MIT Libraries News

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.

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.

Come to the SHASS Open House, and meet members of the MIT Libraries community who provide support for SHASS. Subject specialists from the Dewey and Humanities Libraries will be on hand to tell you more about our online, and human, resources.

And, our Bookmobile will make special appearance, with a related collection of library materials on display…and to check out!!!

Today @ noon, in the Sala De Puerto Rico, 2nd floor of the Student Center.

Industry and market researchers at MIT now have access to IBISWorld Reports (http://libraries.mit.edu/get/ibisworld), a database spanning 700+ U.S. industries. Each IBIS report covers:

• industry performance and conditions
• market size
• demand determinants
• and other key variables

IBIS is searchable by keyword and is unique in grouping its reports by the NAICS industrial codes at five-digits. Note: while IBIS is among our more comprehensive sources for U.S. industries, Global Industry reports are not part of MIT’s subscription.

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.

Need analysis of medical technology markets? Want data on on biotech and pharmaceutical deals? Try Windhover’s MedTech Insight and Strategic Transactions Database, now available through the MIT Libraries. Access both via the Windhover Archives platform at: http://libraries.mit.edu/get/windhover (certificates required).

• MedTech Insight includes analyses of US markets for a variety of therapeutic categories and medical technologies. Articles can be browsed or retrieved by keyword search.
• Strategic Transactions Database provides data on biotechnology, pharmaceutical and device deal making activity, from 1991 to date. To access Strategic Transactions at the platform, highlight Browse or Search in the navigation bar and then choose Deals.

Note: MIT certificates are required (even on-campus) and access is limited to two simultaneous users. Feel free to contact Maggie Bartley, mbart@mit.edu with questions or comments.

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.

—

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).

Looking for profiles of countries? Need information on:

• doing business in another country
• risk analysis
• economic and political conditions
• history and factual summaries

Try these databases from the MIT Libraries:

• Business Monitor: Industry sector, economic, political and company research on 175 countries. Includes political and economic risk analysis.
• CIA World Factbook: Brief factual and graphical surveys of the economic, geographic and political conditions of 267 countries, dependent areas and other entities.
• Doing Business (World Bank): Objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 178 countries and selected cities at the subnational and regional level.
• EIU Country Intelligence: Analysis of historical political, infrastructural, and economic trends; forecasts of economic and political conditions; and information on operating conditions, commercial laws, and business regulations for individual countries.
• Europa World Yearbook: Detailed country surveys containing analytical, statistical and directory data for over 250 countries, territories, and regions.
• Export.gov Market Research Library: Information on the business and economic situations of foreign countries and the politics as it affects U.S. business. (Select Market Research Library, then under Report Type pick Country Commercial Guides [CCG]).

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/

This hands-on class will provide a comprehensive introduction to estimating the linear regression model using ordinary least squares in Stata. Topics covered include: multiple regression, dummy variables, interaction effects, hypothesis tests, and model diagnostics. In addition, instructors will explain the substantive interpretation of regression outputs. Join Nealia Khan, Statistical Consultant, Harvard-MIT Data Center, for this informative session.

Familiarity with both Stata and the linear regression model is required.

WHEN: Wednesday, January 30, 1 – 3 pm

WHERE: E53-220

Enrollment is limited to 20 participants. Contact Katherine McNeill-Harman to sign up or with questions. See http://libraries.mit.edu/guides/subjects/data/training/workshops.html for more information.

This course will help researchers performing large or complex statistical analyses to identify and analyze computational problems and thus improve performance, accuracy and reliability. Topics will include: fundamentals of computer arithmetic; computing architecture and performance; statistical benchmarking; principles of performance tuning; timing and profiling statistical codes; large database management; high-performance libraries; and distributed computing approaches.

The course is offered in a one-day mixed format. The morning portion of the class will be devoted to lecture and discussion. During the afternoon, the instructor will be available to offer one-on-one consulting on projects in either the planning or active stages. Please contact the instructor in advance to reserve a specific afternoon consulting time slot.

WHEN: Monday, January 28, 10 am – 1 pm & 1 – 4 pm (Individual consulting)

WHERE: E53-220

Please note that advance sign-up is required and participation is limited to 20 participants. We require prior familiarity with fundamentals of statistical model estimation.

Contact Micah Altman, Senior Research Scientist Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University, to sign up or with any questions.

Get an introduction to R, the open-source system for statistical computation and graphics available on Athena. With hands-on exercises, learn how to import and manage datasets, create R objects, and generate figures. Join Ernest Sergenti, Data Fellow, Harvard-MIT Data Center, for this informative session.

No previous experience with R is required.

WHEN: Friday, January 25, 10 am – 12 pm

WHERE: E53-220

Enrollment is limited to 20 participants. Contact Katherine McNeill-Harman to sign up or with questions. See http://libraries.mit.edu/guides/subjects/data/training/workshops.html for more information.

Interested in learning a statistical analysis software package? Get an introduction to Stata, the software available on Athena and commonly used in many departments across MIT. With hands-on exercises, explore Stata’s many features and learn how to import and manage datasets and do statistical analysis. Join Nealia Khan, Statistical Consultant, Harvard-MIT Data Center, for this informative session.

WHEN: Wednesday, January 23, 10 am – 12 pm

WHERE: E53-220

Enrollment is limited to 20 participants. Contact Katherine McNeill-Harman to sign up or with questions. See http://libraries.mit.edu/guides/subjects/data/training/workshops.html for more information.

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.

Need data to answer a research question? Interested in analyzing raw datasets with micro-level records about individual respondents? This hands-on workshop will familiarize you with the resources of the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) and the Harvard-MIT Data Center, which provide access to datasets in the social sciences and related fields. Topics will include finding and downloading datasets and understanding data documentation.

WHEN: Tuesday, January 15, 2 – 3:30 pm

WHERE: 14N-132, DIRC

See http://libraries.mit.edu/guides/subjects/data/training/workshops.html for more information.

Advance sign up is required and participation is limited to 20 people. Please sign up by January 14 by contacting Katherine McNeill-Harman.

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.

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.

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), the world’s largest archive of digital social science data, is hosting two opportunities for undergraduate students to gain experience in working with their data:

1. The ICPSR Undergraduate Research Paper Competitions will highlight the best undergraduate student research papers that use data from ICPSR.
   * One competition covers any dataset(s) held within the ICPSR archive or any of its special topic archives. In the second competition, the paper must address issues relevant to underrepresented minorities in the United States and draw data from the Minority Data Resource Center.
   * Up to three cash prizes will be awarded. The winner will receive a monetary award of $1,000. Second place receives $750 and third place $500.
   * Deadline for submission is January 31, 2008.
2. The ICPSR Summer Undergraduate Internship Program will take place June 9-August 15, 2008.
   * Gain experience using statistical programs such as Stata, SAS, and SPSS.
   * Learn data processing skills to prepare social science data for archiving and distribution.
   * Deadline for application is January 28, 2008.

For more information on either of these programs, contact Katherine McNeill-Harman, Data Services and Economics Librarian, at mcneillh@mit.edu.