Welcome to the Spring 2023 semester! Here’s just a bit of what you can expect from us in the next few months:

As a reminder, all of our workshops are FREE but registration is required!

Soldering Workshop Series

Did you make a resolution to learn a new skill this year? Give soldering a try! Soldering is one of the most fundamental skills needed to explore the world of electronics. With this simple skill, you will gain a better understanding of electronics and be better equipped to create your own. Throughout this series you’ll learn the two main types of soldering, and at the end you’ll be able to create your own light-up pendant from scratch! You aren’t required to attend every session but it is highly recommended. Click the title of the workshop to register.

Soldering Basics: Through Hole -Wednesday, January 1, 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm, Engineering Library Creative Space (2001C SC)

Soldering Basics: Surface-Mount – Wednesday, February 8, 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm, Engineering Library Creative Space (2001C SC)

Build Your Own: LED Pendants – Wednesday, February 15, 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm, Engineering Library Creative Space (2001C SC)

 

Business Building Blocks

Get your business idea going with our new Business Building Blocks workshops! We will be offering each of these three workshops in three different locations (that’s 9 workshops total!). You can mix and match what works with your schedule and interests. Business Building Blocks workshops are presented by the University of Iowa Libraries and the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center. Click on the title of the workshop to register.

 

February

Business Plan Basics – Tuesday, February 7, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm, Art Library DeCaso Room (ABW 235C)

Identifying Key Players in your Market: Introduction to Industry & Market Information Research – Tuesday, February 14, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm, Engineering Library Creative Space (2001C SC)

Protecting Your Ideas: Introduction to Patents, Trademarks & Intellectual Property – Tuesday, February 21, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm, Sciences Library 3rd floor

 

March

Protecting Your Ideas: Introduction to Patents, Trademarks & Intellectual Property – Tuesday, March 7, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm, Art Library DeCaso Room (ABW 235C)

Business Plan Basics – Tuesday, March 21, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm, Engineering Library Creative Space (2001C SC)

Identifying Key Players in your Market: Introduction to Industry & Market Information Research – Tuesday, March 28, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm, Sciences Library Third Floor

April

Identifying Key Players in your Market: Introduction to Industry & Market Information Research – Tuesday, April 4, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm, Art Library DeCaso Room (ABW 235C)

Protecting Your Ideas: Introduction to Patents, Trademarks & Intellectual Property – Tuesday, April 11, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm, Engineering Library Creative Space (2001C SC)

 

Other Workshops

Are you participating in the Research Open House this year? Learn think about the prospective audience, poster content, and design considerations that go into your poster layout in our Creating a Research Poster workshop, Tuesday, March 30, 3:30 pm – 4:20 pm in the Engineering Library Creative Space (2001C SC)

There will be more workshops and events coming up, so make sure to keep in the loop by following our Twitter and Instagram for the latest news!

We’re nearing the end of the semester (don’t panic) so we’re going to take the next two weeks to celebrate our graduating student workers!

Mary Kelly

Hometown: Des Moines, IA

Major: International Studies (Business and Global Resources Track)

How long have you been working at the Engineering Library: One semester, but I used to work at the Sciences Library!

What are your plans after graduation? Go to grad school eventually for something sustainability sciences related, and work.

Do you have any advice for new students? Talk to your professors during office hours. They’re cool.

What’s a fun fact about yourself? I was born on Christmas. My full name is Mary Noel because of that. 

We’re nearing the end of the semester (don’t panic) so we’re going to take the next two weeks to celebrate our graduating student workers!

Jake Santi

Hometown: Western Springs, IL

Major: Engineering

How long have you worked at the Engineering Library? 1.5 years

What are your plans after graduation? Working at ComEd in their Engineer Rotational Program in the Chicagoland area.

Do you have any advice for new students? Time management is crucial for your academics  but just as important for your overall college experience. Whiteboards and planners are very helpful!

What’s a fun fact about yourself? My parents were going to name me Luke until a lost Great Dane named Jake woke my dad on a hammock. 

