Tag: News
Research Data Management (RDM)
A new five-minute video from the University of California Libraries addresses the importance of research data management. Faculty across University of California campuses and domains share their perspectives on data management. Marjorie Katz, Vice Provost, Graduate Dean, and Professor of Sociology at UC Merced emphasizes the responsibility that researchers at public universities have to share and preserve their data. She says “we have a responsibility to manage the data such that other people get to use it afterwards.”
At UC Berkeley, the Research Data Management (RDM) program supports researchers in need of data management assistance. The program offers free, one-on-one consultations with data management experts and an online guide to data practices and services.
You can schedule an appointment with the RDM program at any stage in your research, whether you are writing a grant proposal, devising a data model, searching for someplace to store your data while your research is in progress, or looking for an appropriate repository for publication. Connect with the program by sending an email to researchdata@berkeley.edu.
Post contributed by:
Jamie Wittenberg
Research Data Management Service Design Analyst
Summer Reading List: First Confession
The UC Berkeley Summer Reading List is an annual compilation of recommended (though not required) readings suggested by Cal faculty, staff, and students as a welcome to incoming freshmen and transfer students.
“First Confession is about a Mexican girl and boy who live a privileged life in a small town that intersects with the impoverished world by the Rio Grande river. They experience many firsts, including first lost of innocence, first experience of evil, first mistreatment, first empathy felt towards others, first sin, first confessions, first tragedy, and more.”
– STEPHEN WANG Undeclared, Class of 2019
Post contributed by:
Michael Larkin Lecturer, College Writing Programs
Tim Dilworth First Year Coordinator, Library
Summer Reading List: The Sirens of Titan
The UC Berkeley Summer Reading List is an annual compilation of recommended (though not required) readings suggested by Cal faculty, staff, and students as a welcome to incoming freshmen and transfer students.
“The Sirens of Titan is a good “firsts” novel because it’s a very sci-fi adventure. It also explores many deeper concepts. Also, it is written by Kurt Vonnegut, so its ideas aren’t so far out for Berkeley students to grasp. It is about firsts in ideas and purposes in life.”
– STEPHEN WANG Undeclared, Class of 2019
Post contributed by:
Michael Larkin Lecturer, College Writing Programs
Tim Dilworth First Year Coordinator, Library
Summer Reading List: The Left Hand of Darkness
The UC Berkeley Summer Reading List is an annual compilation of recommended (though not required) readings suggested by Cal faculty, staff, and students as a welcome to incoming freshmen and transfer students.
“In Ursula K. Le Guin’s award-winning classic science fiction novel of first contact on the planet Winter, it is always Year One. Le Guin, daughter of Alfred Kroeber, UCB’s first professor of anthropology, immerses her readers unapologetically in the complex world of Winter so that our experience is akin to that of the First Envoy: a human from Earth named Genly Ai, dropped into the middle of the action to make his way alone, surrounded by alien mystery and danger as he struggles to build a relationship with the enigmatic Estraven, native of Winter.
Le Guin’s writing is poetic and evocative, and as the story shifts among points of view, understanding layers itself atop further mysteries. Estraven puzzles over Genly Ai; personal history reflects cultural lore; gender and politics commingle. And when Genly and Estraven huddle together in a tiny tent atop an enormous ice floe before making their final dash for freedom – we, too, are swept away to a new world in joy and heartbreak.”
– CAROLYN HILL Lecturer, College Writing Programs
Post contributed by:
Michael Larkin Lecturer, College Writing Programs
Tim Dilworth First Year Coordinator, Library
Summer Reading List: My Brilliant Friend
The UC Berkeley Summer Reading List is an annual compilation of recommended (though not required) readings suggested by Cal faculty, staff, and students as a welcome to incoming freshmen and transfer students.
“This novel by the Italian author Elena Ferrante (a pen name; no one knows her true identity) is the first of her four Neapolitan Novels: readers who enjoy it will have three more they can look forward to reading. It is about a first and formative friendship between two girls (and later women)–a rare subject in literature. The protagonist, Elena, is the first girl in her working-class family to complete her education and go on to college and a professional career. Her relationship with her “brilliant friend” Lila, who remains rooted in the poor, violent neighborhood in Naples where they grew up, is complicated–they are both kind and cruel to each other, supportive and jealous, affectionate and antagonistic. Each novel in the series is a gripping page-turner that also provides a guided tour of Italy’s political and social evolution since the 1950s.”
– MICHELE RABKIN Associate Director Berkeley Connect
Post contributed by:
Michael Larkin Lecturer, College Writing Programs
Tim Dilworth First Year Coordinator, Library
Summer Reading List: The Little Prince
The UC Berkeley Summer Reading List is an annual compilation of recommended (though not required) readings suggested by Cal faculty, staff, and students as a welcome to incoming freshmen and transfer students.
“I liked The Little Prince because it is about people and their interaction. Coming to Berkeley, a new place, for college, I felt very lost. I knew I had more close friends than I could ask for, yet a part of me always felt lonely. In college, when the busy-ness catches up, you either withdraw into your own day-to-day life and become isolated, or you become a part of student organizations, who are like friends that you are entitled to. I feel like many college students don’t know how to make a connection to a single person who isn’t related to their life through clubs or classes, or how to make the bond last. The Little Prince is about first friends, first adventure, first love, first discoveries, and many other firsts.”
– STEPHEN WANG Undeclared, Class of 2019
Post contributed by:
Michael Larkin Lecturer, College Writing Programs
Tim Dilworth First Year Coordinator, Library
Student-designed exhibit in Doe Library explores history and social justice
Visit the library’s new exhibit, Cowboys, Indians, and Aliens: White Supremacy in the Klamath Basin, 1826-1946. The exhibit was designed by Andrea Ikeda, a recipient of the 2015 Charlene Conrad Liebau Library Prize for Undergraduate Research. It is also based on her prize-winning research paper, which you can read on eScholarship here: Cowboys, Indians, and Aliens: White Supremacy in the Klamath Basin, 1826-1946.
Andrea’s paper examines the relationalities between two historical phenomena happening in the Klamath Basin: the dispossession and violence against Modoc Indians in the nineteenth century and the internment of Japanese Americans at the Tule Lake Segregation Center during World War II. Her research not only led her to the archives to understand and explore the past, but also has deep implications for contemporary struggles for social justice. To find out more about the exhibit, including links to Andrea’s sources and information on the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and the fight to preserve the Tule Lake site, visit the accompanying LibGuide.
The exhibit is on the second floor of Doe Library, just outside of the Heyns Reading Room. It will be up through September 30th and can be viewed during Doe Library’s open hours. We encourage the campus community to find out more about the Charlene Conrad Liebau Library Prize for Undergraduate Research and read more about the recipients of the 2016 Library Prize.
We would like to thank Andrea for curating the exhibit and for sharing her research. We would also like to thank Aisha Hamilton for her design and installation work.
Post contributed by Sine Hwang Jensen and Shannon K. Supple
Image courtesy of Kathy Ikeda
Book bound in human skin?
The Daily Cal recently spoke to David Faulds, Curator of Rare Books and Literary Manuscripts, about L’office de l’Eglise en François, a book in the Bancroft Library that was until recently thought to be bound in human skin. As a note in the OskiCat record now states, the book is actually “bound in horse hide, resembling black pebble-grained morocco; with metal clasps; edges gilt. Peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF) analysis conducted in December 2015 determined that the binding was not human skin, as had previously been described.”
Summer Reading List: The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic
The UC Berkeley Summer Reading List is an annual compilation of recommended (though not required) readings suggested by Cal faculty, staff, and students as a welcome to incoming freshmen and transfer students.
This week we take a closer look at The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic, Jessica Hopper, New York: Featherproof Books, 2015.
“This book is an excellent compilation of album reviews, artist profiles, and pop culture critiques from Hopper’s years as a music journalist and rock/punk/music aficionado. It’s a great introduction to music criticism that goes beyond star-rated blurbs, and it’s extremely entertaining, following Hopper to festivals and underground clubs and mosh pits alike. Hopper’s writing is both sharp and clearly conveys her passion about her chosen medium, which makes for a great read even if you aren’t necessarily familiar with the subjects (like I was). It’s also super relevant in its “firstness,” as rock criticism is still largely a boy’s club, which becomes a topic that runs throughout her pieces. Overall, a really insightful and interesting read.”
– CAMRYN BELL, Class of 2019
Intended History/Political Science double major
Post contributed by:
Michael Larkin Lecturer, College Writing Programs
Tim Dilworth First Year Coordinator, Library
Library Summer Schedule
Most of UC Berkeley’s libraries will be open during the summer, although library hours are generally shorter than during the regular session and many libraries will be closed on the weekends.
Collection access, borrowing privileges, and hours of operation vary from library to library so be sure to consult the full list of library hours for more information.
Continuing students and Summer Session students will have access to the UC Berkeley library system.