Never miss a library workshop or event by signing up for our mailing list.
Brian Quigley
Head, EPS Division; Interim Head, LHS Division
Mathematics, Bioengineering
Misha Coleman
Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Industrial Engineering & Operations Research, Statistics
Lisa Ngo
Engineering
Susan Powell
Maps, GIS, and Geography
Samantha Teplitzky
Earth Science and Open Science
steplitz@berkeley.edu
Please see "Location + Hours" for the latest information on spring semester hours.
On December 1, Misha Coleman joined the EPS Libraries as our STEM Librarian. In this role, she serves as the librarian for electrical engineering & computer science, industrial engineering & operations research, and statistics. Misha joins us from the University of Texas at Austin, where she recently completed her MS in Information Studies. She has a BA in Hispanic Studies from Macalester College, and she has previous experience as a software developer, a teaching assistant, and a medical interpreter.
With this appointment, we were also able to make some changes to other librarian assignments. In addition to their other roles, Lisa Ngo is now serving as the librarian for materials science & engineering, and Brian Quigley is now serving as the librarian for bioengineering.
However, our Chemical & Physical Sciences Librarian Kristen Greenland left UC Berkeley for another position in December. For the past 3 years, Kristen made significant contributions to our outreach efforts and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in the EPS Libraries while also serving as the librarian for astronomy, chemistry, chemical & biomolecular engineering, and physics. We wish her well in her exciting new role! It will take some time to fill her position, but we will continue to be here to help those four departments. If you have questions for the library on access problems, literature reviews, citation management, or open access publishing in those subject areas, please contact us at epslibs@berkeley.edu, and one of our librarians will reply to you.
Mendeley Institutional Edition subscription ending - A reminder that our subscription to Mendeley Institutional Edition will be ending this month. While our subscription has provided access to premium features such as expanded storage and unlimited private groups, users will still be able to access the free version of Mendeley even after our subscription ends. With 2GB of personal library storage and the ability to create 5 private groups with up to 25 members, the free version will be sufficient for the majority of Mendeley users at UC Berkeley. If you are one of our Mendeley users, you should receive an email next week about the subscription ending -- by logging into your account from a UC Berkeley IP address within 10 days of receiving that email, you will be granted a 12-month grace period to continue using premium features. Please see our Mendeley guide for more information.
National Parcelmap Data - Did you know that the Library acquires a national parcel dataset every few years from Boundary Solutions? Contact GIS & Maps Librarian Susan Powell if you're interested in accessing this data for your research or teaching.
Pharos - The Library recently subscribed to the Pharos database, which "provides hazard, use, and exposure information on chemicals and building products." You must register using your Berkeley email address in order to get access to the database.
Cambridge Structural Database license key - The Cambridge Structural Database System is a repository of small-molecule organic and metal-organic crystal structure data along with software to analyze and visualize those structures. At the beginning of the year, we received a new license key for the software so you will need to update it in your version to continue using it. You can get the new key from our 2023 site code and activation key site. Moving forward, the license key will be updated each year.
Purchase Recommendation - we welcome your suggestions! Please contact your librarian or fill out the purchase recommendation form if you would like to suggest that we purchase a journal or book for the collection.
As previously announced, the Library is in the process of reducing its collection budget by $1.7M to partially address its budget deficit. During the current fiscal year, our discretionary budgets for monograph and other one-time purchases have been reduced $850,000. Next year, our serials budgets will be reduced by $850,000. To prepare for this reduction, the Library will be conducting a review of all of its journal, ebook, and database subscriptions and sharing lists of potential cancellations with campus for feedback. Watch for lists to review in March or April.
