Unless otherwise indicated by the due date shown by the Self Issue systems or the date stamped on your loan items,  7-day loan items successfully renewed or issued from Friday 24 May will be loaned until 2 October 2013.  This is not an automatic process: borrowers will need to renew their current loans from Friday 24 May to extend the loan period should they wish to hold on to books during the vacation. 

If you borrow a 7-day loan item with a user reservation or if you are graduating this summer the book will be due back within 7-days as normal or by the expiry of your library membership.  In either case the due date will be shown on the date stamp or by checking your borrower account:  http://www.bath.ac.uk/library/catalogue/you/

As has been the case in previous years, 28-day loans are not affected by the vacation.   With the exception of items that have user reservations and need to be returned within 7 days, a standard 28-day loan item borrowed anytime between now and the new academic session will always be due for return or renewal 28-days from the date of issue as normal.

The Library will be staffed during the hours of 9am -5pm on weekedays throughout the Summer vacation with the exception of University holidays.  All borrowers can review and renew their loans, accumulating fines, pay historic fines online and contact the Issue Desk via:

• Review, renew loans and pay fines online
• Telephone: +44 1225 385000 (voicemail available)
• Ask a Librarian – email enquiry form
• In person at the Library Issue Desk during staffed hours

In order to avoid charges, please verify the due dates of all your loans, returning or renewing items as necessary before leaving the campus during the vacation period.  Advice for avoiding fines and managing your loans is given on the Library webpages.

Link to Frequently Asked Questions about the Summer Vacation Loans policy

Wishing all our borrowers an enjoyable Summer Vacation.

Chris Roberts

Reader Services Librarian

This years penulitmate Departmental seminar has been arranged in conjunction with the library staff to discuss a new model of open access publishing.

Kara Jones from the UoB library will briefly introduce some new developments at the University of Bath in relation to open access publishing – see attached – in light of the RCUK new guidelines that all RCUK funded research must be  published in an open access manner – and the potential development that all REF output beyond REF2014 will need to be freely accessible

The seminar will be delivered by Mark Patterson, Executive Director of eLife

“eLife – designing a digital research journal fit for purpose”

The seminar will be followed by coffee and biscuits and an opportunity for people to interact with the seminar speaker and library staff answering any questions regarding the evolving face of open access publishing.

ABOUT MARK PATTERSON: In June 2011, three of the world’s leading research funding agencies -the Wellcome Trust, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Max Planck Society – announced plans to launch a top-tier, open-access research journal covering the life and biomedical sciences.  eLife was launched in December 2012.  Mark Patterson started his career as a researcher in genetics before moving into scientific publishing in 1994 as the Editor of Trends in Genetics.  After a few years at Nature, where he was involved in the launch of the Nature Reviews Journals, he moved to PLOS in 2003.  As the Director of Publishing, Mark helped to launch several of the PLOS Journals and was one of the founders of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association. Mark is also a member of the UK Open Access Implementation Group. In November 2011, Mark joined eLife and currently serves as the Executive Director.

The Royal Society of Chemistry is now providing access to the Merck Index online. You can view it on the new RSC platform:

http://www.rsc.org/merck-index

It will be removed from the Medicines Complete platform in due course and we expect to lose access via Medicines Complete at the end of May.

I’ve tested the new version and it seems to me to offer slight improvements:
- more precise searching
- clear labelling of the data
- units are given for melting and boiling points

Please test it out and if you spot any problems, give feedback via the comments below.

• Web of Knowledge
• Web of Science
• Biosis Previews
• Endnote Web
• Researcher ID

Spaces are limited and registration is required, via: http://ieeexplorebath.eventbrite.co.uk/# 

Time: 14:00 – 15:00 OR 15:30 – 16:30
Each session will last one hour, please only attend one session.

The event is open to academic staff, librarians and postgraduates. It would be great to see you there.

Yes, I’m RCUK-funded, what does this mean for me? 

If you have RCUK funding, then this will affect publications that arise from your research.  Any peer-reviewed research articles and conference proceedings must be made available openly accessible online.

