World Space Week 2015

WSW2015-Alec-Bartos-Romania-smallThis week is World Space Week, the annual celebration of all things astronautical and cosmic.

This year’s theme is particularly suitable – discovery, which highlights the great era of deep space discovery that we are in. We have never learnt as much of the universe we live in as in the last decade. Space telescopes, deep space probes and several interplanetary satellites and landers have shown us the magic, wonders and opportunities of new worlds. Space is all about discovery!

Launched specifically on 4th October by the UN General Assembly to mark the successful launch of Sputnik 1, the first man-made satellite, in 1957, and the signing of the ‘Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies’ on October 10 1967, World Space Week has been held every year since 1999, and seeks primarily to educate people about the positives of space exploration and encourage better public understanding and support for space programmes.

We hold a large number of books about satellite communications & navigation among our collection, along with a good selection of books about space & space exploration  in general. We also have access to the National Geophysical Data Centre database, which provides the lastest satellite geophysical data from the Sun to the Earth and Earth’s sea floor and solid earth environment, including Earth observations from space, and the NASA Scientific & Technical Information database, which includes up-to-date information about NASA’s satellite projects.

To find out more about the programme, visit the World Space Week website here:

http://www.worldspaceweek.org/

British Science Week

BSA_BSW_RGBHIThis Friday is the start of British Science Week, and to mark the occasion the University is hosting a special series of events across town and campus.

The week will culminate with a Community Fun Day on Saturday 21st March, where you can enjoy practical demonstrations of exciting engineering, as well as hands on experiments for budding scientists.

From our beginnings as a technical institute, Loughborough University has established a reputation for technological innovation and scientific endeavour, and our research is helping to shape the future.

British Science Week (BSW) is a ten-day programme of science, technology, engineering and maths events and activities across the UK for people of all ages. To find out more, visit the BSW homepage here:

http://www.britishscienceweek.org/

ResFest 2015

resfestThe School of Civil & Building Engineering will be holding their first ever research festival next week, Tuesday January 20th (9.30am-4pm). 

The activities of ResFest will support you in thinking about your research skills, looking for research funding, creating research impact and engaging with the public. A range of academics will share their knowledge and best practice with you, and you will have great opportunities for networking and learning about other research in a fun and informal manner.

  • Showing-case your research and learn about what we do: exhibitions and tours
  • Best practice workshops: public engagement and research impact
  • Research funding: workshops and interactive sessions
  • How to do research: hands-on sessions
  • Social media help desk
  • Games, competitions and networking.

All events are free to attend, but the School is expecting high demand and an advanced online registration is required.

Please register here for the main event:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cbe-research-festival-2014-tickets-14504049001

Please register here for specific sessions:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cbe-research-festival-session-bookings-tickets-14524106995

All sessions are free, subject to availability.

World Space Week 2014

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It’s World Space Week, the theme of which this year looks at the importance of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and its importance to modern life on Earth.

Imagine a world without navigation satellites to guide planes, ships and cars and not to forget: us with our location based mobile phone applications! And navigation satellites not just accurately pinpoint our position on the planet, it also provides time signals to keep clocks in sync, which is critically important for global trading and many other time critical sectors.

Launched specifically on 4th October by the UN General Assembly to mark the successful launch of Sputnik 1, the first man-made satellite, in 1957, and the signing of the ‘Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies’ on October 10 1967, World Space Week has been held every year since 1999, and seeks primarily to educate people about the positives of space exploration and encourage better public understanding and support for space programmes.

We hold a large number of books about satellite communications & navigation among our collection, along with a good selection of books about space and space exploration in general. We also have access to the National Geophysical Data Center database, which provides the lastest satellite geophysical data from the Sun to the Earth and Earth’s sea floor and solid earth environment, including Earth observations from space, and the NASA Scientific & Technical Information database, which includes up-to-date information about NASA’s satellite projects.

To find out more about the programme, visit the World Space Week website here:

http://www.worldspaceweek.org/

National Women in Engineering Day

nwed

Today is National Women in Engineering Day, which has been set up by the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) to celebrate its 95th anniversary. Its overall aim is to celebrate the work that women do in engineering, and to showcase the great engineering careers that are available for girls.

