RiffTrax Area in Penrose

Check out the small RiffTrax collection of DVDs in Penrose. Here are the steps:

1. Borrow the DVD from Penrose.
2. Download the Rifftrax.
3. Sync them up.
4. Laugh hysterically.

Bonus: Check out their "Shorts".

Some of the DVD we still have are: The Sixth Sense, Star Wars I, The Little Shop of Horrors, Matrix Revolutions, and many others.

Build a Trebuchet Contest with Legos

In connection with the Genghis Khan exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, "the Museum wants you to build a mechanical siege weapon out of Lego building blocks—seriously!" On January 16th, they will host a competition to see whose trebuchet throws an object the farthest. All team entries must be received no later than Thursday, January 7, at 5:00 p.m. Take a look at their entry form and contest rules.

"Trailblazing" is blazing a trail...

Trailblazing is "an interactive timeline for everybody with an interest in science. Compiled by scientists, science communicators and historians – and co-ordinated by Professor Michael Thompson FRS – it celebrates three and a half centuries of scientific endeavour and has been launched to commemorate the Royal Society’s 350th anniversary in 2010."

This future can still happen!

Thanks to DLK and Aaron for finding...

Roomba Pac-Man

This is what our academic friends to the northwest of Denver are doing...

The Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles (RECUV) at the University of Colorado at Boulder has been developing software that helps robots form ad-hoc networks and distribute cooperative control of their operations. Some of the individuals at RECUV decided to create a cool demo on their own time to show off what their software can do.

IEEE Xplore new interface soon

IEEE Xplore will be coming out with a new interface in February, 2010. If you are interested in learning a little bit more, take a look at the the following -- "Experience the New IEEE Xplore Digital Library."

Penrose Library Liaison Newsletter

Here is the new issue of the newsletter (PDF). In this issue:

• Services: page 1
• Instruction and Research: pages 2-4
• Collections: pages 4-5
• Library News: page 6

Library Exhibit — "Blazing the Trail"

The exhibit Blazing the Trail: Denver’s Jewish Pioneers, curated by Beck Archivist Jeanne Abrams, was installed today on the main level of the library. This exhibit contains objects and reproduced images from the Beck Archive here at Penrose. It has been on display at the Singer Gallery of the Mizel Arts and Culture Center and will be at Penrose through the winter.

Murder in the Stacks

Student Services (Housing and Residential Education, Late Night at DU and the First & Second Year Experience) and the Penrose Library are sponsoring an event in the library -- Murder in the Stacks: A Vampire Mystery. Come solve the mystery in Penrose on November 5th at 6:00pm. To sign up your team, please contact DUIT at 1-2245 or duit@du.edu. Each team should have about 5-6 students.

Prizes include: pizza, DU Hockey tickets, vampire books, DU sports gear, and much, much more!

After the mystery is solved, there will be a party with snacks and prizes, then everyone is invited to head over to Davis Auditorium to watch the thriller V for Vendetta.

Hope to see you there.

Happy Open Access Week!

This week is "Open Access Week".

About the OA movement

Open Access is a growing international movement that uses the Internet to throw open the locked doors that once hid knowledge. It encourages the unrestricted sharing of research results with everyone, everywhere, for the advancement and enjoyment of science and society.

Open Access is the principle that all research should be freely accessible online, immediately after publication, and it’s gaining ever more momentum around the world as research funders and policy makers throw their weight behind it.

The Open Access philosophy was firmly articulated in 2002, when the Budapest Open Access Initiative was introduced. It quickly took root in the scientific and medical communities because it offered an alternative route to research literature that was frequently closed off behind costly subscription barriers.

Now Open Access is on a roll. Recent Funder Mandates — including that of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (the world’s largest research funder), which now requires that all their funded research be placed in an openly accessible database, and Harvard University — have further strengthened the prospects for Open Access to all research.

Scientific American is under new management

For now, Penrose will keep a subscription to Scientific American, even though the price went up 750% in one year (2009 to 2010). Nature Publishing Group is now the publisher, and they really jacked the price up on it. I will be watching print use of this in 2010. We do have electronic access to the magazine as well.

For more information, take a look at this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Scientific American is probably the nation's most venerable source of science news written for a general audience. The Nature group, which took over the magazine this year, proposes to charge $299 for a 2010 print subscription-up from $39.95-and as much as $1,500 for an annual license for online access-up from $1,000 - depending on how big the institution is.

