Zotero Class: June 29th (Managing Your References/Citations/More)

Upcoming Drop-In Zotero class
Tuesday, June 29th  9am - 11:30am, Terrell 105 (just inside from the CUB tunnel)

More later in the summer? Contact me if you'd like to set one up.

Also, if anyone is interested in EndNote as an alternative, my colleague Jane Scales teaches those classes (see summer schedule below). Sign up here 

What's Zotero? 

Collecting, Managing and Citing Reference Resources with Zotero:

A Hands-On Workshop

This hands-on class will introduce you to Zotero, a free, open source alternative to reference manager systems such as EndNote and ProCite. Zotero allows you to easily save webpages and articles found in library subscription databases such as Worldwide Political Science Abstracts, JSTOR, and PubMed, as well as bibliographic details, PDFs or other files, comments/notes, and indexing terms. Saved PDFs are searchable. When you are ready to write, you can use Zotero to integrate your references into your work in many citation styles using MS Word or OpenOffice. References can be backed up, and can be shared between computers and even with other people over the Web.

Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Research and Development on Urban Systems (Freely Accessable eBook)

Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Research and Development on Urban Systems (via The National Academies)

"More than half of the world's people now live in cities. In the United States, the figure is 80 percent. It is worthwhile to consider how this trend of increased urbanization, if inevitable, could be made more sustainable. One fundamental shortcoming of urban research and programs is that they sometimes fail to recognize urban areas as systems. Current institutions and actors are not accustomed to exploring human-environment interactions, particularly at an urban-scale. The fact is that these issues involve complex interactions, many of which are not yet fully understood. Thus a key challenge for the 21st century is this: How can we develop sustainable urban systems that provide healthy, safe and affordable environments for the growing number of Americans living in cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas?

To address this question, the National Research Council organized a workshop exploring the landscape of urban sustainability research programs in the United States. The workshop, summarized in this volume, was designed to allow participants to share information about the activities and planning efforts of federal agencies, along with related initiatives by universities, the private sector, nongovernmental groups, state and local agencies, and international organizations. Participants were encouraged to explore how urban sustainability can move beyond analyses devoted to single disciplines and sectors to systems-level thinking and effective interagency cooperation. To do this, participants examined areas of potential coordination among different R&D programs, with special consideration given to how the efforts of federal agencies can best complement and leverage the efforts of other key stakeholders. Pathways to Urban Sustainability offers a broad contextual summary of workshop presentations and discussions for distribution to federal agencies, regional organizations, academic institutions, think tanks and other groups engaged in urban research."

Medvedev Thanks Angry Birds Creator

"Russian President Dmitry Medvedev thanked the Angry Birds maker on Friday for creating a game that is highly popular with government officials.
 
'Before talking politics, I would like to thank Mr. [Peter] Vesterbacka for creating an occupation for a huge number of officials who now know what to do in their free and not-so-free time. I saw them [playing the game] myself many times,'" Full article here , via RiaNovosti.

Smartphone Apps for Keeping Up with Congress

From the In Custodia Legis: Law Librarians of Congress blog:

There’s a Congressional App for That

 "I recently got a new smart phone and have started exploring apps that can help me keep up with Congress and do my job (Andrew has mentioned a couple before). I’ve compiled a sampling of apps for various devices. What’s your favorite app for getting in touch or keeping up with Congress?"
    Click here to see the rest of the post.

Foreign Policy's Beach Books for Wonks

Foreign Policy's June 10th issue includes a nice list of books (fiction and non fiction) suggested by FP "favorite contributors" - this link will go to a one-page listing of the suggestions. Once you have a few titles, look them up in WSU WorldCat then its time to pour the lemonade and start reading! On my list? Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin (the current "one book one Twitter" selection),  Swamplandia, and a re-reading of World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (and then I have to finish Drezner's Theories of International Politics and Zombies...and read Physics for Future Presidents (WSU's Common Reading book for next fall, and then...) 

College Students and Information Overload

Alison Head and Mike Eisenberg (Of the University of Washington's Information School) head Project Information Literacy, the source of the info in this Seattle Times op/ed. From the opinion piece: "'Or, as one student in social sciences we interviewed told us, "College is about knowing how to look at a problem in multiple ways and how to think about it analytically — now, that's something I'll use in my life.'"

College students eager to learn but need help negotiating information overload |

Zotero Class: June 14th (Managing Your References/Citations)

Upcoming Drop-In Zotero class
Tuesday, June 14th 1pm-3:30pm, Terrell 105 (just inside from the CUB tunnel)

More later in the summer? Contact me if you'd like to set one up.

Also, if anyone is interested in EndNote as an alternative, my colleague Jane Scales teaches those classes (see summer schedule below). Sign up here 

What's Zotero? 

Collecting, Managing and Citing Reference Resources with Zotero:

A Hands-On Workshop

This hands-on class will introduce you to Zotero, a free, open source alternative to reference manager systems such as EndNote and ProCite. Zotero allows you to easily save webpages and articles found in library subscription databases such as Worldwide Political Science Abstracts, JSTOR, and PubMed, as well as bibliographic details, PDFs or other files, comments/notes, and indexing terms. Saved PDFs are searchable. When you are ready to write, you can use Zotero to integrate your references into your work in many citation styles using MS Word or OpenOffice. References can be backed up, and can be shared between computers and even with other people over the Web.

National Academies Press Goes Fully Open Access

The National Academies Press is an amazing resource - it publishes the work of the various National Academies - organizations of academic and other experts (some WSU faculty ahve been elected to various National Academies). Its not all sciency science, either - their publications include many that are social science-oriented, or interdisciplinary (some general topic categories include Behavioral and Social Sciences, Conflict and Security Issues, and Policy for Science and Technology). They have made a good chunk of their works available at no cost in the past, and are now extending the policy to their full catalog. This is quality stuff.