Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library Blog

The UCLA Library recently licensed access to several online encyclopedias from Sage Reference Online. There are a number of titles in the areas of life and health sciences as well as psychology including the Encyclopedia of Stem Cell Research, the Encyclopedia of Human Relationships, the Encyclopedia of Global Health, and the SAGE Encyclopedia of Healthcare. A full list of titles, published from 2007 to 2008, can be found here.

<submitted by Paul Camp>

Please note changes in the Biomedical Library’s hours for the summer:

• Monday - Thursday, 7:30 a.m. - 7 p.m.
• Friday, 7:30 a.m. - 6 p.m.
• Saturday, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
• Sunday, 1 p.m. - 5 p.m.

<submitted by Bob Freel>

In an effort to centralize and broaden the scope of library services, the Reference and Circulation desks at the Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library have been merged into the Public Service Desk. The change is effective June 15 2009, at the beginning of UCLA intersession week. The consolidation of service desks will also enable librarians to sustain the library instruction program, strengthen collection development, and enhance outreach efforts to the UCLA Health System and South Campus. The Public Service Desk will be staffed all hours that the Biomedical Library is open.

Services provided at the Public Service Desk:

• Circulating materials, laptops, and equipment.
• Assisting with finding library and research materials.
• Answering questions and providing referrals to health & life sciences librarians.

UCLA faculty, staff and students requiring assistance with in-depth research questions should complete a consultation form to schedule appointments with librarians. Consultation forms are available at the Public Service Desk or can be submitted online. For more information, please contact Bob Freel, Head of Access Delivery Services, at 310.206.3004 or Tania Bardyn, Associate Director for Public Services at 310.206.8070.

<submitted by Tania Bardyn>

A joint UCLA Library / ASUCLA Academic Publishing / USAC project is lowering the prices students pay for course readers.  In early 2008 the Library began working with ASUCLA to analyze content faculty members use in course readers to identify materials it already owns or licenses, which do not require payment of an additional permissions fee for UCLA student academic use.  A pilot assessment project reduced the price of each reader analyzed, by as little as twelve cents to as much as $30.18.  As a result, ASUCLA has now made checking journal articles in course readers against Library subscriptions a routine part of its workflow, which is producing ongoing savings for students.

<originally posted to the Managing Your Intellectual Property blog>

The University of California and the California Digital Library sent an open letter to many of the information providers they license content from, informing them of the need to work collaboratively with the UCs to create solutions to keep costs low given the state of California’s economy.

<originally posted to the Managing Your Intellectual Property blog>

Please note changes in the Biomedical Library’s hours for Summer Intersession.

June 12 - 21, 2009

• Monday - Thursday, 7:30 a.m - 7 p.m.
• Friday, 7:30 a.m. - 6 p.m.
• Saturday, Closed
• Sunday, Closed

<submitted by Bob Freel>

Locating information about psychological and health assessment instruments, as well as a copy of the instrument itself, requires searching psychosocial literature. Resources for locating this type of information include Health and Psychosocial Instruments, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Health Services and Sciences Research Resources, and Mental Measurements Yearbook. Please note: a copy of a test is only available from the test producer for purchase to qualified and licensed professionals.

Connecting to these five resources:

Contact the Biomedical Library if you have questions about any of these five resources, or need help searching for psychological tests and measures.

(more…)

UC’s California Digital Library has completed successful negotiations with Springer to launch a pilot open access arrangement as part of its 2008 Springer journals license. This will allow all articles by UC-affiliated authors to be issued under Springer’s “Open Choice” model without additional author fees. The articles will be accessible via SpringerLink and will be published under the terms of a Creative Commons attribution, non-commercial license. Planning is also underway for automatic deposit of these articles into the UC eScholarship Repository.

Faculty members are encouraged to continue to negotiate the terms of all author agreements to enable them to retain educational use rights so that they can use their own scholarship on course Web sites, in course reserves, and in course packs.

<originally posted to the Managing Your Intellectual Property blog>

The UC Libraries have purchased nearly every Springer ebook published in English and German from 2005 to 2009. The nearly 20,000 books fall into the following broad subject areas: architecture and design; behavioral science; biomedical and life sciences; business and economics; chemistry and materials science; computer science; earth and environmental science; engineering; humanities, social sciences, and law; mathematics and statistics; medicine; physics and astronomy; and professional and applied computing.

Each book chapter is available as a PDF file without digital rights management, which means that they can be used as electronic course reserves, on course Web sites, in course management systems, and for many other educational purposes. The files can be downloaded, printed, and transferred to a PDA or Kindle. The titles are being added to the UCLA Library Catalog and Melvyl; in the meantime, users can search or browse them from the publisher’s Web site.

<originally posted to the Managing Your Intellectual Property blog>

Gary E. Strong. University Librarian, invites you to a reading, reception, and book signing with Gary B. Nash, UCLA Professor Emeritus and Director of the National Center for History in the Schools.

Time: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - 4 to 6 p.m.
Location: Charles E. Young Research Library Presentation Room

Author Gary Nash will discuss “A Tragic Betrayal in the New Nation” based on his recent book Friends of Liberty: Thomas Jefferson, Tadeusz Kosciuszko, and Agrippa Hull: A Tale of Three Patriots, Two Revolutions, and a Tragic Betrayal of Freedom in the New Nation.

Nash joined the Department of History in 1966 and has remained at UCLA ever since. Among the more than twenty books he has written or edited, the most recent are The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America (2005), The Forgotten Fifth: African Americans in the Age of Revolution (2006), and Friends of Liberty (2008).

Nash served as president of the Organization of American Historians in 1994-95 and co-chaired the National History Standards Project during 1992-96. He is an elected member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the Society of American Historians, and the American Antiquarian Society.

Space is limited; RSVP by June 9 to 310.206.8526 or rsvp@library.ucla.edu.

Free Admission - Open to the general public; reservation priority given to Library Associates members.

Complementary Parking is available in structure Five.

Directions: Enter campus at Royce Drive off Sunset Boulevard. Proceed straight ahead to Structure Five. Tell the attendant that you are attending the Library’s author reading.

Exit east from the parking structure, then walk northeast to reach the Research Library.