Thursday 29 May 2008

Kevin St Library Opening Hours: June


Kevin St Library Opening Hours

3rd to 19th June: Normal Term Hours:
Monday - Friday 9.30am-9.30pm
Saturdays: 10am-5pm

Vacation Hours from Friday 20th June:
Monday - Friday: 9.30am-5.15pm
Saturdays: Closed

Monday 26 May 2008

Science Direct for Researchers


New from Science Direct for researchers:

View reference information within the body of a paper when your cursor moves over a reference marker.

A new navigation pane on the search results page provides a view of the research output on a subject by year, by content type or by journal/book titles with the most results. By using these filters you can refine your search results without having to return to the search form.

A new Article Toolbox brings together all of the article-related functionality including 'Cited By', 'E-mail Article' into one easy-to-find location.

Due to be launched in phases over the coming months, the integration of article comments and ratings from Elsevier's social collaboration site, 2collab enables you to evaluate papers according to colleague-driven comments and ratings of articles right on the article page.

For more information visit http://www.info.sciencedirect.com

Friday 23 May 2008

Access to e-theses

The DIT Library Index to Theses database resource now contains links to the full text availability of theses online via ETD - Electronic Theses and Dissertations.

If an e-vesion is not yet available, the new ETD feature will describe alternative routes for obtaining the full text of theses from that university, including specific reference to the British Library’s British Theses Service. A full guide to the new feature is available at www.theses.com/obtain.html.
Index to Theses is a listing of theses with abstracts accepted for higher degrees by universities in Great Britain and Ireland since 1716.

Thursday 22 May 2008

ScienceWatch - Tracking Trends and Performance in Basic Research


Keep up with the latest developments in scientific

Cancer Biology Animations


A multimedia guide to cancer biology is a available at http://www.insidecancer.org/ and is produced by the DNA Learning Center: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
This site site offers colour animations with sound illustrating and explaining oncological hallmarks and pathways and is useful as both an introductory tool and as a revision aid.


Tuesday 20 May 2008


The new fifth edition of Understanding Operating Systems (winner of the 2006 McGuffey Award) by Ida Flynn and Ann Mciver (Thomson 2008) is now available in the Short Loan Collection.
Copies will soon be available to borrow in the Lending Collection at 005.43

Thursday 15 May 2008

More on nanomeds



A couple more links on nanomeds and nanotech research:


Nanomedicine Research Portal http://www.nano-biology.net/

Nanotech Institute http://www.foresight.org/nanomedicine

Nanoparticles to nanomedicine


It's one thing to make a drug that can treat a disease. It's quite another to get it to go where it needs to in the body to be effective. That's why researchers at UCD are working out how to get tiny nanoparticles safely into cells, and in doing so they are unveiling some big surprises.

Nanoscience, or the study of particles on the scale of millionths of millimetres, has become a hot topic in research over the last decade. Engineered nanoparticles now offer the potential to deliver drugs to combat conditions like cancer, viral infections and neurodegenerative disease, which can lurk in currently hard-to-reach places in the body. See Claire O'Connell's article @ http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/sciencetoday/2008/0515/1210770682370.html

Tuesday 13 May 2008

Braille Converter Bridges The Information Gap

A free, e-mail-based service that translates text into Braille and audio recordings is helping to bridge the information gap for blind and visually impaired people, giving them quick and easy access to books, news articles and web pages.

Please click on the link to read the full article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080508174310.htm

Monday 12 May 2008

Bugs or Us?


Bugs or Us: Immunity and the Battle for Survival
15 May 2008 at the Merrion Room, RDS
Free of charge, but must be booked in advance

Daily battles are fought within the human body against all sorts of microbes. Mostly, these battles are resolved successfully unbeknownst to us, however our defences can be breached. Viruses like HIV, flu and Hep C and bacteria like Mycobacterium tuberculosis, MRSA and Campylobacter have all evolved ways of attacking and overcoming host defence mechanisms.
Prof Cliona O’Farrelly is particularly interested in ‘Comparative Immunomics’ which involves the examination of the immune systems from different species to determine how they influence the host’s susceptibility to important pathogens. Through the identification of species-specific and individual-specific differences in immune genes and molecules she and her team hope to soon be able to develop target directed therapies.

For further details on this presentation see www.rds.ie/science/lectures

Thursday 8 May 2008

New textbooks



New editions of Campbell's Biology (8th ed), Housecroft's Inorganic Chemistry (3rd ed) and Charles Hill's International Business (7th ed) are now available in the Short Loan Collection.

If the world sneezes, society catches a cold

New Scientist 05 April 2008
Magazine issue 2650

Deborah MacKenzie writes : for years we have been warned that a pandemic is coming. It could be flu, it could be something else. We know that lots of people will die. As terrible as this will be, on an ever more crowded planet, you can't help wondering whether the survivors might be better off in some ways. Wouldn't it be easier to rebuild modern society into something more sustainable if, perish the thought, there were fewer of us. Yet would life ever return to something resembling normal after a devastating pandemic? Virologists sometimes talk about their nightmare scenarios - a plague like ebola or smallpox - as "civilisation ending". Surely they are exaggerating. Aren't they? See Deborah's article in the library and William Reville's comment at http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/sciencetoday/2008/0508/1210178027944.html

Tuesday 6 May 2008

3D Technology brings journals to life

The way in which researchers can present their data in online publications has been revolutionised thanks to a new software technique developed by staff at Swinburne University of Technology. The article is available by following the link below:
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20082904-17238-4.html

New edition of Alberts: The Cell


Alberts & Johnson
Molecular Biology of the Cell
5th edition
New York : Garland Science, c2008.

1 copy of the new fifth edition is now available in Short Loan and 3 copies are in the lending sectoin lending at 572.8

Friday 2 May 2008

May Bank Holiday - Library Opening Hours

LIBRARY OPENING HOURS May Bank Holiday
Saturday May 3rd 10am -5pm
Sunday May 4th Closed
Monday May 5th Closed

The Library will Re-open again on Tuesday May 6th @ 9.30am.

Students Can Win €100!

Students who fill in a short survey at https://vovici.com/wsb.dll/s/933ag3375e could win €100.
The information collected from the survey will be used to help redesign the DIT Library Website http://www.dit.ie/DIT/library/index.html and the DIT Library Catalogue http://library.dit.ie/

We hope the redesign will make more visible the range of services provided by DIT libraries and facilitate easier access to our electronic resources.

Survey responses will be accepted until Friday 9th May.

There is also a direct link to the survey on the DIT Library Website at http://www.dit.ie/DIT/library/index.html

Who says we never give ye anything!!!

Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry

New edition of Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry.

The fifth edition of this title by Nelson & Cox, 2008 is now held in the Short Loan Collection. Extra copies will shortly be available to borrow in the Lending Collection at 572.8

Thursday 1 May 2008

From the lab to the patient

Molecular Medicine Ireland (MMI) is a new body that promotes the training and placement of clinician scientists .The skills of the doctor and of the scientist are being combined in an emerging new specialist, the clinician researcher. Joining the two specialities in a single individual should help to bring new treatments to the patient and get them out of the lab and into the clinic faster. A key role for MMI is the co-ordination of the health and biomedical research activities undertaken by its members. There is to be a new clinical research centre built at St James's Hospital, which matches existing centres at Beaumont, the Mater and St Vincent's. Linking these together will assist in the undertaking of clinical trials for new discoveries being made in Irish labs.