If you’re planning on visiting the fascinating Victoria and Albert Museum this summer you might like to take a look at one exhibition in particular. 

Celebrating the centenary of the founding of the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE) and entitled ‘Unseen Hands -100 years of structural engineering’, this exhibition focuses on the unique role played by engineering in the formation of a number of truly symbolic buildings from the last 100 years. Included in the eclectic mix of those featured are New York’s Empire State Building, France’s Millau Viaduct and Britain’s popular Eden Project. 

The underlying themes of the exhibition are towers, bridges and large enclosures with a range of media being utilised, including models , CAD imagery and video.

Admission is free and the exhibition runs until 7th September.

More information is available from the V&A website 

We’re really on a roll at the moment! It’s only April 29th and we’ve already got the latest ‘hot and happening’ engineering-related news from the May edition of the Internet Resources Newsletter.

 Quite a lot to report this month, so let’s head straight in:

Three new journals – inaugural issues this month:

• International Journal of Nanoparticles – published quarterly
• Journal of Computing Science and Engineering: JCSE – published quarterly
• SIAM Journal on Imaging Sciences: SIIMS – currently offering free electronic access

Women in engineering – two noteworthy sites:

Interested in joining a campaign to inspire school-age girls to enter the industry? If so, take a look at Wise: Women into Science, Engineering and Technology a site devoted to doing just that.

Uk Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology: offering information and advice, this site does exactly what it says on the tin.

One for the chemical engineers:

ICIS connect is an online meeting and discussion point for anyone connected with the chemical industry. Your views on a wide variety of industry-related issues are welcomed.

IMechE subject-related guide:

The Construction and Building Services Subject Guide has been produced by the IMechE and added to their list of occasional subject guides. These publications are intended to consolidate the information sources available from IMechE.

Ideas for impoving your research methods:

Methodology.co.uk –

“Methodology.co.uk provides a free resource to researchers, students and university teachers who are interested in learning more about anything to do with research methods.

Methodology.co.uk is run by SAGE and will be a vital resource for anyone conducting qualitative or quantitative research and statistics” [from website].

Design tool newsletter:

Are you aware of ESDU’s quarterly newsletter? Issue no. 19 of ESDU Engineer is now available.

Engineering blogs and RSS feeds:

The Aslib Engineering Group operate their own blog AEG News.

An IMechE RSS feed keeping you abreast of its events is available at: http://www.imeche.org/imeche_dev/RSSFeed.aspx?cat=events

As always, we’d be delighted for feedback on any sites of particular interest.

We’ve scoured the latest Internet Resources Newsletter for helpful engineering-related items.

Please let us know if you find any of the following particularly useful:

Hundreds of free online calculators specifically for engineers are available from Calculatoredge.

Visit the Eurocode 6 site for resources to support masonry design and construction.

Find academic and research material via the Intute Repository Search which covers 89 UK eprints repositories.

“Formed by Royal Charter in 2007, the Science and Technology Facilities Council is one of Europe’s largest multidisciplinary research organisations supporting scientists and engineers world-wide” [from website].

Conference notification: ‘Sustainable Innovation 08 – Future products, technologies and industries’: 13th International Conference, 27th-28th October 2008, Malmo University, Malmo, Sweden. This forms part of the Towards Sustainable Product Design series of conferences.

RSS feeds: Three engineering-specific new book announcements direct from the publishers –

Wildy & Sons Ltd: Environmental Law

Wiley: All New Engineering Titles

Springer Engineering Titles 

Here are the latest engineering snippets from the Internet Resources Newsletter. Please let us know if you find any of them particularly useful:

The Civil Engineering Virtual Library is part of the World Wide Web Virtual Library project. It is divided into commercial, educational, organisational and journal groups. There is also a separate conference listing although this is currently under development.

Journal news – The International Journal of Nano and Biomaterials  has recently started publication.

If you’re interested in sustainable transport, the leading UK charity dealing with this environmental issue is Sustrans. Their ethos: “Our vision is a world in which people can choose to travel in ways that benefit their health and the environment. Every day we are working on practical, innovative ways of dealing with the transport challenges that affect us all.”

The thermalHUB has been created to bring together the global heat transfer community. This is an evolving resource funded by the US National Science Foundation.