Construction is slated to begin this summer on an addition to the Bechtel Engineering Center that will create a new and transformative Engineering Student Center. We wanted to provide advance notice that the Engineering Library will temporarily close after the Spring 2023 semester to accommodate this construction. Library staff are busy working on plans to provide alternate study space recommendations and services during the closure, and we will provide more information later this semester.
| Date | Time | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| February 2 | 12 - 1:30 PM | Introduction to LaTeX with Overleaf |
Earth Sciences & Map Library; 50 McCone Hall |
| February 8 |
10:10 - 11AM 12:10 - 1 PM 4:10 - 5 PM |
Introduction to Zotero | Zoom; Register |
| February 9, 10 | 12:10 - 1:30 PM | Advanced Zotero | Zoom; Register |
| February 14 | 1 - 2 PM | GIS & Mapping: Where to Start | Zoom; Register |
| February 15 | 1 - 2:30 PM | Edit For Change Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon | Zoom; Register |
| February 28 | 2 - 3 PM |
Bay Area Open Science Group - Ruth Schmidt, Project TARA (Tools to Advance Research Assessment), Building Blocks for Impact |
Zoom; Register |
| March 9 |
10:10 - 11AM 12:10 - 1 PM 4:10 - 5 PM |
Introduction to Zotero | Zoom; Register |
| March 13, 14 | 12:10 - 1:30 PM | Advanced Zotero | Zoom; Register |
| March 28 | 2 - 3 PM |
Bay Area Open Science Group - Joshua Buckholtz, Center for Open and Reproducible Science at Stanford |
Zoom TBD |
| April 25 | 2 - 3 PM | Bay Area Open Science Group - Open Science in the Fraser Lab (UCSF) | Zoom TBD |
| May 23 | 2 - 3 PM | Bay Area Open Science Group - Save the date; Speaker TBD |
Please visit the Library Workshops Calendar to register and view additional workshops. For more information about the types of events and instruction sessions we offer, visit the Events & Instruction from the Engineering & Physical Sciences Libraries Guide.
February 13 - 17 - UC Love Data Week is a week-long offering of presentations and workshops focused on data access, management, security, sharing, and preservation. (Visit https://uc-love-data-week.github.io/)
The Inclusive Excellence Collection at the Engineering Library is a collaboration between the College of Engineering and the Kresge Engineering Library. The collection consists of physical books as well as electronic books and other electronic resources. Although some books are housed in the Engineering Library, this resource is for the entire campus. The collection is meant to be dynamic and will grow over time.
This collection was created by the College of Engineering's Director of Community Engagement & Inclusive Practices Fatima Alleyne, Head of Engineering & Physical Sciences Libraries Brian Quigley and Engineering Librarian Lisa Ngo.
Access the collection here: https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/EngineeringLibraryDEI
-------
Following the Engineering Library's lead, a similar effort was created in partnership with the Earth & Planetary Science Department and the Earth Sciences and Map Library. This guide stems from a Call to Action by Earth & Planetary Science graduate students and was co-created by Bonita Dyess and Sam Teplitzky from the library, and Tyler Cadena and Michelle Devoe from the EPS department.
The guide can be found here: https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/geo_dei
Are you interested in making your research more openly available? Want to learn about open science tools and platforms that can make your research more effective and reproducible? The Bay Area Open Science Group is intended to bring together students, faculty, and staff from the Stanford, Berkeley, and UCSF communities to learn about open science, discuss the application of open science practices in a research context, and meet other members of the community who are interested in (or already are) incorporating open science practices into their work.
We meet on the 4th Tuesday of the month from 2-3pm via Zoom. All are welcome to attend and join the conversation!
Read our recent Reflection on the themes that emerged from our 2022-23 meetings: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8110673
Check out our collaborative notes
Find presentations from past meetups on Zenodo
Want to talk about Open Science with your lab or team? We created a two-page template for teams to learn more about open science and select practices that work for them. Find it on Zenodo.
Bay Area Open Science Group
Are you interested in making your research more openly available? Want to learn about open science tools and platforms that can make your research more effective and reproducible? The Bay Area Open Science Group is intended to bring together students, faculty, and staff from the Stanford, Berkeley, and UCSF communities to learn about open science, discuss the application of open science practices in a research context, and meet other members of the community who are interested in (or already are) incorporating open science practices into their work.
Meetings:
We meet on the 4th Tuesday of the month from 2-3pm via Zoom. All are welcome to attend and join the conversation!
