I just has a call from a user who says he think he inadvertently returned books to the PSL afterhours book slot. He tells me it is not blocked off……..

Summon provides the opportunity to “Limit to articles from scholarly publications, including peer-review”
I have not been able to find any explanation of what is included or excluded in this category on the Summon site and I think Summon need to clarify just how they define this facet. First year Biology students are only allowed to use peer reviewed articles and I don’t want to recommend Summon to students and have them select non peer reviewed articles.

Most other databases simply allow for the choice of “peer reviewed only”

How the VALA conference started: What digital natives want from their library

I tend to agree with the following comment: Watching a little kid coached to slur out this script line-by-line is disturbing. And the concept of digital natives is flawed, simplistic, and a disservice to young people. More and more librarians & educators are coming out to say that this generational stereotyping leads us to act on assumptions that don’t reflect reality. We need to assess learning needs, not guess at them. 2 weeks ago

The embrace of digital journals has become so widespread that print editions of current issues “are rapidly becoming a thing of the past” for many scholars, the survey found. Sixty percent of humanists and more than 80 percent of scientists said they would be fine with having their libraries provide only electronic copies of the latest issues of journals.”

Read full article

ScienceDaily (Feb. 12, 2010) — Eating rhubarb baked in a crumble is not only tasty it may also be the best way to take advantage of its health benefits, and could lead to the development of new cancer treatments.

Researchers have found that baking British garden rhubarb for 20 minutes dramatically increases its levels of anti-cancerous chemicals. The findings from academics at Sheffield Hallam University, together with the Scottish Crop Research Institute, were published in the journal Food Chemistry.

These chemicals, called polyphenols, have been shown to selectively kill or prevent the growth of cancer cells, and could be used to develop new, less toxic, treatments for the disease, even in cases where cancers have proven resistant to other treatments.

Academics are now hoping to use the results to study the effect of rhubarb’s polyphenols on leukaemia. They aim to discover the best combination of polyphenols and chemotherapy agents to kill leukaemia cells, even those previously resistant to treatment.

It is the first time the benefits of British garden rhubarb, specifically a variety grown in South Yorkshire, have been studied. Previous research has focussed on Oriental medicinal rhubarb, which has been recognised for its health benefits and used in traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years.

Dr Nikki Jordan-Mahy, from Sheffield Hallam University’s Biomedical Research Centre, said: “Our research has shown that British rhubarb is a potential source of pharmacological agents that may be used to develop new anti-cancerous drugs.”

“Current treatments are not effective in all cancers and resistance is a common problem. Cancer affects one in three individuals in the UK so it’s very important to discover novel, less toxic, treatments, which can overcome resistance.”

Food Chemistry, Volume 119, Issue 2, 15 March 2010, Pages 758-764 Gordon J. McDougall, Pat Dobson and Nikki Jordan-Mahy

A student came up to the desk to pass on profuse thanks to the people on the desk before me. She said she had 6 questions patiently answered and was now very happy that she was set to go !!

So consider yourselves thanked whoever you were !

Please note that there are currently three boxes in the packing room containing books to be sent to Tonga
They contain encyclopedias weeded from the collection
They will be picked up by the project coordinator from Biological Sciences next week

Hi everyone
Yesterday I tried searching on the University of Toronto catalogue and I saw a very clever product in action. See how you can refine results, view book covers, and best of all see the detailed record view with the brief list still open. Try it and see

I hope we can have something like this sometime soon! AJ

…”In June 2009, Scopus almost doubles its coverage of Arts & Humanities (A&H) by including 1,450 new titles. With nearly 3,500 A&H titles from around the world available on Scopus, researchers can enjoy broader access to high-quality titles as far back to 2002 in a variety of subject areas, such as literature, history‚ architecture and visual performing arts, at no additional cost.
The list of journals added to Scopus contains many prestigious titles, such as Mind (Oxford University Press), Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (Cambridge University Press) and Modern Philology (University of Chicago Press).

More than 1,000 publishers from around the world stand behind the expanded A&H content, including Project MUSE: a-not-for-profit full text platform of prestigious and current journals. Project MUSE has enabled Scopus to cover more titles with international relevance as well as broaden its coverage of local-language journals that represent the essence of A&H research”

For more information try a search on Scopus