free

Open Access Week: Tuesday, October 23

Today’s Open Access Week event is a webcast of a talk at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard: “How to Make Your Research Open Access (Whether You’re at Harvard or Not).” The speakers are well-known in the world of open access – Peter Suber and Stuart Shieber of the Harvard Open Access Project, the Berkman Center community, and the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication . They’ll be discussing the Harvard Open Access policies and presenting concrete steps for how authors can make their work Open Access wherever they may be. We’ll be streaming the webcast in the DMC AV Circle 1 (the one with the matrix wall), from 12:30-1:30 – feel free to bring your lunch, we’ll be serving cookies and beverages! For the full schedule of Open Access Week events, visit http://library.northeastern.edu/openaccess.

Open Access Week: Monday, October 22

This week is the sixth International Open Access Week – a global event highlighting the importance of open access to information. We’re offering four events this week that focus on different aspects of Open Access. Today’s event is a webcast cosponsored by SPARC and the World Bank – it’s a 90-minute panel and Q&A moderated by Heather Joseph, the Executive Director of SPARC. The World Bank recently was named a SPARC Innovator for its open access policy and launch of an open data repository. The panelists are:
  • Michael Carroll, Professor of Law, American University and founding Board Member, Creative Commons
  • Matt Cooper, President, The National Association of Graduate-Professional Students
  • Maricel Kann, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland and member, PubMed Central National Advisory Committee, NIH.
  • Carlos Rossel, Publisher, The World Bank
  • Neil Thakur, Special Assistant to the Deputy Director, Extramural Research, National Institutes of Health (NIH)
We’ll be streaming the webcast in the DMC AV Circle #1 (the one with the puzzle-piece wall); refreshments will be served. It’s a 90-minute event, from 4:00-5:30 pm. You’ll also see a table set up in the lobby all week at lunchtime (11:30-1:30), staffed by me and some of our liaison librarians – stop by for lots of information about Open Access and free giveaways! Information about the full week is on our website at http://library.northeastern.edu/openaccess.

Wednesday & Thursday: Open Educational Resources @ the EdTech Center

Faculty: Have you heard about Open Educational Resources but aren’t sure how you might integrate them into your teaching? Students: Want to find out how Open Educational Resources can help supplement your education at no cost? On Wednesday, September 14, and Thursday, September 15, the EdTech Center, located in 215 Snell Library, is hosting the two-day EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) 2011 Online Fall Focus Session on Open Educational Resources. OERs include a wide range of online content, from recorded lectures to open textbooks to shared learning objects, and much more. Here is the EdTech Center’s announcement about the event. The full program is available online as well, and individual sessions are kept short so you can stop by as your schedule permits to hear about topics of interest to you. All you need to do is register for the event at their website, take a look at the schedule, and come on over!   Coming Soon: Open Access Week! October 24-30, 2011 And, if you’re interested in issues regarding open access to information in higher education, stay tuned for details to come soon about Open Access Week 2011! We’re planning a week full of events to celebrate, investigate, and discuss open access here at Northeastern. In the meantime, check out our new guide to Open Access, which includes basic information as well as tons of suggestions for finding open journal content, open textbooks, open media resources, and more!    

On This Day: December 2nd

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). On December 2nd, 1970 (40 years ago!) the EPA began daily operations under Richard Nixon (one of few things he got right). This organization is responsible for researching and educating the public on environmental issues, as well as setting and enforcing environment-related legislation. Key programs you may be familiar with are vehicle emission standards, Clean Water Acts, and the Endangered Species Acts. As a part of NU Libraries’ Federal Depository program, we have government-issued reports available in print and online that explore various EPA related topics in detail. You can take out a print article from our government stacks on the oversight of recent EPA decisions, or you can read an online article on the EPA lifecycle analysis of greenhouse gas emissions. There is much to choose from, so celebrate 40 years by taking a look at these resources. To view the library’s entire EPA collection, keyword search “EPA” in NUCat.

Snell On Your Cell

As usual, Snell is keeping up with the times and mobile technology is an area we wouldn’t want to miss out on. So don’t be surprised if you start seeing some of these little numbers popping up around Snell or elsewhere on campus. If you have a barcode scanner on your smartphone, try this QR code out and let us know what you think! (Of course, you can also access our mobile website at this address: http://www.lib.neu.edu/m)