That’s in Google Books? Really?!

Much talk has been made about Google Books over the last year. I have poked around some, and even wrote about it last year. But, I continue to be amazed at the scope! Today I needed a classic mathematics paper from 1882, one by Enneper that was originally published in Zeitschrift fur Mathematik und Physik. My library owns the print, but like most of our users, I wanted to get it quickly online.

I usually search  Numdam, and Gallica, and if I am looking for a book, Google Books. But, I was in a hurry, and thinking that this was a journal, I didn’t even THINK of looking in Google Books! I hadn’t found it online, so I submitted an ILL request. It is just a normal part of my ILL department’s work process to check in Google Books, so they did, and shot me a link to find it online. And, lo, and behold, my 1882 journal article is in Google Books. It is really amazing. Now, this weekend I must find time to catch up on the old Popular Science issues!

And, I have to think about how our discovery tools work with Google Books.

And, how they might work better in the future!

Seminaire Bourbaki

The Séminaire Nicolas Bourbaki (Bourbaki Seminar) is a series of seminars  (in fact public lectures with printed notes distributed) that has been held in Paris since 1948. It is one of the major institutions of contemporary mathematics, and a barometer of mathematical achievement, fashion, and reputation. It is named after Nicolas Bourbaki, a group of French and other mathematicians of variable membership. (Wikipedia)

The proceedings of the Séminaire have been published by four different publishers over the years.
1948/49 through 1964/65 were published as Textes des conférences / Séminaire Bourbaki  by the Secrétariat Mathématique, Université Paris. Call number is QA1 .P325  Fondren owns all of these volumes, from V. 1(1948/1949) -v. 19 (1966/1967) They are all housed in the Library Service Center.
In 1966, W. A. Benjamin, Inc. issued a special twelve-volume facsimile reproduction of the Séminaire Bourbaki, 1948-1965. Review: JSTOR. W.A. Benjamin, Inc. continued to publish the proceedings for three more years, 1965/66 through 1967/68. Call number is QA1 .P32.

1968/69 through 1980/81 were published by Springer-Verlag as part of Lecture Notes in Mathematics series.
Call number is QA3 .L38.  We have 1964 to present in SpringerLINK Lecture Notes in Mathematics Shelved under: QA3.L28.

1981/82 to date are published by the Société Mathématique de France as part of Astérisque. Call number is QA1 .S47. You must SEARCH UNDER INDIVIDUAL AUTHOR/TITLE FOR SOME ITEMS IN THIS SERIES.

The series is also available online from Numdam from V.11-V. 44. Fondren Library has ordered online access for the earlier years, which are slated to become available in 2010.

INDEXES:
There is a cumulative author index in the back of some volumes of the proceedings.  The index gives reference to the year and the Exposé number. There is a nice table available from the Ohio State Library.

Rankings of University Departments

With budgets being watched, everyone is starting to look at rankings, and department spending, etc. I had the occasion to do a little work on looking at rankings the last couple of weeks, and got some great feedback from the Physics, Math, Astronomy Librarians of SLA. Thought I would share.

U.S. News and World Reports,  2011 edition is doing new peer-assessment-only rankings for Ph.D. programs in biology, chemistry, computer science, earth sciences (geosciences), mathematics, physics, and statistics.

The last big U.S. News and World ranking of doctoral programs in the sciences are based on the results of surveys sent to academics in computer science, mathematics, and physics. It was done during the fall of 2007. It is unfortunate that the rankings do not seem to be available in any vendor databases–they are on the microfilm for U.S. News, if you know when to look. (Kind of like knowing that the new Journal of Citation Reports comes out in June!) The methodology is explained here. Response rates ranged from 21% to 48%.

AMS also publishes an annual survey:  http://www.ams.org/employment/surveyreports.html

http://www.arwu.org/# 2009 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). The rankings identify the leading 500 universities around the world and are widely referenced by the global university community. Since its first release in June 2003, ARWU has generated a global following for its transparent and consistent ranking methodology.

Another source for world-view rankings: http://www.globaluniversitiesranking.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=65 (K.K.)

I will be doing a search of the literature to find more rankings systems.

Thanks to Garrett Eastman, Carol Hutchins, and Molly White.

A mathematician that never existed!

