Monday, June 29, 2009

New Library Procedure

From Wednesday, July 1st all requests for interlibrary loans (i.e. for articles and books not held by the DERM libraries)will be handled centrally in the main library in Mineral House.

From this date all the interlibrary loans should be forwarded to the following email address

ills@derm.qld.gov.au

If you have any queries about the interlibrary loans please contact Antonia Antoniou on 322 47337

Any other requests for help or for literature searches will still be handled by the staff here on level 15 in 160 Ann Street. The email address is still

library@epa.qld.gov.au

Internet security Article

World’s Most Dangerous Search Terms

This paper from Mcafee examines a new phenomenon — the use of search engines as a conduit for profit-driven hackers—by analyzing the risk of searching for more than 2,000 of the most popular words and phrases (“keywords”) used in search engines in 2008. The article does an excellent job breaking out the risk by category and country.

Inhabit

A Weblog which is devoted to the future of designing and tracking the innovations in technology, practices and materials that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future - website

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Useful guides to Case law

OZCase

“The OzCase Project is an initiative of the Queensland University of Technology Law Library Manager. Based on the successful Case Project in the United Kingdom, permission was given by Case to utilise their ideas and formats to develop a similar Collection Collaboration within the Universities, Government Departments and Private Legal firms within South East Queensland.
The OzCase Project aims to evaluate and document the feasibility of improving library and information support for law researchers in the South East Queensland region.”

Case Law & Courts Australia

This part of the Walter Harrison Law Library guides to legal resources. It provides a comprehensive listing of Australian Commonwealth and State eResources

Courts & Case Law

This site is maintained by the State Library of Queensland and provides links to International, Canadian, UK and USA case law as well as Australian.

Lead Free Wheels

Background on this program that promotes alternatives to lead wheel weights, which "are used worldwide to balance vehicle tires." It notes that many of the wheel weights fall off and abrade into lead dust, "and increase the risk that lead will contaminate surface, groundwater, and drinking water supplies." Provides information about alternatives (such as zinc), listing of U.S. distributors of lead-free wheel weights, and a wheel-balancing fact sheet. From the Ecology Center.
URL: http://www.leadfreewheels.org/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/28380

SBDS Prototype

SBDS, a new initiative of the National Library of Australia, will be a new discovery service focused on Australia, Australians, and items found in Australian collecting institutions. It will provide a single point of access to resources currently discoverable via the Library's multiple discovery services, and to digitised material freely available online anywhere in the world.

The primary purpose of this first prototype version is to develop the technical framework to support this new discovery service, and as far as possible ensure that the technologies we are using will provide acceptable performance, especially for record updates. The design so far is based primarily on decisions made within the project team to allow rapid development of the prototype. What is there now will form the basis for feedback, ideas for improvement, and input into the design of new features from a wide range of people.

The system is a work in progress, and we have made it available for you to follow our development as we build and improve it. The prototype will be constantly updated as it evolves into a system planned for release into production in the third quarter of this year. -- NLA

Coming to JSTOR

JSTOR will introduce a new "faceted search" feature in early July. The faceted search will offer a number of different options to expand and refine search results. Faceted searching and search results will allow you to easily visualize how the returned articles are distributed among categories, or “facets." For instance, with faceted search you can see how many of your results are in each discipline, how many are book reviews or full-length articles, and how many articles contain images, among other options. You'll be able to modify your search results by choosing specific facets, and all search results pages will now incorporate the facets sidebar to make modifications easier.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Websites about Colour

This is especially for those of you who missed out on the book of colour offered on the Giveaway list no 16. Here are three websites I found listed on Librarian’s Internet Index which might interest you and make up for the fact you missed out on the book.

Color Matters

"It's all about the world of color" and its physiological and psychological effects. "This site explores how color affects appetite, vision, sexuality, energy conservation, and its relationship to architecture and interior design." A passion for color and its unique characteristics led the site's author to search for answers to some puzzling questions: Does pink make strong men weak? Can colors create accidents? What colors are predominant in different cultures? Do marketers use color to influence our decisions? Browse Resources and Interact for additional questions and issues on how color really matters. Searchable.”

Causes of Color

“Explores the "fifteen causes of color derived from a variety of physical and chemical mechanisms." Features information on vibrations and simple excitations, ligand-field-effect colors, molecular orbitals, energy bands, geometrical and physical optics, colorblindness, how the eye and brain process color, early theories of color, and what animals see. Searchable”


Pantone Color Think Tank

Pantone "is known worldwide as the standard language for accurate color communication, from designer to manufacturer to retailer to customer, across a variety of industries." Its "Color Think Tank" plans and chooses color palettes for businesses. Of interest to the general public are pages on color fundamentals such as how we see color, other ways to define color, how color is reproduced, and psychology of color. Also includes links to some color trend material.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

JSTOR

Staff now have access to the full-text of many journals via JStor.

You can access this resource from link in the library page devoted to eJournals.

For a full list of all the titles currently availble just click on the Browse button on the JStor home-page.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Keeping Up with the News

NewsCred is free news service where you may sign up to get the latest news from a wide range of sources including The Australian and The Australian Financial Review