January 2008 Archives

We now have access to the Society of Petroleum Engineers(SPE) eLibrary which is a repository of technical papers presented at SPE-sponsored conferences and in SPE’s technical journals since early 1950s. Access requires Princeton authentication (no walk-ins allowed) and individual user registration. Once an individual account is created, login, then go to the Papers/Publications/Authors section at the top menu and click on eLibrary/Technical Papers to search. You must save papers of interest to cart and complete the check-out process (the cart will show $0.00 at check-out) to download the papers.

From Adriana Popescu, Engineering Librarian, Jan. 30, 2008

Growing Buildings — the text:

A team of college students is making window material, sturdy enough to cover the side of an office building, out of stuff grown in a field. 01/20/2008 Randy Atkins: Buildings use up about forty percent of both U.S. energy and landfill space. So a University of Michigan team, led by engineering professor Harry Giles, is making new materials.

Harry Giles: We see a future where our buildings come from sources that are grown rather than materials that are dug out of the ground where we have limited sources.

Randy Atkins: They’re strategically positioning thin wafers of material like bamboo or wheat between plastic. The result, Giles says, is extra strong windows that block light in the summer while letting it in, at just the right angle, in the winter.

Harry Giles: We don’t have to mechanically open and close blinds all the time to control lighting.

Randy Atkins: And all the parts can be recycled. With the National Academy of Engineering, Randy Atkins, WTOP Radio

Listen to the 42 second podcast.

The P3 Award from the Environmental Protection Agency

The University of Michigan student project for P3, Growing Alternative Sustainable Buildings

More new engineering uses for natural fibers

Google to offer online storage for scientists via Palimpsest - 23 Jan 2008

Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, is reportedly set to offer an online storage facility to scientists. It is expected that the domain will provide a home for terabytes of open source scientific datasets. Called Palimpsest, the initiative was first revealed at the Science Foo camp in August 2007, jointly organised by Google and publishing firm O’Reilly.

The new service will reportedly have annotating and commenting features along the line of YouTube. It is projected to fill a major need for scientists who want to openly share their data and allow citizen scientists access to an unprecedented amount of data to explore.

The tool, developed in Sweden, was acquired by Google in March 2007 for an undisclosed sum. Building on its purchase of data visualisation technology Trendalyzer, Google will also offer algorithms for the probing and examination of data stored in the facility. Trendalyzer presents data in an easily accessible, graphic format, which makes it easier for organisations to show data in a consistent and user-friendly manner. Source: “Knowledgespeak Newsletter” Jan. 23, 2008

“Google Research” home is here: http://research.google.com/

Recently Knovel has added the content of these titles, among many others: Wiley’s Water Encyclopedia, Elsevier’s Handbook of Water and Wastewater Treatment Technologies, and McGraw-Hill’s Applied Hydrology.

Today, Knovel has announced (via Knowledgespeak Newletter) that they have an agreement with ISA ( global automation standards) to add their books and technical references for automation and control.

Applied Science and Technology Index Retrospective

Coverage dates: 1913 - 1983

Please forward comments to the Digital Resources Advisory Group (dirag@princeton.edu) If the above link doesn’t work, please go to the Articles & Databases page, and click on “Trial databases”. Trial ends: 1/31/2008

Engineering Librarian, Adriana Popescu writes: “…we now have online access to all Elsevier journals. For some journals, we can access articles back to the first issue, for others we only have access from 1995 on. The catalog records may take a while to update, so please remember to check the www.sciencedirect.com site to see if we can download Elsevier articles before we submit [Document Delivery/Interlibrary Loan] requests or purchase articles from ScienceDirect.

Happy 2008!

Elsevier journals are also included and indexed topically in subject-based databases, such as Engineering Index (Compendex) and selectively by Web of Science. Scopus, the other huge interdisciplinary database includes most, if not all, Elsevier journals, since it is being developed and maintained by Elsevier.