RSC Going for Gold

The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) have recently launched a “Going for Gold” scheme, where institutional subscribers to their journals packages are entitled to complimentary Open Access article credits.  In Aston’s case, this translates into 5 credits for Aston authors who wish to publish in RSC journals before the end of 2013.

The RSC publishes a broad range of journals, including many inter-disciplinary journals, so it is likely to have a wide relevance across SEAS and LHS.  Publication timescales can be very fast, particularly for the publication of communications articles.

One Aston author has already taken advantage of this initiative to make their 2012 article Open Access:

Lychnos, G., Amdouni, R., Davies, P. A. (2012). Concentrated seawater brines for use in solar-powered desiccant cooling cycles. RSC Advances, 2 (21), 7978–7982.

Allocation of credits will be administered by Georgina Hardy in Library & Information Services, so please contact her on g.c.hardy@aston.ac.uk for further information or to register your interest.

***Update: we have been advised by the RSC that we have 5 credits available (not 15 as originally thought)

Online article formats: HTML vs PDF

This month, IEEE Xplore is starting to make their articles available in HTML format, as well as PDF format, with a view to having this complete for all articles by the end of 2014.

A PDF of a journal article is a great format for printing and downloading, and you see the article in the layout and design in which it will have appeared in the printed journal.

However, the HTML format, provided in addition to PDF by most major publishers, has a number of advantages:

• Use browser functions to change the text size, copy quotations and find keywords
• Navigate easily between sections of long articles
• Explore figures, equations, and multimedia files (something the Royal Society of Chemistry have excelled in with their Project Prospect)

Making library resources mobile!

Did you know that many of the resources available to you via Aston University Library & Information Services are available from your mobile device as well?

This summer, we launched a mobile version of the Library Catalogue, making it easier than ever to find books as you navigate the Library shelves. This is accessible through the usual web browser on your mobile device.

Many of our resource providers have developed mobile versions of their interfaces as well.  For example, you can access the Web of Knowledge, EBSCOhost, IEEE Xplore and JSTOR when you're out and about using the mobile interfaces provided.  Sometimes, free registration is required for access to the mobile version.  Comment on this post or ask at the Help Desk if you have any questions about this.

Some of our providers have created apps for you to download.  Elsevier provide apps for ScienceDirect and Scopus Alerts.  To download an EBSCOhost app for iPhone or Android, access EBSCOhost as normal and click the link at the bottom of any EBSCOhost page to email yourself the download instructions, access key and a link to the app store.  The RSC (Royal Society of Chemistry) have an iOS app for their journals and for ChemSpider.