Former Chancellor Dan Ritchie takes a rap...

Former DU Chancellor Dan Ritchie raps about a new blog at the DCPA. He makes "it hip and funny so the kids will like it!"



Thanks to Let's Go DU for finding this.

2009 Sparky Awards

The third annual Sparky Awards invite contestants to submit videos of two minutes or less that imaginatively portray the benefits of the open, legal exchange of information. The contest is well suited for adoption as a class assignment as well as an opportunity to promote library services, including media services or the information commons, where students can edit video, browse media, work collaboratively, and learn about copyright and balancing features such as fair use. Colleges and universities across North America are hosting local versions of the Sparky Awards to get maximum benefit from the third-annual installment of the contest. Other institutions everywhere are promoting international entries through sparkyawards.org.

The organizers of the popular Sparky Awards, a contest that recognizes the best new short videos on the value of information sharing, have announced that Pat Aufderheide, Director of the Center for Social Media and professor at American University, and Ben Moskowitz, organizer of the Open Video Alliance and co-founder of the Berkeley Students for Free Culture chapter, will help select the winners of the 2009 international contest. These additions to the judges’ panel reflect how vital the open sharing of information is to both students and faculty, and that the Sparky Awards is a unique forum to bring together stakeholders from across campus to the discussion on access to research.

The contest is sponsored by SPARC.

Smithsonian Education Online Conference on Climate Change

The "Smithsonian Education Online Conference on Climate Change" is three-day, free, education online conference taking place September 29 through October 1, 2009.

"Climate Change" sessions will be of special interest to educators, entire classrooms of engaged students, and to the general public. Throughout the conference, participants will explore Smithsonian research and collections related to the evidence, impact, and response to climate change. Alongside Smithsonian scientists and curators, you will look at the issues surrounding climate change from the perspectives of science, history, and art.

The Internet and Civic Engagement

This is the title of a new report that just came out from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. It should be noted that the report doesn't even include Twitter or comment on how social media was used at the end of the presidential campaign in October/November of 2008. Happy reading.

American Institute of Physics UniPHY

This is a literature-based professional social networking site for physical science researchers.

The site allows physicists, engineers, and other scientists to directly connect with and explore their professional contacts and to identify researchers with the expertise needed for future collaborations.

AIP UniPHY, powered by Collexis High Definition Search, enables fast, accurate and extraordinary knowledge retrieval and discovery, and empowers individuals to search for and identify documents, researchers, trends, and new discoveries more quickly, precisely –- and thoroughly –- than ever before. AIP UniPHY provides intuitive interfaces through which researchers can network and share data –- all with the goal of advancing physics research worldwide.

This press release also has more info on the product.

50 Millionth Unique Chemical Substance is indexed

Here is the new substance. It is (5Z)-5-[(5-Fluoro-2-hydroxyphenyl)methylene]-2-(4-methyl-1-piperazinyl)-4(5H)-thiazolone.

Overview of the ACRL Scholarly Communication 101 Workshop

I went to the ACRL Scholarly Communication 101 "Road Show" Workshop way back on August 7, 2009. It was an all day affair held on the Auraria Campus here in Denver.

Presentation materials are here. For example, they began the day with "Scholarly Communication 101: Starting with the Basics".

• Introduction: Scholarly communication system
• Economics
  
• Copyright and author rights
  
• Open access and openness as a principle
  
• New models and modes of scholarly publishing

Handouts are here, such as:

• Workshop overview & outline
  
• Ten things you should know
  
• Assessing copyright management exercise
  
• Copyright MadLibs story exercise
  
• Copyright transfer agreement comparison exercise
  
• Openness exercise
  
• Final reflection activity
  
• Workshop evaluation

Videos are here.

The organizers of the event recorded audio during the day, but it is not available yet.

An updated version of LibX is now ready

The new verison of LibX (version 1.5.8) makes Encore the default method for searching the catalog. Encore provides a new and improved interface to search the Peak Catalog with keywords.

If you don't already have LibX installed on your computer, click here to install it for Firefox or click here to install it for Internet Explorer. If you already have LibX, just update the install when Firefox or IE prompt you to do so.

This webpage provides more details about what LibX does.

SciFinder e-seminars

Want to learn more about how to use SciFinder (Chemical Abstracts) Software better? Take a seminar at https://casevents.webex.com/mw0304l/mywebex/default.do?siteurl=casevents.