Wednesday, September 24, 2008

They say it's the same, but it's not the same

By now, you will have noticed that while you were away enjoying your summer vacations, basking in the sun on the beaches of Oahu, the Web elves took away your old comfortable UCR Library Home Page and replaced it with something...else.

Don't Panic. It will be okay.

For the most part, all of the changes were to the very top page. The menus on the left were changed slightly, mostly so that they would collapse and uncollapse based on the beta brainwaves (and mouse clicks) of the user. Honestly, wasn't it looking a little crowded over there.

The main part of the page has a lot more words on it. We are going to track how many times each of those words catches the attention of unsuspecting users and if they do not...well it might mean they get the axe. It's a dog eat dog world in the Web real estate game.

Honestly. I want to know what you think. You can let me know here, or you could do something actually useful and fill out our teeny, weeny survey.

I missed you all and I am glad you are back.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Springer eBooks


We have been working with Springer (a notable publisher in Science, Engineering and Medicine) to selectively acquire some of their books in electronic format.

In order to evaluate their products and our interest in them we will be able access their entire collections until December 31st. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

We like Springer because they are not charging a premium for electronic access, and they are fully downloadable (PDF). I hear they even work on the Kindle.