Category Archives: Open Access

Environmental SCENE — news channel from C&EN

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Environmental SCENE

Environmental Scene

On July 1, Chemical & Engineering News launched its first news channel. Called the Environmental SCENE, the channel provides news articles about environmental research, business, and policy, including coverage of climate change, pollution, toxic substances, energy, and sustainability. Drawing on content from the pages of C&EN, the news channel also contains its own original content, significantly expanding C&EN’s coverage of environmental research.

Readers will have free access all of the stories on the Environmental SCENE even if they do not have a subscription to C&EN.

Please contact Michael Torrice or LibraryRelations@acs.org with questions or feedback.

ToxRefDB — new database on toxicity testing from EPA

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“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a new database called ToxRefDB, which allows scientists and the public to search and download thousands of toxicity testing results on hundreds of chemicals. ToxRefDB captures 30 years and $2 billion of testing results. It provides detailed chemical toxicity data in an accessible format. It is a part of ACToR (Aggregated Computational Toxicology Resource), an online data warehouse that collects data from about 500 public sources on tens of thousands of environmentally relevant chemicals http://actor.epa.gov/toxrefdb/faces/Home.jsp.”

Source: Anonymous. Online. Medford: Jul/Aug 2010. Vol. 34, Iss. 4; pg. 10, 1 pgs

Document URL: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdlink?did=2079182141&sid=1&Fmt=3&clientId=17210&RQT=309&VName=PQD

EPA’s National Environmental Publications Internet Site (NEPIS)

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NSCEP/NEPIS – EPA’s Gateway to Free Digital & Paper Publications

"This site is EPA’s premier site for accessing EPA publications, with more than 7,000 in stock and 35,000 digital titles, free of charge! EPA’s print publications are available through the National Service Center for Environmental Publications (NSCEP), and EPA’s digital publications are stored in the National Environmental Publications Internet Site (NEPIS) database! You can search and retrieve, download, print and/or order only EPA publications from this site. "

Some of these reports will be also listed in various government databases, like NTIS, NTRL, MarciveWeb DOCS, and also in WorldCat and Google. (NTIS does not provide links or access to the full text.)

The EPA National Library Network has updated its Core List for an Environmental Reference Collection

NRC report emphasizes potential long-lasting effects of atmospheric CO2

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EarthNAS.jpg “Near-Term Emissions Choices Could Lock In Climate Changes For Centuries to Millennia

July 16, 2010 — Choices made now about carbon dioxide emissions reductions will affect climate change impacts experienced not just over the next few decades but also in coming centuries and millennia, says a new report from the National Research Council. Because CO2 in the atmosphere is long lived, it can effectively lock the Earth and future generations into a range of impacts, some of which could become very severe.”

Source: What’sNew@nationalacademies.org

Environmental Sciences Reading Room at Springer

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springer_horse.jpg“Free access to electronic content from Springer – a new selection every 2 months.

Become a frequent visitor to this Reading Room to stay up-to-date in Environmental Health, Global Change – Climate Change, Pollution & Remediation, Environmental Management, Sustainability, Aquatic Sciences and much more.

 To access the journals simply click on the link of your choice. This will lead you to SpringerLink, our content platform. Enjoy your read!”

Wetlands: US EPA website

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Wetlands US EPA

"Overall, this site is useful for background information about the state of US wetlands. Undergraduates and researchers would particularly benefit from this information and from the numerous links to additional resources allowing them to further expand their investigation of this subject."

Information from the Clean Water Act and scientific documents — about floodplains, watersheds, urban stormwaters, restoration, pollution management

From Choice Reviews online or Choice, April, 2010, Vol 47(8), p.1512.

GreenFILE — free database from EBSCO

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“EBSCO’s GreenFILE is a free database offering access to research-related information on human impacts to the environment. Its collection of scholarly, government, and general interest titles include content about the environmental effects of individuals, corporations, and local /national governments and what can be done on each level to minimize the negative impact. Topics covered include global warming, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, and recycling. Articles are retrieved from 600 titles with nearly 300,000 articles, including full-text access from more than 4,600 open access titles. The same general search of terms and concepts related to green or sustainable buildings (including libraries), architecture, design, etc., provides nearly 3,900 records from academic journals, magazines, books/monographs, book reviews, reports, and government documents.”

Online, Mar/Apr 2010, p. 23 or http://proquest.umi.com/pqdlink?index=8&did=1980426771&SrchMode=3&sid=1&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1272476313&clientId=17210&aid=1
Libraries Taking the ‘LEED’: GREEN LIBRARIES LEADING IN ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN
Frederick Stoss. Online. Medford: Mar/Apr 2010. Vol. 34, Iss. 2; pg. 20, 8 pgs

Green Energy Portal from the DOE

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To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) has opened the Green Energy Portal. It offers to all — scientists, students and the public — quick access to research and development in the area of renewable energy. There are thousands of full-text documents.

"The DOE Green Energy portal is part of the DOE Open Government Plan, which furthers the Administration’s Open Government Initiative. DOE Green Energy contains both current and historical research, including bibliographic citations, technical reports and patent information on different types of renewable energy resources and energy conservation. Subject areas include but are not limited to solar, wind, bioenergy, hydroelectric, geothermal, tidal and wave power, and energy storage."

Source: Email from Tim Byrne at OSTI byrnet@osti.gov

This is most likely a just a short cut, but I trust that most all of these documents and their indexing is available via NTIS, NTRL, Science.gov and/or the DOE’s Information Bridge.

Environment Yale Magazine

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Environment Yale Magazine

"The Journal of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies has a new, sleek looking website for the Fall 2009 issue. The "Past Issues" are still available on the previous environment: Yale website, however, and the issues go all the way back to the spring of 2002. The journal is published twice per year, and exists in both print and online formats. Some of the features of the journal include "Bookshelf" and "Class Notes and Obituaries", available in PDF format in the past issues. The current issue, Fall 2009, has some fascinating articles, i.e. "The Problem with Plastics", which includes a list on the right side of the page of a dozen or so steps you can take to avoid toxic chemicals; "Pond Scum Prized Again as Potential Biofuel"; and "Can China Save the Amur Tiger?", which discusses the promise of "tiger recovery in the same way China committed to panda conservation 30 years ago" due to a "dramatic expansion of [tiger] habitat and population." [KMG]

Source: The Scout Report, Univ. of Wisconsin, March 26, 2010

World Water Day, Monday, March 22, 2010

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From Joanna Luz Siegel:

Amazing photos from Nat’l Geographic:
And the entire NG special issue available for download:
In honor of World Water Day, the Laureate of the 2010 Stockholm Water Prize was announced: “Dr Rita Colwell, distinguished Professor from the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health in the U.S., has been named the 2010 Stockholm Water Prize Laureate. Dr Colwell has shown how changes in climate, adverse weather events, shifts in ocean circulation and other ecological processes can create conditions that allow infectious diseases to spread, and through that link she has led the ability to craft preemptive policies to minimise outbreaks.”

Read more at: http://www.siwi.org/SWP2010 The prize will be awarded in September during World Water Week.