Tuesday, August 23, 2022, 2-3 PM - Open Science Team Agreements
Click here to register for August Zoom Meeting
This month, the Bay Area Open Science Group introduces the “Open Science Team Agreement,” a template that research groups can use to discuss, adopt and implement open science practices. Ariel, John, and Sam (the co-hosts of Bay Area Open Science Group) have designed a prototype team agreement (available via Overleaf or Google Docs) and are looking for feedback. Join us to discuss what else should be included, and how team agreements can be used to kickstart conversations on open science. Potential adopters are especially welcome.
Tuesday, September 27, 2022, 2-3 PM - Free Open Access Medical education
Register for September Zoom Meeting
Dana Larsen - UCSF
This month the Bay Area Open Science Group is learning about engaging with #FOAMed (Free Open Access Medical education): how medical trainees are utilizing online educational resources.
FOAMed, Free Open Access Medical education, describes online resources which are free and generally represent a crowdsourcing of content, such as blogs, microblogs (Twitter), podcasts, and online journal clubs. While FOAMed has been increasing within medical education, limited data exists on how to utilize this tool to supplement existing curriculum in order to fill gaps in trainees' knowledge and stimulate self-directed learning. In this session, Dr. Dana Larsen, principal investigator of a UCSF Innovations Funding in Education study, will discuss her design-based research project seeking to pragmatically build an adjunct curriculum for nephrology fellows using FOAMed resources.
Tuesday, October 25, 2022, 2-3 PM
Natasha Batalha (NASA Ames)
This month the Bay Area Open Science Group will hear from Natasha Batalha as she shares her experience as a Team Lead on NASA's TOPS (Transform to Open Science) Mission developing a curriculum on Open Results.
Tuesday, November 29, 2022, 2-3 PM
This month the Bay Area Open Science Group will discuss the slew of new federal open science policies coming our way including the 2023 NIH Data Management and Sharing policy and the recent OSTP memo "Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research". What does this mean for you and your research? Let's discuss!
Tuesday, February 28, 2023, 2-3 PM - Ruth Schmidt, Project TARA (Tools to Advance Research Assessment), Building Blocks for Impact
Ruth Schmidt is an associate professor at the Institute of Design (ID) at Illinois Tech, whose research sits at the intersection of behavioral science, humanity-centered design, and complex systems. She has been working with DORA for several years to tackle research assessment reform from a behavioral systems perspective, resulting in tools like "Building Blocks for Impact" to provide new structures and language that help expand traditional notions of defining and assessing quality researchers.
Tuesday, March 28, 2023, 2-3 PM - Joshua Buckholtz, Center for Open and Reproducible Science at Stanford
This month the Bay Area Open Science group will be joined by Joshua Buckholtz, Director of Operations and Research Scholar at the Stanford Data Science Center for Open and REproducible Science (SDS-CORES).
Tuesday, April 25, 2023, 2-3 PM - Open Science in Bioengineering with the Fraser Lab, UCSF
This month, the Bay Area Open Science group will be joined by members of the Fraser lab at UCSF. James Fraser, Roberto Diaz, and Christian Macdonald will join us in a conversation about how they incorporate open science values into their bioengineering research, and how they think about getting credit for this work.
Tuesday, May 23, 2023, 2-3 PM - Open Data with Steve Diggs, Senior Product Manager for data publishing at the California Digital Library, UC
This month, the Bay Area Open Science group will be joined by Steve Diggs. Steve recently started at the California Digital Library (CDL) as the University of California Curation Center (UC3)’s new Senior Product Manager for our data publishing portfolio. Steve most recently worked at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at UCSD where he has served as the Technical Director of the Hydrographic Data Office (CCHDO). Steve will discuss best practices in data publishing, adapting data repositories in response to researcher needs and preserving data to meet compliance requirements.
Tuesday, June 27, 2023, 2-3 PM - ChatGPT and SciHub, an informal chat
Join the Bay Area Open Science Group this month for an informal conversation about “open” information focusing on ChatGPT and SciHub. What do these tools have in common? What do they say about the future of scientific information access and open science?
