MIT Libraries News

The latest in the series of podcasts on scholarly publication and copyright is an interview with George Stiny, Professor of Computation in the Department of Architecture at MIT.

Professor Stiny explains the significance of copying in the design process from his unusual perspective - a perspective that blends art and design with calculating. Professor Stiny invented shape grammars - the idea of identifying and quantifying a set of rules that can generate an infinite range of designs, much the way rules of grammar in language can generate an infinite range of sentences. His work uses mathematics to capture the creative, generative language of shapes and design.

Download the audio file. (14:42 minutes; 13.5 MB)

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The other episodes in the podcast series are available on the scholarly publication website. To subscribe to the MIT Libraries’ Podcasts on Scholarly Publishing, paste this link into iTunes or another podcast reader: http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/6772/

We encourage and welcome your feedback, which you may direct to:
Ellen Finnie Duranceau / Scholarly Publishing and Licensing Consultant / efinnie@mit.edu

Exhibit in Rotch Library – Urban Studies/Random Views

Urban Studies/Random Views, on view from May 5th to July 18th, is a collection of recent oil paintings by Carol Schweigert of Dewey Library.

The paintings were initially inspired by the dynamic views of the ongoing construction surrounding the Library. The focus expanded to include other views in Cambridge and Charlestown, reflecting the coexistence of the natural and the architectural.

These are traditional plein air paintings with an underlying graphic composition of more modern sensibilities.

A reception is planned for 4:00PM - 6:30PM, Friday, May 9, 2008 in Rotch Library, 7-238.

Were you unable to attend a Libraries’ sponsored IAP session this January? Wish you could have attended the March workshops on Building an EndNote Library, or the recent class on Google Maps?

The Libraries are pleased to unveil recordings of our popular workshops. The sessions were recorded in cooperation with Academic Media Production Services (AMPS) and are viewable both on and off campus with your MIT Certificates.

To see a list of recordings, go to the MIT Libraries Video Tutorials page and scroll down to Videos of Recent Workshops.

Contact Angie Locknar with any questions.

           

Citation Surfing: Using Databases to Track Article Citations
Michael Noga

Learn how to find and use information more effectively in our hands-on workshops. No advanced registration required. Light refreshments will be served at each session.

**NOTE that different events will be happening throughout the month of April and early May.**

WHERE: 14N-132 (Digital Instruction Resource Center – DIRC)

WHEN: Friday, May 2, 12pm (noon)

Have your ever used the Web of Science to find citations? Have you used Google Scholar? Perhaps you have used citation links in journal articles. This session will explore the different ways you can use citation searching to identify literature on a subject.

Sponsored by the MIT Libraries.

Contact the Science Library for more information.

Social Explorer provides over 3200 maps, and thousands of variables, painting a picture of US population change from 1790 to 2000. The MIT Libraries’ subscription to Social Explorer provides the MIT community with access to the full set of data, for all years if you use this url to enter the website: http://libraries.mit.edu/get/explorer

Need to expand your skills in statistical methods and quantitative analysis? Attend the ICPSR Summer Program! Each year, ICPSR provides a comprehensive, integrated program of studies in research design, statistics, data analysis, and social science methodology. Registration is now open for the 2008 session. For a listing of course offerings and application information, see the ICPSR Summer Program web site.

Note: Small stipends are available to support attendance by a limited number of MIT students. For more information contact Katherine McNeill-Harman at mcneillh@mit.edu.

Introduction to Google Maps API (5 - 6 pm)

Googler Pamela Fox will give a whirlwind tour of the Google Maps API and KML, teaching the basics of each and showing off some of the really fun applications of them (like campus maps, interactive panoramas, and fantasy worlds).

Google Maps Codelab (6 - 7 pm)

Interactive codelabs in the topics addressed in the Introduction to Google Maps API. Codelab participants should come prepared with basic Javascript or XML experience, and will find debugging the Maps API easier if they have Firebug installed.

Both sessions will be held in 14N-132.

Food will be provided

Email gishelp at mit.edu if you have questions.

On Thursday, November 15th the MIT Humanities Library hosted Professor Irving Singer who spoke about his new book, Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher, just published by The MIT Press. A video of the event is now available on MIT World.

In this lecture, Singer discusses how Bergman used philosophical ideas “in an extended sense” — not by including philosophical discussions in his films, but through his masterful use of cinematic technique to examine the particularities of human experience. Singer also describes how Bergman wove aspects of his own life’s story into his films, in intense and vivid ways.

Irving Singer is Professor of Philosophy at MIT. He is the author of Reality Transformed: Film as Meaning and Technique, Three Philosophical Filmmakers: Hitchcock, Welles, Renoir (both published by The MIT Press), and many other books.

This event was sponsored by authors@mit. For more information, call call 253-5249, or email authors@mit.edu. See the MIT Press Bookstore’s “Events” page for a list of upcoming events.

