Thomson Reuters releases 2013 Journal Citation Reports

Thomson Reuters has released the 2014 Journal Citation Reports containing the 2013 journal metric data.

 Journal Citation Reports®, is an unique Web-based research tool that allows you to evaluate and compare journals using citation data drawn from approximately 12,000 scholarly and technical journals and conference proceedings from more than 3,300 publishers in over 80 countries. Journal Citation Reports includes virtually all specialties in the areas of science, technology, and social sciences.

Expanded Metrics and Features

5-Year Journal Impact Factor is the average number of times articles from a journal published in the past five years have been cited in the JCR year. For journals in subjects where citation activity continues to rise through several years, this metric allows more of their total citation activity to be included in a critical performance metric.

Eigenfactor® Metrics, comprising the Eigenfactor® Score and Article Influence® Score, use JCR citation data to assess the influence of a journal in relation to other journals. These metrics, based on five years of citation activity, consider not just the count of citations but the structure of the citation network. Eigenfactor Metrics are available only for JCR years 2007 and later.

Journal Self Cites provides analyses of journal self citations and their contribution to the Journal Impact Factor calculation.

Rank-in-Category reveals the ranking of a journal in its subject categories based on the Journal Impact Factor. An accompanying Impact Factor box plot depicts the distribution of Impact Factors for all journals in a category.

For more information please review the release notes or contact Web of Science  at
wok@mimas.ac.uk

Science Journal Archive now available

 

Aston University Library is pleased to announce a subscription to Science Classic, the digital archives of Science (1880-1996).  Subscription access is made possible through the national license agreement between AAAS and Jisc and available at institutions of higher and further education in the United Kingdom.

Science Classic delivers more than a century’s worth of full-text content from the annals of the world’s largest general scientific journal. Every article has been scanned as a high-resolution PDF. The collection is full-text indexed and searchable. All references in HTML are dynamically linked.

Scopus releases 2013 Journal Metrics

Elsevier have just released the 2013 Journal Metrics based on Scopus data. The metrics, Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) and SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) provide views of the citation impact a journal title makes, and are all available for free download at www.journalmetrics.com or via Analyze Journals in Scopus.

Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP)
SNIP measures contextual citation impact by weighting citations based on the total number of citations in a subject field. The impact of a single citation is given higher value in subject areas where citations are less likely, and vice versa. As a field-normalized metric, SNIP offers an opportunity to compare journals from different subject areas. More information is available here.

SCImago Journal Rank (SJR)
SJR is a prestige metric based on the idea that ‘all citations are not created equal’. With SJR, the subject field, quality and reputation of the journal have a direct effect on the value of a citation. It is a size-independent indicator and it ranks journals by their ‘average prestige per article’ and can be used for journal comparisons in the scientific evaluation process. More information is available here.

New carpet!

The carpet fitters have now gone, and we have a lovely new carpet on the ground floor of the Library.  The colour is a bit darker than the previous carpet, so we hope this will look better for longer - surprisingly, we also think it makes the space look bigger!

There is still a little bit of work to be done on the first floor, but the work to replace the carpet on that floor will also be completed very soon. 

Let us know what you think of the change!

Farewell to our Director - Dr Nick Smith

On the 26th of June, Director of LIS, Dr Nick Smith retired from the University.  He has worked through enormous changes at the University and the Library, not least the complete refurbishment of the Library Building that was completed in October 2013. 

The University and Library staff both held celebratory parties to wish him well on his retirement after 26 years at the University. For those of you that don't know, one of Nick’s talents was as a poet.  He regaled every member of staff that left their position within the Library with a poem (copyright protected of course) and it was always the highlight of the party.  It was only right that we should treat Nick to a poem written in his honour - scripted and performed by Lydia Matheson (Customer Service Co-ordinator)

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Nick for all his support over the years from staff old and new.  Nick - we have promised we will never mention the year "1995".
  
We hope you will join us in wishing Nick a very happy retirement, successful golf tournaments and much relaxation.

Carpet fitting on ground and 1st floors of the Library starting on Monday 7 July

Dear Staff and Students,

New carpets will be fitted and electrical sockets installed on the ground and first floors of the Library, starting on Monday 7th July and finishing around the 18th July.  Although the cafe will be open as normal throughout this period the rest of the ground floor will be closed for the first week of the work and staff and students should use the 2nd and 3rd floors for study.

Please note the following temporary arrangements:

• Study space on ground floor will be unavailable from 7 - 11 July
• There will be no access to Library laptops from 7 - 11 July
• There will be no fixed PC availability on Ground Floor from 3 July - 16 July 
• Study space on first floor will be unavailable from 14 - 18 July
• The Library Datastream PC will not be available from 11 July - 22 July (students will need to ask to the ABS PG office if they can use Datastream in the trading room)
• LDC appointments will take place in L209 (second floor group study room) 14-18 July

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.  Please bear with us whilst this work is undertaken and email library@aston.ac.uk if you have any questions.

Best regards
Library Public Services Team