Bourbaki : a secret society of mathematics. Mashaal, Maurice. QA29 .B692 M3713 2006 The artist and the mathematician : the story of Nicolas Bourbaki, the genius mathematician who never existed. Aczel, Amir D. QA29 .B692 A29 2006 An interesting bit of mathematics history! From an article by Borel in the Notices of the AMS: In 1934 A. Weil and H. Cartan were Maîtres de Conférences (the equivalent of assistant professors) at the University of Strasbourg. One main duty was, of course, the teaching of differential and integral calculus. The standard text was the Traité d’Analyse of E. Goursat, which they found wanting in many ways. Cartan was frequently bugging Weil with questions on how to present this material, so that at some point, to get it over with once and for all, Weil suggested they write themselves a new Traité d’Analyse. This suggestion was spread around, and soon a group of about ten mathematicians began to meet regularly to plan this treatise. It was soon decided that the work would be collective, without any acknowledgment of individual contributions. In summer 1935 the pen name Nicolas Bourbaki was chosen.4

Long and confusing!

I don't often have to look up old issues of Comptes Rendus, but whenever I do, I am always reminded of the genealogy chart from the wonderful University of Washington! Chart The entry at Wikipedia says that  Comptes rendus was initially published as Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des Sciences. It itself continued an earlier series, Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences, which had been published since 1666. A long history indeed; I just don't think there is a more confusing serial title in existence!

 

The value of collected works in mathematics

One of my major focuses for the math department over the next few weeks will be working on identifying collected works to add to the library collection. I owe a thanks to Dr. Hassett for reminding me how important collected works are, and to the work of Steven Rockey at Cornell for making the process easier. I will be working from his list at http://astech.library.cornell.edu/ast/math/find/Collected-Works-of-Mathematicians.cfm which he started  in the 1970′s and from The History of Mathematics from Antiquity to the
Present: A Selective Annotated Bibliography, edited by Joseph W.
Dauben: Revised Edition on CD-ROM edited by Albert C. Lewis, in
cooperation with the International Commission on the
History of Mathematics.

Titles to be checked for LSC
status (possible move to LSC) (Note: this list was generated by me,  through identifying things that are available in JSTOR. Just because they are on this list does not mean that they WILL be moved.)

 Mathematics

     

‫American
Mathematical Monthly 1894-2002

‫Annals
of Mathematics 1884-2000

‫Analyst
1874-1883

‫Bulletin
of Symbolic Logic 1995-2005

‫College
Mathematics Journal 1984-2002

‫Two-Year
College Mathematics Journal 1970-1983

‫Econometrica
1933-2003

‫Journal
for Research in Mathematics Education 1970-2000

‫Journal
for Research in Mathematics Education. Monograph 1985-1997

‫Journal
of Symbolic Logic 1936-2001

‫Journal
of the American Mathematical Society 1988-2000

‫Mathematics
Magazine 1947-2002

‫National
Mathematics Magazine 1934-1945

‫Mathematics
News Letter 1926-1934

‫Mathematics
of Computation 1960-2000

‫Mathematical
Tables and Other Aids to Computation 1943-1959

‫Philosophical
Transactions: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 1996-2000

‫Philosophical
Transactions: Physical Sciences and Engineering 1990-1995

‫Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and ‫Physical Sciences 1934-1990

‫Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Containing Papers of a
Mathematical or Physical Character 1896-1934

‫Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society of London. A 1887-1895

‫Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society of London 1776-1886

‫Philosophical
Transactions (1683-1775) 1683-1775

‫Philosophical
Transactions (1665-1678) 1665-1678

‫Proceedings:
Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 1996-2000

‫Proceedings:
Mathematical and Physical Sciences 1990-1995

‫Proceedings
of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences
1934-1990

‫Proceedings
of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Containing Papers of a ‫Mathematical and Physical Character 1905-1934

‫Proceedings
of the Royal Society of London 1854-1905

‫Abstracts
of the Papers Communicated to the Royal Society of London 1843-1854

‫Abstracts
of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of
London 1800-1843

‫Proceedings
of the American Mathematical Society 1950-2000

‫SIAM
Journal on Applied Mathematics 1966-2001

‫Journal
of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics 1953-1965

‫SIAM
Journal on Numerical Analysis 1966-2000

‫Journal
of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics: Series B, Numerical
Analysis 1964-1965

‫SIAM
Review 1959-2000

‫Transactions
of the American Mathematical Society 1900-2000

 

Statistics

‫Advances
in Applied Probability 1969-2002

‫American
Statistician 1947-2000

‫Annals
of Applied Probability 1991-2002

‫Annals
of Mathematical Statistics 1930-1972

‫Annals
of Probability 1973-2002

‫Annals
of Statistics 1973-2002

‫Applied
Statistics 1952-2001

‫Bernoulli
1995-2000

‫Biometrics
1947-2000

‫Biometrics
Bulletin 1945-1946