Day: September 15, 2009

National Technical Reports Library

Posted on by lngo

UC Berkeley, in conjunction with four other UC campuses, is now providing access to the National Technical Reports Library (NTRL). NTRL is a searchable index of over 2 million reports from the National Technical Information Service, which archives technical reports from U.S. government agencies such as the Departments of Defense, Energy, Transportation, Health and Human Services, and the Environmental Protection Agency, among others. Easy access to full text (in PDF) is available for over 500,000 reports. NTRL is searchable by keyword or by report number. 

 

NTRL will replace Berkeley’s current subscription to the NTIS database through CSA. Other technical reports databases can also be found through the Engineering Library’s guide to technical reports.

Compact for open access publishing equity

Posted on by bquigley

On Monday, five major research universities – including the University of California, Berkeley – announced a new Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity. The universities have each pledged to develop "durable mechanisms for underwriting reasonable publication charges for articles written by its faculty and published in fee-based open-access journals…" Besides UC Berkeley, the other participating universities are Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, and MIT.

This compact further shows UC Berkeley’s interest in open access, already expressed through our Berkeley Research Impact Initiative, a pilot program to "subsidize, in various degrees, fees charged to authors who select open access or paid access publication."

For more information, check out the coverage in the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed.

Roundtable: Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California

Posted on by ltitango

September 17th, Faculty Club
12:00 noon

Led by Frances Dinkelspiel

The first Bancroft Round Table of our Fall 2009 series will take place on Thursday, September 17 at noon in the Lewis-Latimer Room of the Faculty Club. Frances Dinkelspiel, author of Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California (St. Martin’s Press, 2008) will speak about her book.

Isaias Hellman was the premier California financier of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, rising from humble immigrant beginnings to the presidency of Wells Fargo bank. His story captures a pivotal moment in American history: the rise of California from a frontier economy driven by the barter of hides and the exchange of gold to an economic steam engine driving the nation. Ms. Dinkelspiel’s book also offers illuminating perspectives on families, as well as about the changing social role of Jews in developing California. The Hellman family has been a prodigious benefactor of the University of California, especially The Bancroft Library.

Bancroft Round Tables aim to highlight the myriad collections of our library and to demonstrate their relevance to a full understanding of our contemporary world. The campus community is welcome to join us at this informal talk which will be rich in California historical lore.