ChemInformer Chemistry Information from Rutgers University Libraries

Please see the note below from our Associate University Librarian regarding the unfortunate mold outbreak in the chemistry library. As always, please contact me with any questions or concerns.

~Laura

Dear Chemistry Faculty and Students,

As you know, we have been working toward moving the chemistry collection
from the Chemistry Library to our Annex. Although the move was scheduled for
next week, we have had to halt progress due to an outbreak of mold within
the Chemistry Library facility. Unfortunately, it rapidly spread throughout
the collection and caused a good deal of damage.

Mold is difficult to contain and expensive to treat. In order to salvage as
much of the collection as possible we are taking immediate action. Any books
in the Chemistry Library which are also owned by any other library at
Rutgers will be discarded. Any books in the Chemistry Library that are
unique will be considered for mold remediation which will allow the books to
be added back into our collection.

Over the next couple of weeks you may notice books being added to a dumpster
behind the chemistry building. Please do not remove books from the dumpster
as the books carry mold; adding them to your personal collection risks
contamination of your own books, labs or homes.

Effective immediately, items from the Chemistry Library will not be
available for borrowing. However, you will still be able to access most of
the items you need. Journal articles will still be available through article
delivery and inter-library loan. Books in our system can be delivered from
another branch, and others may be requested through EZBorrow and ILL.

We regret this unfortunate turn of events and thank you for your cooperation
as we work with Facilities and others on campus to deal with the resultant
issues. We will continue to do our best to provide you with access to any
necessary research materials. Please contact the Chemistry Librarian, Laura
Palumbo at laura.palumbo@rutgers.edu, if you need assistance with obtaining
a resource.

Best
-Melissa

Melissa L. Just, MLIS, EdD
Associate University Librarian for
Research and Instructional Services
Rutgers University Libraries
melissa.just@rutgers.edu | 848.932.6112

“This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three researchers for computer simulations that enable the closer study of complex reactions like photosynthesis and combustion, and the design of new drugs.”

Read more in the New York Times article: 3 researchers win Nobel prize in chemistry

The following press release was posted today by the Royal Society of Chemistry:

Royal Society of Chemistry announces a new repository for the chemical sciences

07 October 2013

The Royal Society of Chemistry today announces a new subject-based repository that will make it easier for researchers to find and share relevant journal articles and data from a single point of access.

David James, the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Executive Director of Strategic Innovation, said: “The Chemical Sciences Repository will offer free-to-access chemistry publications and integrated data in a single place.

“This repository extends the services the Royal Society of Chemistry already offers researchers. With this new service we are improving our ability to ensure that the outputs from research activity are made as widely available as possible – to meet the needs of the scientific community, funders and others interested in accessing our content in a more comprehensive, streamlined way.”

The initial release will provide an article repository as a central point through which users can access the Royal Society of Chemistry’s open access articles, whether they are funded immediate open access articles, or articles that must be made open access after an embargo period, such as those funded by RCUK, the Wellcome Trust or NIH. This article repository will be available at the end of October 2013.

The repository will point to the Article of Record as the primary source. It will make open access versions of the article available when any embargo period expires.

David James continued: “We plan to grow the Chemical Sciences Repository, with the addition of open access papers from institutional repositories, other publishers, and individuals – as well as theses, data and models.

“The repository will make it easy for researchers to deposit their articles and data, and scientists will also find it easy to find and reuse compatible datasets.

“As a community service the repository will catalyse further collaboration and open innovation between chemical scientists all over the world.”

The Royal Society of Chemistry will announce additional elements to the data repository in the coming months. Work is already underway with major UK universities around data extraction and upload, Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN) integration, and micropublishing. Offering functionality with chemical scientists specifically in mind, the repository will support the building of validation and prediction models to maximise the value and quality of the data collections.

Head of Chemistry at the University of Southampton, Professor Philip Gale, said: ” My colleagues and I welcome this initiative: a collection of chemistry data curated by the Royal Society of Chemistry will be of significant value to the worldwide chemistry community.

“We are now working with the Royal Society of Chemistry to enable best practice, to expose laboratory data in an intelligent and usable manner.”

For those of you who have experienced Java related problems with SciFinder’s structure editor, CAS has announced that they have just updated the drawing editor so that Java plugins are no longer required. You now have the option of selecting your preferred editor, including the Java version. The new non-Java editor does lack some of the features of the Java based editor, so this will be a trade off of functions for ease of use. For more information, please see SciFinder System Requirements.

Rutgers Community funded site licenses have been extended, and in some cases upgraded. These include:

Highlights include:

• ChemBioDraw site license has been upgraded to ChemBioOffice and
  includes ChemBioDraw, eNotebook, and more.
• Matlab site license now includes the Matlab Distributed Computing
  Server (MDCS) Toolbox (for 32 or less workers/nodes) and the OPC Toolbox.
• RefWorks site license now includes Flow. Flow incorporates the general
  bibliographic capabilities of RefWorks plus full text and annotation as
  well as improved processes for collecting references, collaboration, and
  ease of use.

For further information, go to http://software.rutgers.edu . If you have any questions about this software, please contact OIRT at oirt@rutgers.edu.