Need a Library book over the summer?

From Monday 21 May, you can get a vacation loan for most items from RCSI Library - please ask at the Service Desk when taking out the book.

Please note:

• Vacation loans are due on Monday 1 October 2012 
• A vacation loan is subject to certain conditions - if there are requests for the item over the summer months, then we may need to recall the item. In this case, you must agree to return the item (by post etc.) and are responsible for the item until its return. 
• Exceptions: USMLE and MCQ books and DVDs are exempt from vacation loans as these are required over the summer. 

Please ask at the Library Service Desks if you have any queries about vacation loans.

Wolfram Alpha - compute and search

The Wolfram | Alpha computational knowledge engine:

Answer questions, do drug calculations, chemical formula, do math, get facts, create plots, calculators, unit conversions, scientific data and statistics.

compute body mass index
compute mean plasma glucose from HbA1c level
compute estimated risk of heart disease
compute life expectancy and survival probabilities
get data on deaths from a specific cause
get information about a test result
get an overview of health care costs in a country



Categories and Examples

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Mendeley: web based reference management with storage

Mendeley is a free reference manager and academic social network that can help you organize your work, collaborate with others online, and discover the latest research.

There are a number of different open access citation managers with various search, import and export features.  See the Wikipedia entry for a comparison of of features.

 

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RCSI Library services for researchers

We have updated our information page with our services for researchers: More about our open access repository (e-publications at RCSI), ResearcherID and Publish or Perish.

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Google Scholar Metrics

Many researchers are using Google Scholar to find their own citation impact and h-indexes and indeed many are also creating their own personal citation profile.  See Albert Einstein as an example.

Now Google Scholar Metrics has been introduced to enable a similiar type of analysis at the journal level. Buit how valid are these emerging metrics based on Google Scholar? Over in The Scholarly Kitichen, they are cooking up a critique: 
Google’s New “Scholar Metrics” Have Potential, But Also Prove Problematic

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