What is Open Access?

RCUK defines Open Access to mean unrestricted on-line access to peer-reviewed and published scholarly research papers, free of any access charge and with the maximum opportunities for re-use.

The full definition and requirement is available from the guidance notes on the policy from the RCUK website.

RCUK have supported Open Access to publicly funded research since 2005.  There are two routes to making your work openly accessible:

1. The Green route is free, and simply involves placing a copy (usually the authors accepted manuscript) into Opus, the University research repository. There may be an embargo period from the publisher.
2. The Gold route is the option to pay for the article to be immediately available from the publisher website.  This costs between £100 – £2000 plus VAT (set by the publisher).

When does this change start?

This applies to research papers accepted for publication after 1^st April 2013.  The publication must have been funded by RCUK.  It’s widely acknowledged that the first year will require some flexibility in terms of meeting the requirements set out by RCUK, but there will be a review in 2014 to evaluate progress.

What do I do?

1.  Once your article has been accepted, decide whether you wish to use the Green or Gold routes to open access.  The Sherpa Romeo website is useful for checking publisher policies on open access.
2. The University has been allocated a block grant to cover Gold Open Access costs.  To access this grant, please contact the Library’s Opus Office: opus-support@bath.ac.uk and attach your invoice for payment within your email.  The Library will then process the invoice and monitor the publication process.
3. The Open Access fund from from RCUK will be allocated on a first come, first served basis for Principal Investigators (PI) on RCUK projects.  It’s worth talking this over with your co-authors in case there are additional funding streams you can draw upon (e.g. Wellcome Trust).  We expect there will be a steep learning curve as we encounter split payments, deal with tax and other charges, arrange discounts and pre-payments with publishers, etc., but our aim is to help reduce the administrative burden on researchers.

Are there any other requirements?

Yes.  You must acknowledge the funder in your article. For example, ‘This work was supported by the Medical Research Council [grant number xxxx] to [author initials]‘.  You should also add a statement on access to the underlying research data if available.

RCUK also have requirements on embargo periods for Green Open Access and for licencing on all publications. These vary depending on discipline and on which route to Open Access you have chosen.  For help with these: please contact the Library’s Opus Office.

This policy will be reviewed in 2014 by RCUK.  They expect compliance with the policy over a transitional period of five years.  The Opus team in the Library will be collecting data during the first year as evidence to inform future actions.

This change has been discussed with Heads of Departments and at the University Research Committee.  If you are a researcher affected by this change, please contact the Opus Office.  We will be administering the RCUK Open Access fund, and we will be collecting data during the first year to help inform future funding decisions.

• Drawing a molecule using ChemDraw
• Finding a chemical structure in the Reaxys database and copying it into ChemDraw
• Finding physical/chemical properties using the Knovel Library
• Using a data conversion tool

We plan to add further videos over the coming months, focussing on how to find physical and chemical property data.  We welcome your suggestions – please use the Comments feature below to tell us what you would like us to produce.

No books are due for return or renewal during the Easter vacation period.  However, books can be borrowed and returned as normal.  Loan periods have been adjusted to take account of the Easter Vacation as described below:

7-day loan items borrowed from Friday 15 March  will be due for return or renewal on or before Wednesday 10 April.  (Standard 7-day loans will return to normal from Wednesday 3 April)

28-day loan items borrowed from Friday 15 March are not due for return or renewal until after the Easter Vacation – unless the standard 28-day period has been shortened to take account of high user demand.

The loan periods for Short Loan Collection items will be the same as usual during the Easter Vacation period.

Please review your borrower account or contact the Issue Desk if you are unsure about the due dates for any of your books.  All loans items will need to be renewed as normal by borrowers in order to extend the loan periods beyond the Easter Vacation if they have not already done so.   If another borrower has placed a reservation on a book you have on loan or your total library charges are £10 or more, you will not be able to renew the loans on your books.  Please confirm the due dates of your books before leaving campus for the Easter break to avoid heavy fines.