Extended Hours for Finals

Don’t forget that the libraries are open for extended hours during Finals.

• CLICS is already on their 24/7 schedule.
• Looking for someplace quiet to study?  Consider SIO.

Have your photo taken with Albert Einstein

Friday, March 14 will be Albert Einstein’s 109th birthday. Come and celebrate by having your photo taken with him!

11:00am - 1:00pm
Science & Engineering Library entrance
Friday, March 14

Bring your best smile!

iHop Wins the Research Expo

Christopher M. Schmidt-Wetekam (MAE) won Best Poster at this year’s Jacobs School of Engineering Research Expo for A SELF-TRANSFORMING REACTION WHEEL-STABILIZED CLIMBING ROVER. Also reported on KPBS.

The iHop robot was developed under the direction of Thomas Bewley, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering who directs the UCSD Coordinated Robotics Lab. Over the past year, Schmidt-Wetekam and Bewley have been teaching the wallaby-sized iHop to perform increasingly amazing tricks.

It maneuvers on wheels like other robots, but can also balance in an upright position, quickly turn and roll, jump and even twist in mid-air and land without falling over. The robot’s gyroscopes and accelerometers feed sophisticated on-board attitude estimation and stabilization algorithms in its tiny silicon brain. Bewley said that not only does iHop and a family of similar robots have potential as toys, but they can also be used to search for people stranded in burning buildings or operate in a variety of other hazardous environments.

Congratulations to Christopher and his advisor, Thomas Bewley.

photo of Chris, l, and David Zhang, r, from Andrew Phelps/ KPBS

2008 Research Expo Winners - Best Literature Review

Congratulations to Albert Yu Min Lin (MAE) and Griffin R Brungraber (SE), winners of this year’s “Best Literature Review” award at the 2008 Jacobs School of Engineering Research Expo, held yesterday. Each will receive a $125 bookstore giftcard, and their posters (among others) will be on display at the S&E Library.

Albert Lin, with Mary Linn Bergstrom, Head of the S&E Library

Griffin Brungraber, with lab-mate and 2007 winner Stephanie Svetlik

Continue reading 2008 Research Expo Winners - Best Literature Review…

Total Lunar Eclipse on Wed, 2/20

You will definitely want to be outdoors on Wednesday February 20 (5:43-9:09pm, PST) to watch the dramatic prime-time total lunar eclipse – the best since 2004 and the last until December 2010.

Read more information about the eclipse from NASA and Astronomy Magazine and Sky & Telescope. The February issue of Sky & Telescope - print in S&E Curr Journals QB1. S630 - has more extensive information on this eclipse, including a project on using eclipses to measuring longitude.

Enspire-ing Middle School Science Students

The Triton Engineering Student Council is hoping to “Enspire” local middle school students to pursue careers in Engineering. Enspire is a student-run outreach event designed to introduce students to university-level engineering. On Wednesday, February 20th, approximately 400 8th-grade students will be shown around labs and introduced to engineering through hands-on projects. The students will compete in a bridge building competition on the Forum level of Geisel Library, where they’ll use straws and light wood to construct bridges to meet certain design criteria. The competition takes place between 11:30 am and 1:00 pm.

For more information, see the TESC website.

SciVee Talk @ BML, 2/28

On February 28, 2008, Dr. Philip E. Bourne, a Professor in the UCSD Department of Pharmacology and the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, will give a talk at the Biomedical Library from noon-1pm, “SciVee: A New Form of Scientific Communication and Dissemination.”

Today’s students, who are the leading scientists of tomorrow, are well-versed in the use of online video and social networking in their personal lives, yet these habits have yet to significantly impact their professional lives. SciVee (http://www.scivee.tv) is one of a number of internet sites that is attempting to bring about this change. A unique feature of SciVee is the integration of open access paper content with a video made by the paper authors in what is termed a “pubcast.” This and other features will be described in the context of whether the libraries might become the scholarly video store of the future.

Dr. Bourne is the Co-Director of the Protein Data Bank, and the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the open access journal, PLoS Computational Biology.

This is the fourth talk in the Biomedical Library lunchtime lecture series. Space is limited so please RSVP to Vicky Anderson at vkanderson@ucsd.edu by February 25. Feel free to bring a discreet lunch; cookies and water will be provided.

h/t: BML

NEW LIBRARY WEBSITE

The UCSD Libraries launched their new website on December 16. The site has an enhanced graphical interface, as well as improved functionality and navigation.

For now, you don’t need to change your bookmarks. http://scilib.ucsd.edu/ will redirect to the new S&E homepage, and http://libraries.ucsd.edu/ will redirect to the new UCSD Libraries homepage. Roger, the Databases and E-Journals, Sage (the e-resource directory), Reserves and other resources are still there.

As you start using the S&E Website, please keep in mind that we are still migrating and reorganizing content from the old website. Some pages, like the CoreChem page, are still in the old website but will be migrated shortly. And we’re still “tweaking” a number of pages, including fixing links and reformatting.

We welcome your feedback, comments and suggestions. Each page, in the lower-right corner, has a “Send Us Your Feedback” link you can use. You can also email us at science@ucsd.edu.

Reserves - Big Change

Starting this quarter, all lower division math and science books that were on reserve at the SSHL desk are now at the S&E Library with the other math, science and engineering reserve books.

The steps for finding your reserve books haven’t changed. Start at the Course Reserves page and use the drop-down menu to select the department and course, then click “Items on Reserve at the Science and Engineering Library”.

IMPORTANT: S&E reserve books are arranged by author (instead of call number like the SSHL reserves), so you’ll need the author’s name when you come to the desk to get your book.

Web Forms

There are a number of web forms you can use for interlibrary loan, reference requests, etc. You can access the forms directly from this page.