Author: Lisa Ngo

The Engineering Library will open at 10am on Thursday, January 12th, one hour later than regularly scheduled. We apologize for any inconvenience.

The Engineering Library is now open!

Our newly reconfigured space includes five group study rooms with white boards and monitors for presentations, new study tables and chairs, more lounge seating, and a spacious new public computer area. Study rooms are currently first come first serve, but will be on a reservation system starting on Monday, August 29th.

Come visit, get a free Engineering Library pen, and let us know what you think of the new space!

Do you code?
Do you know anything about accounting and finance?
You could win $20,000 in a competition!

It’s the XBRL Challenge — a contest that seeks to uncover the first generation of open source analytic tools that will mine financial data in ways never before possible. A $20,000 grand prize will be awarded to the company, team or individual developer who submits the most inventive and useful application leveraging XBRL-formatted data from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) EDGAR database.

Every publicly traded U.S. company is now required to tag financial data according to a XML-based business reporting standard known as eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL). To date, almost 1,800 companies have filed financial statement data with the SEC in XBRL format. XBRL is expected to help usher in a new generation of tools that can be used by investors, analysts, businesses, regulators, watchdogs, economists, and academics to gain insight that is currently out of reach or prohibitively expensive to acquire.

How can I participate?

XBRL US will accept submissions through January 31, 2012, with final judging and awarding of prizes – including the $20,000 grand prize – on February 29, 2012.

Learn more and enter the contest on the XBRL Challenge page on Facebook at http://xbrl.us/challengefb or by visiting http://xbrl.us/challenge. Updates will be shared on Facebook and on Twitter at @XBRLUS using the hashtag #XBRLCHALLENGE.

Consider partnering – Engineering/IT and accounting/finance is a powerful combination – sure to create the best app. And you can find a partner in your own institution. If entering the contest is still not for you, pass it on in your networks and circles – you might help someone win the competition.

To help with development, participants will be given tools and support from XBRL US, including access to a database of XBRL financial fundamentals from all public companies and technical documentation on how to work with XBRL data. Entrants will also have access to XBRL expertise through a series of in-person and webinar meetings to help in working with the XBRL data.

Register Now!
Register and join XBRL for a special online briefing Wednesday, August 3 from 1 – 2 PM EDT.
All final submissions must be received by January 31, 2012.

The UC Berkeley Library is trying to get a better understanding of how our patrons use our website (http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/) and we need your help! We are looking for any current UC Berkeley students or faculty who would like to sit down with a Library staff member and show us how you use our site. Whether you use our site everyday, intermittently, or have never used it we’re interested in speaking with you.

In exchange for about an hour of your time we’ll give you a $10 gift certificate to the FSM Cafe in Moffitt Library. We will record the session, but all recordings and data collected will only be used internally for website redesign purposes. If you are interested in helping us please email Matthew Prutsman at mprutsma@library.berkeley.edu by Thursday, July 21.