Waldo Library has received the updated edition of the Measure of Man and Woman: Human Factors in Design reference book. This book is an essential reference source of anthropometric data for furniture, safety, computer interface, and vehicular design.  This book is a useful source for courses at CEAS like IME 3420 Ergonomics and Design and IME6420 – Ergonomics and Occupational Biomechanics.

This book will be located at the Science Reference desk on the Lower Level of Waldo Library, call number TA 166 .M393 2002 SciRef. Please let your TAs and students know about this, so they know where to go to get this material.

Representative Fred Upton has obtained funding for green engineering initiatives at the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, to the tune of $1 million, in an appropriations bill that will be signed soon by President Obama. Congratulations to Dr. John Patten, who has been spearheading this effort at CEAS, along with Drs. Jan Pekarovic and Bade Sherstha.

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Read the news reports here (all dated Oct. 19, 2009):

Funding for WMU to create ‘green’ jobs – Wood TV 8

Congress sets aside $1M for green research at WMU – Chicago Tribune

WMU Awarded Money To Study Green Manufacturing – Wall Street Journal

Waldo Library has received a copy of the book Handbook of Pulp (2006), edited by Herbert Sixta. (Published by Wiley-VCH.) This book will be shelved in the Science Reference area on the lower level of Waldo Library at call number TS 1175 .H36 2006 (v.1-2).

This two volume reference guide to pulp technology is divided into the following sections:

Part I. Chemical Pulping (v.1-2)

Part II. Mechanical Pulping (v.2)

Part III. Recovered Paper and Recycled Fibers (v.2)

Part IV. Analytical Characterization of Pulps (v.2)

You can browse the table of contents here.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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/

John Hunter at Curious Cat Engineering Blog has a great post on Dominic Hargreaves’ incredible new folding bike design.  John’s post links to a You Tube video showcasing this awesome design.  Every once in a while, you see something that is so well designed, so intuitive, that it takes your breath away.  This is one of those moments and design.  Enjoy!!

You can access NASA technical reports (and reports from NASA’s predecessor NACA – the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) from the NASA Technical Reports Server. This searchable database provides access to

1) NASA technical reports and citations from 1958 to the present,

2) NACA technical reports and citations from 1915 to 1958, and to

3) NASA images and videos via the NIX system.

Many of the reports are available in full text in Adobe PDF format. In addition to citations to technical reports, citations to conference papers and journal articles in aeronautics, engineering, geosciences and materials science are available here. This is a treasure trove of research materials.

URL: http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp