Check Out the Complete Listing of IAPril 2012 Sessions

A workshop in the DIRC, photo by L.Barry Hetherington

All sessions take place in the Digital Instruction Resource Center (DIRC), 14N-132, with the exception of the MIT Libraries Bookmobile and the Institute Archives sessions. The Bookmobile will take place in Lobby 10, and the Archives sessions will take place in 14N-118.

Pre-registration is required for some, but not all sessions. See below for details.

Patent Searching FundamentalsRegister
Tues April 3, 12:00 – 1:00 pm, 14N-132
Contact:  Howard Silver, hsilver@mit.edu

While you won’t come out of this session qualified to be a patent attorney, you will be able to successfully find patent references from all over the world and know how to obtain patent text and diagrams. The session will be a hands-on practicum that will help de-mystify the patent literature and expose attendees to key resources for finding patents through free resources available on the web.

Please register for this session.

MIT Libraries Bookmobile
Wed April 11, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm, Lobby 10
Contact: Theresa Tobin, tat@mit.edu

Celebrate National Bookmobile Day with the MIT Libraries! Check out new fiction and non-fiction, DVDs, and music (Bring your MIT ID if you want to borrow something).

RefWorks Basics
Thurs April 12, 12 – 1pm, 14N-132
Contact:  Anita Perkins, perkins@mit.edu

RefWorks is a web-based resource to help you organize references, create a bibliography, and easily cite references as you write your paper.  It allows you to create individual or group accounts.

Dear Diaries — Before There Were Blogs
Fri April 20, 11:30 am – 1:00 pm, 14N-118 (Archives reading room)
Contact: Dana Goblaskas, dgoblask@mit.edu

Have you ever wanted to take a peek inside a day in the life of an MIT student or faculty member? Come explore some diaries from the Institute Archives & Special Collections and read accounts of…

  • founder William Barton Rogers’s wedding trip
  • a world cruise
  • trekking across Texas in a covered wagon
  • a future MIT president’s teenage adventures as a ship’s radio operator
  • the founding of the United Nations
  • working with radar during World War Two
  • traveling in India, Australia, Germany, Mali, Burkina Faso, and the Azores
  • and more!

Diaries date from 1849 to 1973. You never know what adventures you’ll uncover!

This session will last 90 minutes, with a 10-minute introduction at the beginning and then time to peruse the diaries at your leisure. Drop by anytime and stay as long as you want.

Managing Your References:  Overview of EndNote, RefWorks, and ZoteroRegister
Tues April 24, 12:00 – 1:15 pm, 14N-132
Contact:  Anita Perkins, perkins@mit.edu

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 (EndNote, RefWorks & Zotero) 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?

Please register for this session.

Taking Care: Family Textiles
Tue April 24, 2:00-3:00 pm, 14N-132
Contact: Ann Marie Willer, willer@mit.edu

Do you want to save an old family quilt, a wedding dress, or T-shirts and flags from your fraternity or student club?  A conservator will present this webinar on how to care for the various types of textiles found in family collections including clothing, flags, furniture coverings, and framed textiles. The session will cover how to safely store and display textiles and how to determine when the services of a professional conservator are needed.  This event is part of the American Library Association’s Preservation Week.

EndNote BasicsRegister
Wed April 25, 4:00 – 5:00 pm, 14N-132
Contact: Peter Cohn, pcohn@mit.edu

EndNote is a “personal bibliographic software” package which allows you to create and manage a database of bibliographic references. Learn how to find and use information more effectively in our hands-on workshop.

Please register for this session.

Arts and Culture Multimedia in the MIT LibrariesRegister
Thu April 26, 12:30 – 1:30 pm, 14N-132
Contact: Mark Szarko, szarko@mit.edu

Want to find out how to obtain over one million tracks of streaming audio ranging from classical to jazz, popular, and contemporary world music? How about over 150,000 online music scores? Streaming video of poets reading from their work? Images so sharp you can see the shadow beneath the Mona Lisa’s smile? Or panoramic views of architectural sites from around the world?

Come to this session to learn how to bring these and other cultural treasures right to your desktop through the MIT Libraries.

Please register for this session.

Preserving Your Personal Digital Photographs
Thu April 26, 2:00-3:00 pm, 14N-132
Contact: Ann Marie Willer, willer@mit.edu

Digital photos are fragile and require special care to keep them accessible. But preserving any kind of digital information is a new concept that most people have little experience with. Technologies change over time and become obsolete, making it difficult to access older digital photos. Learn about the nature of the problem and hear about some simple, practical tips and tools to help you keep your digital photos safe. This event is part of the American Library Association’s Preservation Week.

Advanced SciFinderRegister
Fri April 27, 10:00 am – 12:00 pm, 14N-132
Contact:  Erja Kajosalo, kajosalo@mit.edu

This advanced SciFinder session includes many useful tips & tricks for chemists, including:

  • Advanced structure and reaction searching
  • All of the newest tools and content added to SciFinder
  • SciPlanner, the new synthetic planning tool for chemists
  • Bioactivity and target indicator data
  • Reaction experimental procedures
  • Real time pricing and availability information from suppliers like Aldrich and Alfa Aesar
  • And much more!

Please register for this session.

Is It What It Is? Tools for Understanding Your Digital FilesRegister
Fri April 27, 11:30 am – 1:00 pm, 14N-118 (Archives reading room)
Contact: Kari R. Smith, smithkr@mit.edu

In this session you will be exposed to a variety of software tools that are being used in the Institute Archives for understanding digital files that are being added to the Archival collections.  These software tools aid with the process of long-term access of digital material by allowing us to know what the digital files are when we receive them, detect any changes over time, and how to make them available in the future.

We will briefly discuss how these tools fit into work flows for digital content being developed for use in the Institute Archives and Special Collections department of the MIT Libraries.

Categories of tools that will be reviewed include:  file format characterization, fixity, packaging, metadata extraction, conversion / normalization, disk imaging, and metadata embedding.

Come learn how you can know that over time your digital files are what they are!

Please register for this session.