Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library Blog

A color and black & white planetary scanner is available at the Biomedical Library. The scanner is easy to use and offers many options. Images can be saved in a variety of file formats (JPG, PNG, PDF, or TIFF).  The scanner also provides options to crop and enlarge, lighten and darken, sharpen and smooth.

The scanner can accommodate oversized materials (up to 17″ x 24″) that are too large for photocopiers.  Preservation quality scanning is achieved because books are scanned face up which prevents wear and tear on bindings.

16¢ for each saved image
Users can scan, manipulate, and delete images and only pay for the images saved. Images are either saved to a flash drive or sent to an email address. Each image saved costs $0.16.

The scanner is located on the library’s first floor, near the entrance to the Current Journal Reading Room.  If you need assistance ask Circulation or Reference Desk staff or contact Bob Freel, Head of Access Delivery Services, bobfreel@library.ucla.edu, 310.206.3004.

It is late at night. The Library is not open. You need to use the library’s databases, or you would like to print the full text of an article that you have found. What can you do? If you are a current UCLA faculty, staff, or student, you can use your home computer to access the same electronic resources that you use on campus. (more…)

Our colleagues at CLICC (College Library Instructional Computing Commons) have launched Software Shortcut, a new service which allows access to selected CLICC software for UCLA affiliates on any computer connected to the Web. Available applications include:

• Stata
• Adobe Photoshop
• Microsoft Office 2003
• Microsoft Word 2007
• Rhino 4.0
• MapInfo

More applications will be added in the future. To use Software Shortcut, you must have a UCLA Logon ID and install the VPN client on your computer.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary, and RDF Site Summary. RSS is a way to receive the newest updates from all your favorite web sites and databases without having to visit each web site and database individually. The RSS feed provides a short description of newly added content. You can then click on the feed description to be taken to the full content on the original web site or database. Subscribe to RSS feeds for all your favorite sites, and view all the updates on one web page.

The first step to using RSS is to set up an RSS reader (also called “feed readers” or “aggregators”). There are many different kinds of feed readers—some can even be installed on your cell phone or PDA! Some available options include:

• Bloglines
• iGoogle
• RSS readers are built into the web browsers Firefox 1.0 (and all subsequent versions) and Internet Explorer 7.0.

The Library does not endorse or provide technical support for any RSS readers. To find one that fits your needs, search the Web using the words “free RSS reader.”

Once you have set up an RSS reader, it’s time to start subscribing to feeds. RSS feeds can be used to facilitate searching, keep up with new research, and stay abreast of resources and events at UCLA. Many web sites have orange RSS icons to indicate that the site includes an RSS feed. See the list below for some great places to start. On any site, click on the RSS icon () and follow the instructions to subscribe.

• The UCLA Library has created a Recent Acquisitions RSS Service which offers RSS feeds for nearly 80 subjects. These feeds provide information on new books purchased by the UCLA Libraries.

• Visit the UCLA Gateway RSS Feeds and Podcasts page to view the many RSS feeds of UCLA events and happenings. Subscribe to the Daily Bruin’s headline feed for news, the Happenings feed to find out about concerts, lectures, and sports, or one of the many social activity feeds to keep up with your friends.

• Perform a search in PubMed, and then click on the “send to” pull down box and select “RSS feed.” Name your feed, click “create,” then subscribe to the feed. The search will be automatically re-run each time you open your RSS reader.

• CINAHL Plus, a nursing database, will also allow you to save a search as an RSS feed. After performing a search, click “create alert for this search” and subscribe. The search will be automatically re-run each time you open your RSS reader.

• Web of Science, BIOSIS Previews, and Zoological Record, three of our largest life sciences databases, allow registered users to create RSS feeds for citation alerts. Your feed is updated whenever the article is cited by another author. To do this, run a search in one of these databases, and click on the full record for the desired article. Click  and subscribe to the RSS feed. 

• Access Medicine is a collection of e-books, images, care guidelines, and drug information for those in the health care field. The Access Medicine RSS feed is updated daily and includes reviews, updates to e-books, and breakthroughs in therapy and clinical research. Click the RSS icon on the front page of Access Medicine to subscribe.

Want to know if UCLA has the full-text journal article that you’ve found using Google Scholar and/or Scirus?  First, you must access the Internet either from on-campus or via the Bruin OnLine Virtual Private Network or Bruin OnLine Proxy Server. Then you need to set your search engine preferences so the  button will appear with your search results. Google Scholar and Scirus determine to which journals UCLA subscribes and link to the full-text articles of those journals when full-text is available.

UC-eLinks provides:

1. direct access to full-text articles, when available
2. ability to search the Library Catalog or Melvyl Catalog for print holdings; and
3. ability to submit an interlibrary loan or document delivery request.

   Google Scholar provides scholarly literature from many disciplines and sources. Follow these steps to activate UC-eLinks in Google Scholar:

1. On the Google Scholar home page, click Scholar Preferences:

2. Type “University of California Los Angeles” into the Library Links box, and select Find Library:

3. Click “Save Preferences” at the bottom of the page.

 Scirus is a comprehensive science-specific search engine that searches over 450 million science-related web pages.

Follow these steps to activate UC-eLinks in Scirus:

1. On the Scirus home page, click Search Preferences:

2. Enable the Library Partner Links:

3. Select “University of California Los Angeles” from the drop down menu:

4. Click “Save Preferences” at the bottom of the page.