Good luck, Jake and thanks for all of your hard work!

Open Access publishing comes in many forms, but they are most commonly broken down into Gold and Green Open Access. With Green Open Access, authors directly publish their work to a repository or a preprint server, like ArXiv. Doing this can help you quickly get feedback from peers, or even skip the traditional publishing process altogether. Gold Open Access is Open Access publishing that is facilitated by a traditional publisher. Depending on the process of that particular publisher, the costs of publishing may be taken on by the author, the publisher, or a combination of both. With transformative agreements, some or all of these costs may be covered by your institution.

Transformative agreements are contracts negotiated by academic libraries and institutions. In exchange for subscription to a journal, people connected to the paying institution (in this case, students and faculty at the University of Iowa) are able to publish their articles Open Access without paying article processing charges (APCs). In addition, the University of Iowa Libraries has negotiated discounts on those APCs with a few publishers.  For a full list of transformative agreements and APC discounts, visit the new Open Scholarship Toolkit. If you’re not sure if an agreement applies to you, get in touch with the Scholarly Impact Department or your liaison librarian for help. 

It’s getting chilly and I don’t know about you but I feeling like doing more cooking (mmmm, soup). You can learn more about food here in the Engineering Library! 

If you’re looking for recipes with science behind them, check out Cooking for Geeks: real science, great hacks, and good food by Jeff Potter. 

Want the science behind your food? You may be interested in Food: the chemistry of its components by T.P. Coultate, Food Science and Technology, edited by Geoffrey Campbell-Platt, or Color in Food: technological and psychophysical aspects, edited by Jose Luis Caivano. 

If you’re not sure what you’re doing in the kitchen you may like Kitchen Literacy: how we lost knowledge of where food comes from and why we need to get it back by Ann Vileisis or Food Alert! the ultimate sourcebook for food safety by Morton Satin.

Wondering if you should be in the kitchen at all? Read The Proof and the Pudding: what mathematicians, cooks, and you have in common by Jim Henle. 

If you feel like curling up with a good book about the history of food, check out Pasta and Noodles: a global history by Kantha Shelke, or Recipes for Respect: African American meals and meaning by Rafia Zafar (this one can be found in our Untold Stories in STEM Collection on the main floor of the library). 

Getting worn out by school? Take a break and talk LEGO with us! We have many (many many) LEGO books to help you build a variety of things.

If you’re just getting started and want to learn the terminology, tips, and tricks before you begin to build, check out The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide by Allan Bedford. 

If you’ve been building with LEGO for a while, adding in more complicated components like motors, computers, and remote controls can really up your building. Try Practical LEGO Technics: bring your LEGO creations to life by Mark Rollins or Arduino and LEGO Projects by John Lazar.

If bringing your precious LEGO collection to your dorm doesn’t appeal to you, there are virtual options! Try Building with Virtual LEGO: getting started with LEGO Digital Designer, Ldraw, and Mecabricks by John Baichtal.

Check out some really cool and unique builds with Beautiful LEGO: Wild! by Mike Doyle, Extreme Bricks: spectacular, record-breaking, and astounding LEGO projects from around the world by Sarah Herman, or The Art of LEGO Scale Modeling by Dennis Glaasker and Dennis Bosman.

 

If you don’t feel like building but are still interested in learning about LEGO, check out The Cult of LEGO by John Baichtal and Joe Meno. 

Now go get building!

If you go browsing through our shelves you might see something you’re not expecting – a VHS case! No, we did not start bringing videotapes into our collection, you’ve just found one of our physical e-books.

We’ve chosen a few of our most popular e-books to have physical representation on the shelves. This way, when you’re browsing for a subject you might run across a helpful e-book you wouldn’t seen before. Getting the book is very simple, just use your phone to scan the QR code!

 If you want to remember the book but don’t have time to read? Open the case and take a flyer! The flyers have information on the book along with a QR code so you can find it again when you have time. If you take the last flyer please let us know at the front desk so we can put more in. 

Check the shelves and try it for yourself!