the internal organs of the body and how they work as well as giving doctors the opportunity to improve amputation techniques.

Dr. Frankenstein used electricity to reanimate an assembly of body parts to create hisreanimation monster. This was based on the 18th century work with electricity by surgeon Luigi Galvani, physicist Alessandro Volta, and Galvani’s nephew, Giovanni Aldini.

While dissecting a frog near a dissection machine, Galvani’s assistant touched a scalpel to a nerve in the frog’s leg, and the leg jumped! Galvani believed this was evidence of “animal electricity” which came from the frog itself.

Volta replicated Galvani’s experiments, but arrived at different conclusions. He believed the jumping leg was caused by a bimetallic arc, rather than animal electricity.

Aldini built on the work of his uncle and Volta and toured the capitals of Europe to demonstrate the medical benefits of electricity by electrifying the corpses of executed criminals, making them twitch and in some cases, sit up.

It would not be hard for a creative woman, like Mary Shelley, to extend this research and imagine a day when science might succeed in reanimating the dead. To learn more, come check out the exhibit now on display at the Sciences Library!

Public Seminar on Research Data

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.

Pharmaceutical Substances Structure Query

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:

  1. Go to Control Panel > Java > Security
  2. Click “Edit Site List…”
  3. Click “Add”
  4. Type http://pharmaceutical-substances.thieme.com/prod/ in the Location field
  5. Click “OK”
  6. Click “Continue”
  7. 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.

ACS Journals on Mobile Devices

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:

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

Math Journals Moving

To improve findability of the journals held in the Main Library, the math collection journals are being moved from the 2nd floor to the 3rd floor and will be located adjacent to the other journals. Bookstacks staff are beginning to move these materials upstairs and in a few months you will be able to find the math collection journals in the northeast corner of the third floor. In the meantime, if you have problems locating a title, please contact the Service Desk staff on the 1st floor.

If you have any questions, please contact Leo Clougherty at the Sciences Library. Thank you for your patience as we make this transition.

Finals Week

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!