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Wired West: Volume 11, no. 4

SLA in Seattle Conference Report

Photos and text by Sandra Wong.

The Science of Coffee

Joe Vinson, a chemist from the University of Scranton gave the packed room a humourous and light-hearted lecture on the "Science of Coffee" covering:

• The History of Coffee
  • In 1600 AD, Pope Clement VIII "authorized" the consumption of coffee.
• Compustion, Biology, Roasting
  • There is an east versus west divide when it comes to coffee consumption. Eastern areas tend to drink more tea (Asia, Britain). North America and the rest of western Europe tend to consume more coffee.
  • Did you know that coffee is "grounds" for divorce in Turkey?
  • At $60 billion/year, coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world after oil.
• Chemical Composition
• Antioxidants
• Coffee and the Brain - the caffeine in coffee goes straight to your brain!!!
• Health Effects of Coffee

It's not the caffeine, it's the antioxidants.

In summary, coffee contains chlorogenic acid, a polyphenol and a major antioxidant. Coffee consumption in moderation is actually good for you because of the presence of these antioxidants.According to Vinson, you can never have too many antioxidants. Most Americans seem to be getting the majority of their antioxidants due to coffee consumption; however, Vinson stressed that more than 4 or 5 cups per day would begin to have a negative effect on people's health.

Who Cited Whom and Where: Citation Tracking Tools and Evaluation

In an overflowing room filled to capacity (it was literally standing room only with many people crowded in the back and sitting on the floor), the audience got an earful of everything you might have wanted to know about citation searching. Given the popularity of this session, and a panel of 5 speakers, citation searching and trying to figure out what it means is becoming a hot topic. Thomson Reuters' Web of Science/Journal Citation Reports is no longer the only player in the market. Google Scholar provides "cited by" links and Scopus delivers cited referencing links and affiliation authority control.

A representative from the EIGENFACTOR project also gave a passionate review of how he and his team have applied computational modelling techniques to this study of bibliometrics. Not only does the EIGENFACTOR provide an alternative method of evaluating a journal's worth, but their modelling techniques also allows them to map out the relationships between academic disciplines.

Sandra Wong is a science liaison librarian at Simon Fraser University.

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