New Online Catalog at Waldo

In early August, the library’s default online book catalog was changed from the WestCat catalog that many of you have been familiar with to a newly developed catalog. The new catalog was designed to be a little easier for students to use but still provides access to all of the library’s book and video records.

All previous links to WestCat on the Main page of the Library homepage (www.wmich.edu/library ) have been removed and replaced with the link to the new online catalog. A link to the WestCat catalog is located on the main page however, for those of you who wish to continue using WestCat. This button is entitled “Classic” and is located next to the “New Catalog” button in the quick search box on the Main Page.

The “Catalog” link (in white) at the very top of the Library homepage now points toward the new catalog. The new catalog also now has a link to the “Classic Catalog” within it.

You can access the new catalog at the following URL: https://catalog.library.wmich.edu/vufind/

WestCat will continue to be available at the following URL:
https://www.library.wmich.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First but may be phased out early in the 2010-2011 academic year.

Encyclopedia of Wood (2007)

Waldo Library’s Science Reference section has just received the 2007 edition of the Encyclopedia of Wood, published by the Forest Products Laboratory of the U.S. Forest Service. This fine reference book contains all the major engineering properties of wood: structural, physical, mechanical, commercial, chemical, as well as listing all the many different ways that wood can be used. This is an essential resource for all engineerings. Our copy is in Science Reference at call number: TA 419 .W78 2007. Note: this is the updated version of the Wood Engineering Handbook (1999) which is freely available on the web. You can browse some of the 2007 edition at Google Books.

ASTM Learning Module Series

This year is ASTM’s Year of the Professor, part of ASTM’s effort to promote the use and understanding of standards and the standards development process in the world of engineering.

As part of this effort, ASTM has created some wonderful powerpoint presentations on the standards process.  You can view them here or by going to the following URL: http://www.astm.org/campus/Educational_Resources.html

The modules cover the general world of standards: what they are, how they are developed (particularly within the ASTM), who uses them and why, and how they affect trade between nations.

Synthesis Digital Library – REMINDER

A year ago, Waldo Library obtained collection one of the Synthesis Digital Library, containing 100 fifty to two hundred page books in engineering and computer science.  Each of these books is basically an extended lecture, authored by an expert engineer, and available in Adobe PDF format for easy downloading, reading, printing, and emailing.  This would make some of these books ideal to use as textbooks for the classes you teach.  Here are some selected titles in the collection.  You can see all the titles using the link above.   Please take advantage of this collection!  (Note: You will need to enter your BroncoNet ID and password to access these titles and the collection itself.)

Digital Control in Power Electronics (By Simone Buso and Paolo Mattavelli)

Engineering Ethics (By George D. Catalano)

Engineers within a Local and Global Society (By Caroline Baillie)

Essentials of Applied Mathematics for Scientists and Engineers (By Robert G. Watts)

Intelligent Autonomous Robotics: A Robot Soccer Case Study (By Peter Stone)

Learning Programming using MATLAB (By Khalid Sayood)

Power Electronics for Modern Wind Turbines (By Frede Blaabjerg and Zhe Chen)

Quantum Computing for Computer Architects (By Tzvetan S. Metodi and Frederic T. Chong)

RFID Explained (By Roy Want)

Understanding Circuits (By Khalid Sayood)

Video Engineering Lectures

Adrienne Carlson at Onlineengineeringdegrees.com has written a post providing links to a number of educational engineering related video lectures available on the web. You can read her post (and access her links) here.

URL: http://onlineengineeringdegrees.com/75-cutting-edge-lectures-for-engineers/