- Xmarks (www.xmarks.com) is a tool that helps you keep your bookmarks in order on several computers, browser programs and platforms. This is done by installing the program (for Firefox, Safari and so on) and then saving your bookmarks in the Xmarks site and syncing them always when a browser opens up (automatically).

- Zotero (www.zotero.org) is a really powerful tool (only Firefox) to save and organize material from the web (with all the reference information) by clicking only a button. You can organize your material, index text, create notes and so on, and even save the material online (or at least some of it) to be accessible even on a public computer (i.e. in library). Very handy – check the introductive video on the page…

- Dropbox (www.dropbox.com) is a great service that allows you to have 2 GB of online storage, which can be shared (and is synced) between multiple computers. No more memory sticks (or less at least). Only a webmail address needed to start the service.

- Wordle (www.wordle.net) is more like a toy, in which one can copy paste text or an web site URL, and get a nice “word cloud”. But it seems like quite useful toy.

Please add your favorite web tools and comments about them after this post.

A lot of new e-material is already available from our campus (aralis > aalto > databases). It takes still a few months before Aalto University’s new common Nelli-portal is opened. Currently at least  all the titles and the names of different materials and databases are already present.

Using library databases:

There are several different databases accessible through library web page and more will be added later during the spring. For example Academic Search Elite (EBSCO) has journals from a variety of fields. MyiLibrary is another service that can be used to access a variety of ebooks (similar to Ibrary).

There are also a lot of journals that are not limited to first pages, but a lot of the information is reference only. If you find only reference, you can look through LINDA, the portal to all e-materials in universities in Finland, also accessible from library web page.

Through the old NELLI portal the researchers can access e-material such as articles in different journals through a simple user-interface, by searching through categories or with a name or keyword. Researchers can browse through databases, e-Journals or do “MetaSearch” with keywords. The researcher should first find out the possible fields of articles (several categories) and be able to target his or her search to certain specific databases (some databases have several categories, but some might have only one).

New NELLI portal will give an universal access to all the material in Aalto, but it will be opened later during spring. It is also possible to browse through the other NELLI portals of the other Finnish universities (names of databases are browseable), but the materials are available fully only on-site (from for example the library of the university).

The databases work normally from TaiK IP-network. TaiK users, if not inside their university IP-network, can also use these services through WebVPN. WLAN access works as well through WebVPN (see instructions online).

There might be still some material that is not linked or usable (due to technical or licence restrictions) please inform these cases to kirjasto@taik.fi, eila.ramo@taik.fi or hannele.suhonen@taik.fi.

If databases still ask you to login after accessing them through the library page (or are not linking properly), they’re not linked to the database properly yet, but might be accessible later on in a few months time.

Aqcuiring additional material:

Please ask, if you feel that there should be some material (databases, journals, ebooks) available. You can contact kirjasto@taik.fi, library people will look into it.

Through interlibrary system is also possible to order books or material from different university libraries worldwide (with some costs). Some of these are browseable through for example The European Library.

There are also the other libraries and their collection database in Aalto University: TEEMU in TKK and Helcat in HSE.

There are also several other links to a variety of library catalogs on the Aralis library website.

Additional information and tutoring:

To find out some specific information, article or material, or to find relevant databases for certain fields, please don’t hesitate to contact eila.ramo@taik.fi or hannele.suhonen@taik.fi at Aralis information services.