As you may have noticed QUT Library has a new look web-site. The redesign of the Library’s website was based on exten-sive usability testing and user feedback.

One of the most heavily visited websites in the Uni-versity; the Library’s new site creates a user friendly envi-ronment that enables quick and easy navigation.

The Library home page is now divided into specific sec-tions directing users to spe-cialised searches.

We welcome your com-ments and feedback about the new site, especially its layout and usability. If you have any difficulty locat-ing informa-

tion on the new site, please contact me.

Please note: Any references to the Library's webpages in teaching materials or other documentation should be checked as the links may have changed.

New Library Website Launched

From 2008, QUT staff and students now have access to the Macquarie Dic-tionary and The-saurus Online, through a new Library subscription. This service is also available for public access (within QUT Library branches only).

The Macquarie Dictionary is constantly updated with new words as they enter our language. The online service gives you access to the Mac-quarie Dictionary Fourth

Edition which has the fol-lowing features, as well as access to the Macquarie The-saurus:

• over 112,000 headwords covering English as it is used in Australia, from the colourfully colloquial to the highly technical;

• etymologies for some of the more interesting phrases in English;

• thousands of new words;

• illustrative material from Ozcorp, Mac-quarie's database of Aus-tralian writing, which is being increased and up-dated;

• regionalisms from around Australia, many gathered from Australian Word Map, a joint online project of Macquarie and the ABC.

Access via: www.library.qut.edu.au/db/3140f

Macquarie Dictionary and Thesaurus Online

Queensland University of Technology February 2008

Macquarie Dictionary and Thesaurus Online

1

The Merck Index 14th Edi-tion : 2008 Electronic Trial

2

QUT ePrints Archive Update 2

ScienceDirect : Energy and Power Backfile Collection

2

PLoS Journals 3

Leximancer 3

Connexions 3

New Library Website Launched

1

Inside this issue:

The Macquarie Word of the Year 2007 The Macquarie Dictionary

Word of the Year Com-

mittee has announced

pod slurping as the Word

of the Year 2007 from

the new words selected

for inclusion in the an-

nual update of the Mac-

quarie Dictionary Online.

The People's Choice

Award goes to password

fatigue.

Faculty of Science, Schools of Life Sciences & Natural Resource Sciences

Library News

ScienceDirect : Energy and Power Backfile Collection : Now Available

Merck Index

Comprehensive

information on

• 10,000 chemicals,

drugs and

biological

compounds

• 450 organic name

reactions

Page 2 L ibrary News February 2008

QUT Library now provides access to the ScienceDirect: Energy and Power Back-file Collection. This collec-tion covers 65 journal titles; earliest backfile start date is

1948 onwards.

For further details including a link to the titles in the collec-tion please go to www.sciencedirect.info/content/journals/backfiles/

collections/energy/

Please note that QUT Li-brary Catalogue records have been updated for all the journals in this collection to reflect this backfile purchase.

QUT ePrints Archive Update : February 2008 : World Ranking of Repositories

The latest statistics (February 2008) for the QUT ePrints Archive indicate there are 9337 items in the repository with 1316 registered users.

As you can see by the graph below, 3981 new records were created in 2007. This repre-sents a deposit rate almost double that of 2006 when 2202 new records were cre-ated. Many of these new re-cords were created for the RQF and, although they are linked to the published ver-sion, some have no open ac-cess (OA) copy (postprint version) attached. However, at least some of the records

created for the RQF included OA fulltext with the propor-tion of our total records that include OA fulltext still rela-tively high (approximately 75%).

A few days ago, the We-bometrics Ranking of World Universities launched their new Ranking of Reposi-tories as given at www.webometrics.info/top200_rep.asp.

QUT's institutional repository QUT ePrints Archive, was the highest ranking Australian repository in the list.

With a rank of 28, we are the

only Australian repository in the top 50 (next is Univer-sity of Adelaide at 76). Large international discipline-based repositories (such as RePEc, ArXiv and the Arts & Humanities Data Service) are included in the list so our ranking would be even higher if only institutional repositories were being com-pared.