Managing your references: Overview of EndNote, RefWorks and Zotero
Remlee Green, Mathew Willmott

Learn how to find and use information more effectively in our hands-on workshops. No advanced registration required. Light refreshments will be served at each session.

**NOTE that different events will be happening throughout the month of April and early May.**

WHERE: 14N-132 (Digital Instruction Resource Center – DIRC)

WHEN: Friday, April 11, 12pm (noon)

Using citation management software to create and maintain a collection of references is becoming more common and important in today’s academic world. This session will focus on EndNote, RefWorks, and Zotero, the three major options for bibliographic software at MIT.

Sponsored by the MIT Libraries.

Contact the Science Library for more information.

On Friday, April 18, from 1-3pm the MIT Libraries will host a community celebration in honor of the opening of the Maihaugen Gallery. The newly constructed exhibit space will showcase some of the extraordinary items from the MIT Libraries’ collections.

The first exhibit: A Celebration of Gifts will feature rare and unique items donated to the Libraries by MIT alumni, faculty, and friends. Among the treasures that will be exhibited to the public for the first time are items from the collection of the Institute’s founder, William Barton Rogers. The exhibit will also include original notebooks from Harold “Doc” Edgerton, several rare books including a first edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and a book of illustrations from the 1553 volume Historiae animalium by Konrad Gesner. Also featured will be items from the personal library of architect Charles Bulfinch, balloon prints from the Vail Collection, books by architect Santiago Calatrava with original artwork, works from the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, and other items given to the Libraries.

The new facility is located adjacent to the Institute Archives (14N-118). The celebration will begin at 1pm with remarks by Ann Wolpert, director of the Libraries. Refreshments will be served. Please join us!

Photos by: L. Barry Hetherington, Bottom photo: Copyright Harold E. Edgerton 1992 Trust

MIT Geoweb provides a web interface to search, view, and download GIS data and view metadata from the MIT Geodata Repository, an international collection of GIS data maintained by MIT GIS Services.

http://web.mit.edu/geoweb

Questions, comments, or suggestions: email gishelp@mit.edu

Did you know there are many ways to access the licensed copies of e-journals that we subscribe to? The methods below work from anywhere as long as you have MIT certificates installed or are using MIT’s VPN client.

1. Go to Vera and type the title in the search box.
(Our database called “Vera” has been the primary way to access e-journals since 2000).

2. Go to http://libraries.mit.edu/ejournals and type the title in the search box
(This page is part of a new version of Vera, which is currently in beta).

3. Go to our Full Text Finder: http://libraries.mit.edu/fulltext
If you have a complete citation to an article, you can enter it and go directly to the article (in most cases).

4. Search for an article using Google Scholar. Set your preferences to say that you want the MIT Libraries links. Then follow links that say “full text - MIT Libraries.” For details, see Making Google Scholar work for you. (Google Scholar does not index ALL of our licensed e-journals, so try Vera if you don’t find it in Google Scholar).

5. Go directly to the journal’s web site. Insert our proxy server string by typing it in front of the URL and then reload the page. See: Manually inserting the proxy string.

6. Install our bookmarklet in your browser toolbar. Go to the journal web site and then click on the bookmarklet, which inserts the proxy string automatically. See Inserting the proxy string with a bookmarklet.

7. In Firefox, install our LibX toolbar. Go directly to a journal’s web site. Right click on the page and select “reload this page via MIT Libraries’ proxy.” See a video of how this works. (A version of LibX for Internet Explorer is under development).

8. In Firefox, install our search toolbar widget for Vera:
see: http://mycroft.mozdev.org/download.html?name=MIT+vera
For more info, see: Search for journals in Vera with the new Firefox search bar.

9. If you install MIT’s VPN client and log in before you visit a journal’s web site, you will be able to access our subscription e-journals. (It will see you as if you are coming from ON CAMPUS). See VPN: an alternative off-campus option. With this method, #5, 6, and 7 above are not needed.

10. Within our licensed databases, such as Web of Science or SciFinder Scholar, look for buttons that say “Get this - MIT”. Those links will take you directly to our licensed copies of articles using our “open URL resolver” which is called SFX. To see a list of our licensed databases, see Vera shortcuts.

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These methods work only if you are ON CAMPUS:
1. Go to our Barton catalog and search for the title. Links in Barton work only from ON-CAMPUS . (A project to change this is in the works).

2. Go directly to the journal’s web site.
If you’re ON campus, and we have a subscription, you’ll get in (in most cases).

There has been an explosion of open source and free mapping tools. In this talk we will offer a brief look into the neogeographer’s world of online mapping.

WHEN: Wednesday, January 23, 2 -3 pm

WHERE: 4-231

Complete listing of GIS workshops

Image source: http://www.joomla.org/content/view/4410/74/

The Rotch Library is proud to present the IAP Film Series, held on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the month of January. The week of January 14 is Urban Week!