Academic resources –  iBerry is an academic ‘porthole’ featuring both an Open Courseware Directory and selected Higher Education Resources.  It includes a separate subject porthole for Engineering and Technology.

Just four items extracted from this month’s Internet Resources Newsletter:

Seawater Greenhouse: 

“The Seawater Greenhouse is a unique concept which combines natural processes, simple construction techniques and mathematical computer modelling to provide a low-cost solution to one of the world’s greatest needs – fresh water. The Seawater Greenhouse is a new development that offers sustainable solution to the problem of providing water for agriculture in arid, coastal regions.”

Top 12 Areas for Technology Innovation through 2025: 

A discussion in the ChangeWays Newsletter about the likely forthcoming technological changes as perceived by Social Technologies, a global research and consulting firm.

Rural Innovation Systems:

“This information portal provides access to free, full-text electronic documents on Rural Innovation Systems (RIS), both as an analytical concept and a development tool. It is also a unique entry point for all other Internet sources on RIS, including newsletters, discussion groups, websites, bibliographic databases, and directories of organizations and projects.”

blogAERADE is a portal  providing free access to aerospace and defence resources.

The Library currently has two trials of electronic business resources running:

Business and Company Resource Center: The first of its kind, Business & Company Resource Center brings together a wide variety of global business information, enabling users to efficiently research business case studies, competitive intelligence, and career and investment opportunities.  This resource is customizable with your choice of specialty modules – including the PROMT and Investext Plus (formerly Research Bank Web) modules – to bring you the information you need most.

To access this trial please go to http://www.galeuk.com/trialsite/ The username and password are available from the Library passwords page. This trial is available until 8th February 2008

 Business Monitor International: Established in 1984, Business Monitor International is a leading print and online publisher of specialist business information on global emerging markets. Its range of daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly services covers political risk, finance, macroeconomic performance, outlook and forecast, industry sectors and the business operating environment. BMI also publishes directories and CD-ROMs profiling multinational companies active in emerging markets.

To access the trial please go to http://www.businessmonitor.com/cgi-bin/request.pl The username and password are available from the Library passwords page. This trial runs until 29th January 2008.

Your feedback is welcomed. We are particularly keen to know if these are resources you feel the Library should subscribe to. Please contact Steve Corn with your views, good or bad.  

The Library Engineering Team are running two free training sessions in January on key resources for research and teaching.

They will cover:

a. New electronic engineering resources including IEEE Digital Library and DigiMap

b. Teaching tools – online learning support using new Learn

c. Increase the profile of your research with the Institutional Repository

d. Have your Say! – the outcomes from the recent Engineering survey

The sessions are to be held in S.0.06 on Tues 22 Jan at 10-12 and Thurs 24 Jan at 2-4pm and will provide opportunity for hands-on.

To book please email Theresa at T.M.Doherty@lboro.ac.uk, including your:

Name:

Job Title:

Dept:

Which session you’d like to attend: Tues/Thurs.

Looking forwards to seeing you there,

Becky.

Here are this month’s engineering nuggets from the Internet Resources Newsletter:

Teaching and Learning:

 Engineering Pathway – “Engineering Pathway is a portal to high-  quality teaching and learning resources in applied science and math, engineering, computer science/information technology and engineering technology, for use by K-12 and university educators and students”.

Engineering Community:

ACS Nanotation – “The goal of ACS Nanotation is to be the premiere destination for nanoscience and nanotechnology news, highlights, and community”.

Nanotechnology Community Website –  Community website of the journal ‘Nanotechnology’.

New Civil Engineer – relaunched website of the civil engineering community. Linked to New Civil Engineer and New Civil Engineer International magazines.

Conference Announcement:

ACME – The 2008 annual meeting of the UK branch of the Association of Computational Mechanics in Engineering to be held from 1-2 April 2008 at Newcastle upon Tyne.

New Journals:

 Advances in Engineering Education – Objective is to “highlight those significant advances in instruction, pedagogy, technology and assessment that substantially improve learning in the broadest sense”.

International Journal of Precision Technology – Focuses on technological papers but without dealing with advanced maths and science.

RSS Feeds: New Civil Engineer and Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE)