PolicyMap is now available

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PolicyMap is a cloud-base data and mapping platform enabling government, commercial, non-profit and academic institutions to access data about communities and markets across the U.S. It may be used for research, market studies, business planning, site selection, grant applications and impact analysis.

 http://uclid.uc.edu/search~S9/?searchtype=X&searcharg=policymap&searchscope=39

Available data includes demographics, home sale statistics, health data, mortgage trends, school performance scores and labor data like unemployment, crime statistics and city crime rates. ( Jan. 26, 2012)

Full listing of datasets http://www.policymap.com/our-data-directory.html

LOVE YOUR DATA Day 4 – Data Shhharing

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Post by Tiffany Grant PhD, Research Informationist based at Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library

Data Shhharing

“Data” and “sharing” are two words that we don’t like to juxtapose in the scientific community. I mean, who wants to share their hard earned data? It’s the equivalent of sharing ones salary with the world- a group of strangers. The data generated via the scientific process is extremely personal, and is intrinsic to the life and legacy of the researchers who create it. Researchers don’t have a problem with publishing their work once completed, as it adds to their scientific credibility. But, therein lies the problem. Publication does not always equal access.

It is the publisher, not the researcher who owns the rights to the articles published in their journals. Access to these journals typically only comes through a paid subscription. So, while researchers can often get access to journals through their institution, access is not granted to all without paying for individual articles at a time, a process which can prove quite costly. Thus paying for access to online content makes sense only to publishers who profit from it. But, as a researcher, do you really want your hard work under this veil? Is that really what you worked for?

Continue reading →

LOVE YOUR DATA Day 3 – Data Documentation

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I say to you….slow down, smell the agar plates, take the time to document your data. Your future self will thank you, profusely.

Proper documentation provides the context that your data needs to persist through time, to integrate into new systems and to give you credit for your contributions in the form of data citations. Where possible, you should consider contributing the following information along with your dataset.

Continue reading →

Get to Know the Clermont College Library Staff: Kathleen Epperson

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Kathleen (Kathi) Epperson, Clermont College Librarian

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I have worked in libraries for over 30 years. I began working part-time at our local library. After a few years, I became a full time library staff member.  My children literally grew up in the library!  As the children grew older, I went back to school to get my Master’s in Library Science, which would make me an “official” librarian. While I was in library school, I became interested in academic libraries, and worked as an intern at UC’s DAAP Library. The library director was a wonderful mentor to me, and we’re still good friends. I enjoyed guiding students and assisting faculty to find resources. I worked in two other colleges before I came to Clermont College in 2007.

As Reference Librarian, I love to help students find what they need for their projects. I especially like to surprise them by showing them the many resources the library has to offer.  I try to be as friendly and helpful as I can, so they remember they can come to the library as a space and if they require assistance, there is a friendly person to help them.

When I’m not at work, I love spending time with my grandchildren, especially when we draw, paint and read! Okay, I might have to include playing Dance Revolution, too!

Something that might surprise you about me is that my brother and I were once protected by Pinkerton guards.

Now for a few of my favorite things:

Ohh! So many to choose from!

Book: Mama Day

Music: Eric Clapton

TV Show: Mad Men

 

We’re here to help-

Kathleen Epperson
Librarian

 

Presidential Love Notes

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Diaries reveal former UC President Raymond Walters’ love and admiration for his longtime Valentine

Raymond and Elsie Walters

Image of Raymond Walters and his wife, Elsie, created by Kathy Bohlen.

By:  Dawn Fuller

Raymond and Elsie Walters with News Record

President and Mrs. Raymond Walters hold a special souvenir edition of The News Record, presented to the couple at the president’s student-sponsored retirement dinner in 1955.

Her name was Elsie, but her husband, UC’s longest-running president, called her “BobOLink,” which is also the name of a songbird. Throughout their 46-year marriage, Raymond Walters remained charmed and fascinated by his wife, as passages reveal in his diaries, which were donated to UC’s Archives and Rare Books Library.

Walters served as president of UC for 23 years, from 1932-1955. The diaries hold daily activities and thoughts of President Walters over the decades, from 1925-1960, and as a result reveal decades of history, including the history of UC. But the diaries also lovingly reveal Valentine gifts, wedding anniversaries and tributes to his wife. Continue reading →

LOVE YOUR DATA Day 2 – Organizing your data

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Post by Tiffany Grant PhD, Research Informationist based at Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library

Organizing Data

When you’re generating data at a rapid pace, it can be easy to label files with names that seem good at the time, but that will have very little meaning to you later. This practice may save time in the present, but it will ultimately lead to great frustration in the future when finding these exact files seem nearly impossible.

A good practice for data organization is to give your files meaningful, descriptive names, but avoiding long file names. Files names should allow you to identify a precise experiment from the name.

How meaningful are the following file names?

  1. Test_data_2013
  2. Project_Data
  3. Design for project.doc
  4. Lab_work_Eric
  5. Second_test
  6. Meeting Notes Oct 23

Continue reading →

LOVE YOUR DATA Day 1 – Keep your data safe

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Let’s kick off LOVE YOUR DATA week with KEEPING DATA SAFE.

First a sad story – in one of my first Top Ten Tips for Data Management workshops, I had a workshop participant who I thought was bored out of his skull. He had a glazed look in his eyes and kept shaking his head as if he was saying no, no, no. I approached him, though with some reservations after the workshop, and asked what he thought about the topic and my presentation. His words and I quote were “if only I had known this 6 months ago…I just lost my dissertation work and I am still getting over the shock”. Not bored, but in shock. He had lost 6 months’ worth of work. Sadly he is not the first. If only he and others had known about 3-2-1 or Here-Near and Far.

3-2-1 stands for

3 copies (1 primary copy and two backup copies of your data)

2 formats for storage (use a computer hard drive and an external hard drive)

1 remote copy (cloud storage or geographically separate from your other copies)

These three tips will help keep your data safe and protect your valuable time.

Here, Near and Far is another way of thinking about the same tips. Set up an automatic back up for your data to make it even easier.

At UC we have a few tools that can help you back up your data:

1) Use your Box account. You have 50 GB available to you. IT@UC also has other data solutions available.

2) You can track your work with the Open Science Framework developed by the Center for Open Science or use GitHub.

3) Attend a data management workshop offered by UC Libraries. We have several coming up particular a workshop called Managing Research Data from Generation to Preservation on April 19th.

Fun Fact: Did you know we can still look at Darwin’s original notebooks through the Darwin Online project. Someone took extra special care for those files. Let’s do the same for your data.

Check out this fun video about data back-up and learn how the movie Toy Story 2 was almost lost, but was saved by the 3-2-1 rule.

Visit the Love your Data website for more tips to help keep your data safe. Follow the event on Twitter at #LYD16.

Excellent Art Resources

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Clermont College students don’t have to be writing a research paper for an art class to use and enjoy Artstor and Oxford Art Online. Find these databases and more in our “Art at Clermont” Research Guides.

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Van Gogh, National Gallery, London

Artstor is an “image” database with more than 300,000 images from college, university, and private collections. With art-related teaching, learning, and researching texts, you can view and analyze images through features such as zooming and panning. You can also view webinars on the site!

Oxford Art Online also offers image searching, with a thorough cross-search function of reference material which allows you to easily expand and limit results by time period, artist, material type, and more. Grove Art Online is especially useful for Clermont’s Art History classes!

Questions? Contact Kathleen Epperson by email, or call 513.558.7010 for more information.

Kathleen Epperson
Reference Librarian