Library E-Resources – Your Global Companion

Mrs Hazel Loh :: ktvoo@ntu.edu.sg
Head, Digital Resources Division

“Prof Tan from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences settles down comfortably in his hotel room in San Francisco after dinner. He turns on his laptop and looks through the presentation that he is delivering at a conference the very next day.

Towards the end, he realizes that he has inadvertently omitted the citation for an important article that he made reference to from the database ‘Web of Science’. Without hesitation, he navigates to the at NTU Library Homepage. He selects the database, authenticates using his network account, searches for the citation and copies it to his presentation. With that, he happily saves his work and proceeds to get a good night’s rest.”

The above scenario is a norm nowadays as faculty travel globally in the course of their work, be it conferences, study trips or meetings. Having access to information at one’s fingertips is achievable in this time and era for information that is free on the internet. However, fee based and scholarly e-resources are not so easily available and are primarily accessible via authentication from the Library portal.

For NTU, seamless access to these resources was made possible by the implementation of our Ezproxy in 2005. It is a vast improvement in terms of convenience and ease of use as access is anywhere, anytime as long as one has a network account and access to the internet. Before this, staff and students had access only on campus or they had to set up the Virtual Private Network (VPN) in order to access our e-resources remotely.

In addition, there are also some databases which offer email alert services. Subscribing to an alert service meant that an email is automatically generated to a user with the URL links to articles that have just been added to the database. It is a convenient way to keep track of new entries in the database.

Previously it was impossible to have direct access to articles sent through email alerts if staff or students were accessing form home or remotely. They had to log in to the database to search again for the articles. We have simplified this process by creating a proxy bookmarklet for users to do a one time installation of a plugin to their favourites on the web browser. Once they receive email alerts, they need only invoke the bookmarklet to gain authenticated access to the articles without leaving their email.

Instructions on how to install the proxy bookmarklet can be obtained from http://www.ntu.edu.sg/lib/collections/db/dbfaq.htm.

Should you have further queries regarding this, please contact the Digital Resources Division at drd@ntu.edu.sg and we will do our best to assist you.

Journal Articles at Your Fingertips

Wendy Ong :: wendy@ntu.edu.sg
Subject Librarian for Library & Information Science

Did you know, as a student or staff member of NTU, you can easily locate journal articles from the comfort of your home, hostel and office? And even when you are traveling overseas! So long as you are connected to the Internet.

With more than 27,000 electronic journals subscribed by the Library, you now have access to a vast collection of articles over a wide range of disciplines at your fingertips to enhance your research capability. Try it out today!

Easy steps to access e-journals:

• Go to the Library Homepage at http://www.ntu.edu.sg/library
• From the drop-down menu on the left, choose E-Journals
• In the E-Journals page, click on A to Z List
• In the search box, type in the journal title you want and click on Search
• Click on the links provided under each journal to obtain the articles – provide your network account username and password if prompted)

Need help? Contact the Library’s Information Desk (Lee Wee Nam Library, Level 2) at 6790 6312 or email infodesk@ntu.edu.sg

Civil Engineering feats!

Lim Kong Meng :: ckmlim@ntu.edu.sg
Subject Librarian for Civil & Environmental Engineering

Taj Mahal, Great Wall of China, Eiffel Tower, Millau Viaduct, the Panama Canal, the Channel Tunnel and the list goes on … all feats of Civil Engineering.

Do you know the Great Wall of China spans some 3,500 km across China and was created over a period of 1,800 years from the 3rd Century BC?

Look at the wall section of the Great Wall of China. It’s amazing!
Picture taken from “Amazing Achievements : a celebration of human ingenuity” by Nigel Hawkes.

The Panama Canal, linking the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean, took more than 40 years to build and was one of the largest and most expensive engineering projects ever undertaken during the 19th Century.

If you are keen to know more about these feats or about other civil engineering feats, take a look at some of the books (with beautiful pictures and illustrations) found in our library collections:

“Amazing Achievements : a celebration of human ingenuity” by Nigel Hawkes.

“The seventy wonders of the modern world: 1500 years of extraordinary feats of engineering and construction” by Neil Parkyn.

“The Builders : marvels of engineering” published by the National Geographic Society.

For those who likes to know more about these feats online, our Media Resource Library has a collection of video recordings showcasing these interesting engineering feats which you can view online.

To find the titles we hold, just enter “Extreme Engineering” in OPAC. You should retrieve about 30 titles.

Look out for the video recording on the construction of the Millau Viaduct of France, a suspension bridge which has the tallest bridge piers in the world, some 343 m high! Eiffel Tower is only about 302 m high.

There are other interesting titles as well, for example, the widening of the Panama Canal, tunneling under the Alps, and building of the Hong Kong Airport.