Films will be shown in the Rotch Library Conference Room (enter through 7-238) starting at 11:30AM and ending no later than 2PM. The schedule for the upcoming week will be:

Monday, January 14

• Drowned Out / Franny Armstrong
• Lost City of New Orleans / a BBC/Discovery Channel co-production

Wednesday, January 16

• Cities / directed and produced by David Springbett, Heather MacAndrew
• Subdivide and conquer : a modern western / Red Oak Films

Friday, January 18

• Farmingville / a film by Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini
• Designing a great neighborhood : behind the scenes at Holiday / produced by the Sustainable Futures Society

The week of January 21 is Potluck Week! More films from Rotch on a variety of topics.

Please forward this information to interested parties! If you have any questions, please contact Heather McCann at (617) 253-7098 / hmccann@mit.edu OR Jennifer Friedman (617) 258-5595 / jrfried@mit.edu.

Thank you very much and we hope to see you!

EndNote is a “personal bibliographic software” package which allows you to create and manage a database of bibliographic references.

Attendees will create a personal database of cited literature by importing references from resources such as Barton, Web of Science, PubMed, & other sources of published literature. Your database can be used to automatically generate in-text citations and bibliographies in your manuscripts. It can also help you organize and manage your PDF files.

WHEN: Thursday, January 17, 5 - 6 pm
Wednesday, January 23, 5 - 6 pm
Wednesday, January 30, 12 - 1 pm

WHERE: 14N-132, DIRC

Enrollment is on a first-come, first-served basis and is limited to 20 participants.

Contact Howard Silver with any questions.

Using citation management software to create and maintain a collection of references is becoming more common and important in today’s academic world. These software packages allow users to search databases, retrieve relevant citations, and build a bibliography to be added to a paper or thesis or stored for future reference. But which software package should you use, and how do you get started? This session will focus on EndNote, RefWorks, and Zotero, the three major options for bibliographic software at MIT. We will include a discussion comparing and contrasting the three softwares, and we will introduce some of the basic concepts and functionality of each program.

WHEN: Tuesday, January 15, 12 - 1 pm
Thursday, January 24, 12 - 1 pm
Monday, January 28, 5 - 6 pm

WHERE: 14N-132, DIRC

20 computers are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Attendees are welcome to bring their laptops.

Contact Remlee Green with any questions.

IAP Rotch Library Film Series:

• WHEN: Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, January 7, 2008 through February 1, 2008

•  WHERE: showing in 7-134A (Rotch Library conference room; enter via 7-238)

• Hosted by Ann Whiteside, Jolene deVerges, Jennifer Friedman, and Heather McCann

Did you know that Rotch Library of Architecture and Planning maintains an impressive DVD collection, with new titles added regularly? Join the library staff as we explore the scope of the collection. Each week of IAP, we will highlight a different theme in the collection, including video art, architecture and urban development & planning. Brief, informal discussion will follow each each day’s films.

Rotch Library Film Series, Week 1

The Rotch Library is proud to present the IAP Film Series, held on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the month of January. The week of January 7 is Video Art Week!

Films will be shown in the Rotch Library Conference Room starting at 11:30AM and ending no later than 2PM. The schedule for the upcoming week will be:

Monday, January 7

• Bill Viola: The Eye of the Heart
• William Kentridge: Art from Ashes

Wednesday, January 9

• Expressing the Inexpressible: Shirin Neshat
• The Body as Matrix: Matthew Barney’s “Cremaster Cycle”

Friday, January 11

• HC Gilje: Cityscapes
• Gary Hill: Transcending the Senses

The week of January 14 is Urban Planning Week!

Please forward this information to interested parties!

If you have any questions, please contact Heather McCann at (617) 253-7098 / hmccann@mit.edu OR Jennifer Friedman (617) 258-5595 / jrfried@mit.edu.

Are you wondering what an RSS feed is and how it can help your research?

Want to learn more about using GIS, EndNote or RefWorks?

Need to find chemical information, energy information, social science data, or patents?

Want to learn how to marble paper, improve your photography, or how to compost with worms?

Look no further! Take a peek at all of the MIT Libraries IAP Activities offered in 2008.

Our ever-expanding collection of classics and independent films are now more prominently located in our Browsery area.  Stop by the Humanities Library and check ‘em out.

Lanai: Living in the Landscape, a photo book by graduate student Stephanie Hsu (M.Arch), will be on display in Rotch Library (Rm 7-238), from December 10, 2007 through January 13, 2008. Funded in part by the Council for the Arts at MIT.

Once the largest pineapple plantation in the world, the island of Lanai is now 98% privately owned, home to two Four Seasons resorts, and known as the most exclusive of the Hawaiian Islands. Revealing life on Lanai from the perspective of the local population, architecture graduate student Stephanie Hsu documents the island during its transition from a plantation to a world class vacation destination.