The ranking is based on visibility, number of pages (records) and number of 'rich files' (eg .doc, .ppt, .pdf ). The latter gives an indication of the amount of fulltext material in the re-pository.

QUT’s ePrin

ts Achive

is the highe

st ranking

Australian re

pository

(www.webm

etrics.info)

QUT Library has for many years had a print subscrip-tion to the Merck Index and commencing with the 14th Edition, online access is now available.

The Merck Index is an en-cyclopedia providing precise, comprehensive information on more than 10,000 chemi-cals, drugs, and biological compounds and 450 organic name reactions. Descrip-tions of a single substance or

a small group of closely re-lated compounds include chemical, generic, and brand names; registry numbers; physical data and literature references; structure and stereochemistry; toxicity in-formation and therapeutic uses. Nearly 4,000 of the entries cover drugs and phar-maceuticals, 2,000 describe common organic chemicals

and laboratory reagents, another 2,000 cover natu-rally occurring substances and plants, 1,000 focus on the elements and on inor-ganic chemicals, and ap-proximately 1,000 pertain to compounds of agricul-tural significance.

Access via:

www.library.qut.edu.au/db/5381f

It will remain available for your evaluation throughout 2008.

The Merck Index 14th Edition : 2008 Electronic Trial

PLoS Journals

Connexions

QUT researchers are in-vited to submit manu-scripts to the Public Li-brary of Science (PLoS) journals in the first half of 2008 and the author-fee (US$1250) will be automati-cally allocated by QUT Li-brary (as approved by the Library and the University's Research and Innovation Committee; September 5, 2007).

QUT is now an Institutional Member of PLoS as outlined

at www.plos.org/support/instmembers/australia.html. This entitles QUT researchers to reduced charges for publi-cation in all PLoS journals-including their flagship jour-nals, PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine; and their commu-nity journals PLoS Computa-tional Biology, PLoS Genet-ics, PLoS Pathogens and PLoS Neglected Tropical

Diseases.

When your article is accepted for publica-

tion, PLoS/Allen Press will send you an invoice.

Please forward your PLoS/Allen Press invoices to Stephanie Bradbury, Insti-tute of Health and Biomedi-cal Innovation, and the fee will be paid by QUT Library.

For more information please contact Stephanie Bradbury (x86078; s.bradbury@qut.edu.au).

Anyone may view or contrib-ute:

authors create and collabo-rate

instructors rapidly build and share custom collections

learners find and explore content

An editorial in The New York Times on May 1, 2007 <www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/opinion/01tue3.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin>

discussed a recent law passed in the state of

Washington that requires textbook companies to disclose prices and other relevant information to college professors. This law is a response to the high cost of college textbooks. The editorial goes on to say that colleges and universi-ties will need to embrace creative solutions to reduce textbook costs, like the Connexions Project at Rice University.

Connexions <http://cnx.org/>

is an environment for collaboratively developing, freely sharing, and rapidly publishing scholarly content on the Web. Connexions’ Content Commons contains educational materials for eve-ryone — from children to college students to profes-sionals — organized in small modules that are easily con-nected into larger collections or courses. All content is free to use and reuse under the Creative Commons "attribution" license.

PLoS Journals

QUT researchers are

invited to submit

manuscripts to the

Public Library of

Science (PLoS) journals

in the first half of 2008

and the author-fee

(US$1250) will be

automatically allocated

by QUT Library

Page 3 L ibrary News February 2008

Dr Nina Prasolova Liaison Librarian - Science

Library Researchers' Centre

Level 7, V Block

Gardens Point Campus, QUT

Leximancer

Leximancer <www.leximancer.com>

is text mining software that can be used to analyse the content of collections of textual documents and to visually display the extracted information in a browser. The information is displayed by means of a conceptual map that provides an over-

view of the material, repre-senting the main concepts contained within the text and how they are related.

Also interesting articles on the application of Leximancer in research can be found at <www.leximancer.com/cms/index.php?op-

tion=com_content&task=view&id=15>

There will be some training later in the semester.

For more information including how to obtain Leximancer software please contact me (x82989; n.prasolova@qut.edu.au).