Here is what ChatGPt has to say on the topic:
Looking for reliable scientific information? Look no further than ChatGPT and SciHub! ChatGPT is an advanced language model that can answer your scientific questions quickly and accurately. Whether you're a researcher, student, or just curious about the world around you, ChatGPT has got you covered. On the other hand, SciHub is a platform that provides free access to scientific papers and articles that are otherwise hidden behind paywalls. With over 80 million papers available, SciHub is a treasure trove of information that can help you stay up-to-date on the latest scientific research. So whether you prefer asking questions or reading articles, ChatGPT and SciHub are the perfect combination for anyone seeking reliable scientific information. What do you think about ChatGPT’s enthusiastic boosterism? Do you consider ChatGPT and SciHub to be the “perfect combination for anyone seeking reliable scientific information?”
Join the conversation and let us know!
Recommended Pre-listen: https://radiolab.org/podcast/library-alexandra
Bay Area Open Science Group
Are you interested in making your research more openly available? Want to learn about open science tools and platforms that can make your research more effective and reproducible? The Bay Area Open Science Group is intended to bring together students, faculty, and staff from the Stanford, Berkeley, and UCSF communities to learn about open science, discuss the application of open science practices in a research context, and meet other members of the community who are interested in (or already are) incorporating open science practices into their work.
Meetings:
We meet on the 4th Tuesday of the month from 2-3pm via Zoom. All are welcome to attend and join the conversation!
Dates for 2021-2022:
Open peer review is the least practiced aspect of open science. Yet it may teach us a lot about how manuscripts can change from their submitted version to their (peer-revied) published version of record. Mario Malicki will give an overview of 21 studies that analysed manuscript changes and his own study in which I analysed changes between 121 epidemiology preprints and
their subsequent published versions. Finally, he will present a call for declaring changes to manuscripts with each published paper.
Milo Johnson (https://miloswebsite.com/, starting a post-doc in the Koskella Lab at UC Berkeley this June)
The linear format of scientific papers is an entrenched, constrained result of history that holds back efficient and effective transmission of information between scientists. Science requires depth, but the reality is that the majority of readers don’t care about the majority of things in a paper. And we know it! At conferences, scientists give 5-minute talks at poster sessions that effectively communicate their work to 95% of their audience, and the other 5% can ask follow-up questions about the details. Can we design a way to write scientific content in a similar way, such that the details are accessible behind a concise narrative? I'll present this idea along with some preliminary technical explorations, and I'll invite y'all to brainstorm with me about how we can make tools to improve communication between scientists!
April 26, 2022
Gather around virtually with colleagues at Stanford and Berkeley for a presentation on The COVID Tracking Project by Kevin Miller, a former team lead with the project who is archiving the project's data and collections for the UCSF Archives & Special Collections. The project was a volunteer-run, community-science program that became a critical source of national pandemic data accidentally and overnight. He will discuss how it was built, and the challenges of archiving such a massive, born-digital collection.
May 24, 2022
Join us in May as we get together virtually with colleagues at UCSF and Stanford to hear from the fledgling Open Source Science at Berkeley student organization. They will be introducing their group and seeking feedback for a planned 1-unit course on developing open-source scientific software. Rachel Clune, Orion Cohen, Tarini Hardikar, and Connie Robinson are chemistry graduate students at UC Berkeley. They share an interest in improving the scientific software ecosystem and teaching computational skills to the Berkeley community
Tuesday June 28, 2022
Examining the Openness of COVID-19-related Randomized Control Trials with John Borghi
Check out our website (https://bayareaopensciencegroup.github.io/) to get on our mailing list, or let us know if you want to present!
Campus GIS & Mapping Community of Practice meetups are announced in several forums:
Interested in presenting at a future meetup or have an idea for a speaker or location? Please let us know by filling out this interest form!
Sam has taken on the role of Open Science Editor of the new diamond open access journal (free to read, free to publish in), Seismica. Her first co-authored editorial was recently published: https://doi.org/10.26443/seismica.v1i1.255
Susan recently returned from leave.
Lisa co-presented on a panel at the SciDataCon-IDW Seoul 2022 conference, sharing a talk "Introduction to data analysis at UC Berkeley: building a scalable instruction partnership in the Library."