Category Archives: Tip of the Month

Inspec: Find Literature in Physics and Engineering

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Inspec, updated weekly, is produced by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (formerly IEE). The database provides access to the scientific and technical literature in the following disciplines from 1898 onwards:

  • physics
  • electrical and electronic engineering
  • computing
  • information technology
  • control engineering
  • manufacturing
  • production and mechanical engineering

Nearly 5000 journals and 2500 conference publications as well as reports, dissertations, books and scientific videos are scanned each year.

All Inspec data is supplemented by special subject indexing (including Controlled Index Terms, Chemical and Numerical Data) for more accurate retrieval.

You may access Inspec by two ways:
via Web of Science or
via STNeasy.

Find an introduction video at YouTube (by Web of Science Training).

How to get reports?

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Research reports or technical reports communicate research progress in technology and science. They deliver the results, current status or progress of a research project in industry and research institutions. Normally these reports are not available through booksellers.

The German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB Hannover) has a very large stock of foreign research reports but not all of the reports have been recorded in its catalogues. To find research reports you may use the following resources:

To access research reports that are not available online in a full-text version you may contact your library staff. It is easyier to identify and order a report if you know the Report No., Order No. or if applicable the Contract No.

Comparison of Reference Management Systems

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There are a lot of comparisons of commercial and non-commercial reference management software available on the web. We recommend the following tables created by librarians:

To decide which one of the many reference management systems to use, first aks yourself the following questions:

  • Which system do my colleagues use?
  • Is the system compatible with my operating system/word processor?
  • Which databases are available for import?

Get ToCs from New Issues of Your Favorite Journals

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Most publishers offer RSS feeds or email alerts for all of their journals.

RSS feeds allow you to receive automatically updated table of contents, news etc. They publish frequently updated web content in a standardized XML format which can be subscribed by using a feed reader or aggregator.
There are many web-based RSS readers available (free or paid) as well as desktop-based or mobile-device-based software. You may subscribe to feeds by entering the feed’s URL into your RSS reader or by clicking on the feed icon/link. Alternatively you can put RSS feeds into your browser (e.g. as “live bookmarks” in Firefox).

JournalTOCs is a nice service which allows you to select a set of journal titles instead of visiting each journal’s website to subscribe to ToCs by RSS or via e-mail. It is a free collection of scholarly journal tables of contents.

FHI library feeds
New Books
News from our Blog

Deutschsprachige Wissenschaftsblogs

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Hier eine kleine Auswahl deutschsprachiger Wissenschaftsblogs:

Fraunhofer Forschungs-Blog http://www.forschungs-blog.de/
Der Blog der Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft stellt nicht nur Fraunhofer-Erfindungen vor sondern auch weitere wissenschaftliche Entdeckungen und Entwicklungen.

“Meinung & Debatte” http://www.stifterverband.info/meinung_und_debatte/
Der Blog des Stifterverbandes bündelt ein breites Spektrum an Beiträgen zu aktuellen wissenschaftspolitischen Themen und anderen Fragen.

SciLogs http://www.scilogs.de/
Das Blog-Netzwerk für Wissenschaftler und Wissenschaftskommunikatoren von Spektrum der Wissenschaft (gehört zu Nature Publishing) .

ScienceBlogs http://scienceblogs.de/
Ein großes Wissenschafts-Blog-Portal.

Planckton http://blogs.faz.net/planckton/
Der Blog der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung für die Natur- und Geisteswissenschaften.