It is a very good news to us in the Science and Engineering library to hear that Richard Kerekes is to receive the 2010 TAPPI Gunnar Nicholson Gold Medal Award.

From the UBC Applied Science press release:

The award recognizes an individual who has created a pre-eminent scientific and engineering achievement that has proven of commercial benefit to the world’s pulp, paper, board and forest products industries.

“Dr. Kerekes’ contributions to research, technology and education for our industry over a 38-year period are exemplary and make him a deserving recipient for TAPPI’s highest honor,” said Larry N. Montague, President of TAPPI. “He has made numerous significant contributions to papermaking technology during his career, including founding the Pulp and Paper Centre at The University of British Columbia where he established a research program between UBC and Paprican.”

“To a remarkable degree, he has contributed to most all of the unit operations in papermaking, from stock chests to calenders,” said Gary A. Baum, 2009 Gunnar Nicholson Gold Medal Winner, who nominated Kerekes for the award. “His research has been characterized by a blend of solid science and the application of fundamental principles to the solution of practical problems.”

To see some of Prof. Kerekes publications in the Web of Science database (around 70 articles) , please use this search:

Subject Heading=(MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY OR PHYSICAL SCIENCES) AND Author=(KEREKES R*) AND Institution=(UNIV BRITISH COLUMBIA OR PULP PAPER RES INST CANADA OR PAPRICAN)

The earliest article dates back to 1974 and the newest was published last year.

Students and staff in UBC’s Centre for Advanced Wood Processing (CAWP) were given the task of creating all 23 Olympic and Paralympic wooden medal podia and the 100 wooden medal trays for the 2010 Winter Games. And yes, they delivered – http://www.cawp.ubc.ca/Whatwedo/CAWPProjects/tabid/3546/Default.aspx

** photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/tgillin/

The BBC has reported last week about scientists in Italy making artificial replacement bones out of wood – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8438209.stm

A quick search in the Compendex database shows dozens and dozens of research reports of using wood as a possible implant material.

** photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/challiyan/

There are currently two very useful journal rankings SCImago and JCR. These rankings allow you to display amongst other things the h-index for a specific journal or a grouping of journals based on subject

“The SCImago Journal & Country Rank is a portal that includes the journals and country scientific indicators developed from the information contained in the Scopus® database (Elsevier B.V.).” Scopus contains more than 15,000 journals from over 4,000 international publishers as well as over 1000 open access journals. There are also over 500 conference proceedings in the database.

For more information, go to SCImago

“Journal Citation Reports® is a comprehensive and unique resource that allows you to evaluate and compare journals using citation data drawn from over 7,500 scholarly and technical journals from more than 3,300 publishers in over 60 countries.”
JCR Science Edition contains data from over 5,900 journals in science and technology.
JCR Social Sciences Edition contains data from over 1,700 journals in the social sciences.

For more information, go to JCR (Journal Citation Reports)

It is important to be aware of the size of the body of literature (the number of journals and conference proceedings) being indexed in Scopus and Web of Science. Journals listed in JCR are indexed in the Web of Science The larger the database, the greater the possibility that articles will be discovered, read, and hopefully cited. This is especially important for open access journals, some of which have not yet been indexed in the Web of Science.

Eigenfactor ranking is based on Web of Science data.

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Science and Engineering

NYT today has an article on an issue of great importance to all science disciplines – data management. The article – “A Deluge of Data Shapes a New Era in Computing” overviews the new book published by Microsoft researchers – “The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery.”

The book is available in full text from Microsoft here – http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/collaboration/fourthparadigm/4th_paradigm_book_complete_lr.pdf

This is a hot issue in science libraries too, as we are trying to understand how to deal with the vast amounts of digital data and whether libraries have a role to play to support, maintain and archive some of this data…

** photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickwheeleroz/

Ron Simmer Patent and IP Expert has once agained issued his Patex Bizarre Patents Calendar.

This calendar documents the creative spirt of the human race reflected in patents.

Check out Ron’s excellent site of patent and intellectual property links at the Patex website.

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Science and Engineering Liaison Librarian

Sociologist Joseph Hermanowicz’ new book Lives in Science How Institutions Affect Academic Careers describes how the prestige of academic institutions often shapes the career of the individual.

“For all but a handful of the scientists he studies, the prestige of their institution pretty much determines their professional–and even their personal–destiny. Of the more than 4000 institutions of higher learning in the United States where a scientist can get a faculty post–ranging from world-renowned research universities to local community colleges–only a very limited number possess the resources, reputation, and connections needed for research careers at the highest levels of recognition.”

Click here for a full review of Hermanowicz’ book.

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Physical Sciences and Engineering Liaison Librarian

The newest issue of the Science has a short editorial titled “Becoming a Scientist“.

Personally, I found t his short piece to be very interested and not intuitive…take a look – http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/326/5955/916?rss=1

Most of us spend our university education taking the standard, required courses, there are more than just the basics out there when it comes to some science classes.

This blog post list some of the most hilarious of them – http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2009/10/100-hilarious-college-courses-that-really-exist/

Personally, I would love to take some of the science classes such as :

The Science of Superheroes: While it might sound like fun and games, this course takes superheroes as a means to teach students real lessons about physics. [U of California Irvine] or Lego Robotics: Legos can help you build more than just that TIE Fighter, they can also be used to make real robots, as this course will show students. [MIT]

** Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/jocorvera/

Good news regarding the UBC Library’s CISTI Orders Document Delivery Service. You no longer need to come to the Library to pick up your CISTI or Interlibrary Loan request.

For CISTI Orders articles, Interlibrary Loan staff are creating brief records in Relais (our ILL/DD software) in order to post the articles to the web and to send an email to the user. The article can be accessed a total of 3 times within 15 days from the date of the email message. After either accessing the article 3 times or 15 days have passed, the article is no longer available to the user.

Articles ordered from Interlibrary Loan are now being delivered to UBC users via post to web. When an article is received, Interlibrary Loan staff match the article to the correct request and then it is posted to the web. The user receives an email message with a link to the article. The user then clicks on the link to obtain the article. The user does not need a password to access their articles.

All articles received by 5:00PM Monday to Friday will be processed that day.

Under the Copyright Act, if the user wants to keep a copy of the article, they must print a copy. The article has been received for the purposoe of research or private study only. It is not for redistribution, retransmission or electronic storage. It cannot be used for any other purpose or reproduced without permission of the copyright owner.

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Science and Engineering Liaison Librarian