One of the means they use as part of their Magnificent Women outreach activity is a series of resource sheets profiling a notable female engineer. Among these notables is Loughborough’s own Claudia Parsons (1900-1998) who in 1919 became one of the first girls to enrol in Loughborough Technical College’s Engineering Diploma courses, graduating in 1922 to become a beacon for other girls seeking to break into engineering.

To find out more about the Society, visit their website here.

Learn Online for Free this April with a Massive Open Online Course

mooc

Loughborough University is offering two courses as part of FutureLearn, the first UK-led provider of massive open online courses (MOOCs). Both courses are free and can be taken by anyone from around the world.

‘Innovation and enterprise‘ will give you the opportuntity to learn how an innovative idea becomes a reality. The course is led by our internationally renowned School of Business and Enterprise and runs for six weeks, starting on 14 April 2014.

Getting a grip on mathematical symbolism‘ will teach aspiring engineers and scientists to think mathematically and explore essential concepts. The three-week course is run by our award-winning Mathematics Education Centre and begins on 28 April 2014.

For further information, visit this link: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/moocs/

New SAE Databases on Trial

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The Library has recently arranged trial access to the following SAE products:

Ground Vehicle Standards (J-Reports)

Founded in 1905 as the Society for Automobile Engineers, SAE International has been at the forefront of ground vehicle (GV) technical information and engineering standards for more than 100 years. Currently there are more than 2,600 GV standards available, covering hundreds of topical areas relating to ground vehicle design, manufacturing, testing, and performance. SAE also covers the commercial vehicle industry, providing standards for the truck, mass transit, agricultural, and construction markets.

Aerospace Standards

SAE International has been a leading provider of aerospace standards for much of its 106-year history. With more than 22,000 aerospace standards (AS) and aerospace materials specifications (AMS) available, SAE standards are recognized and used globally by manufacturers and suppliers throughout the aerospace industry.

Aerospace Material Specifications

Aerospace Material Specifications (AMS) cover materials, material tolerances, and quality control procedures and processes. They list chemical composition, detailed technical requirements, and cross reference similar specifications and materials corrosion and heat resistant steels, wrought low-alloy steels, cast iron and low-alloy steels, aluminum, magnesium, copper, titanium, and miscellaneous nonferrous alloys, nonmetallics, special property materials, and reactive materials.

The trials are available via the SAE Digital Library at  http://digitallibrary.sae.org/quicksearch (from on-campus) and will run until  21st April 2014.

We welcome feedback – good or bad – on these trials, please contact Steve Corn s.c.corn@lboro.ac.uk with your comments.

National Science & Engineering Week

national science and engineering weekToday marks the beginning of National Science & Engineering Week, a ten-day national programme of science, technology, engineering and maths events and activities across the UK aimed at people of all ages.

Naturally for a University steeped in tradition for scientific & engineering excellence there is a wide variety of events on campus across the week in celebration of the event, including a photography competition and a special Family Community Day tomorrow (Saturday 15th).

The Library represents science and engineering well with a comprehensive range of books, journals and online resources. While there are too many of them to list individually here, we’d like to highlight IEEE Xplore, which provides full text access to journals, proceedings and standards of the renowned Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; the SPIE Digital Library, the most extensive resource available on optics and photonics, providing unprecedented access to more than 200,000 technical papers from International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) Journals and Conference Proceedings; Compendex, the comprehensive engineering database including manufacturing, quality control and engineering management; and the multi-faceted Science Direct, one of the world’s largest providers of scientific, technical and medical (STM) literature.

Additional CAD Software Installed on Level 4 PCs

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We’re happy to announce that, following feedback from students, IT Services have just finished installing additional CAD software on twelve PCs in the Library. These computers – numbered PILKLABX-4-001 to PILKLABX-4-012 – are located on Level 4 closest to the lift/staircase C and have been appropriately labelled as CAD-enabled (see example picture above).