We’ve got just the job listing resource for you that was just released today.
Every four years, just after the Presidential election, the “United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions,” commonly known as the Plum Book, is published.
The Plum Book contains data for over 7,000 Federal civil service leadership and support positions in the legislative and executive branches of the Federal Government. These positions generally open after the election and particularly if there has been a shift in political party strength. The duties of many such positions may involve advocacy of Obama Administration policies and programs and the incumbents usually have a close and confidential working relationship with the agency head or other key officials.
This catalog of federal jobs lists available positions, the incumbent’s name and the salary scale for the position. Whether you’re interested in working in the legislative branch, the executive branch or for an independent agency, you can find a potential position here.
Who knows you could be the next Director of the National Park Service – that job is open.
With the increasing importance of interdisciplinary research, and the increasing need for academic libraries to assume roles of information originator previously handled by others, new research alliances are forming on many university campuses.
Join us for a presentation by Dr. Richard Furuta from Texas A&M University, “Digital Libraries and Digital Humanities: Experiences with Research Partnerships among the Liberal Arts, the University Libraries, and Computing.”
Monday, November 17, 2008
3:45 – 5:15 p.m.
Second Floor Conference Room (2032), Main Library
In his presentation, Dr. Furuta will discuss experiences at Texas A&M University involving research collaborations with liberal arts, the University Libraries and computing. The collaborations, to be described from the perspective of the Center for the Study of Digital Libraries, involve applications as broadly separated as textual studies, textual iconography, and nautical archaeology. Taken together, the projects give insights on issues encountered when satisfying the research needs of disparate academic units and some illustrations on the ways that libraries can help in this.
Dr. Furuta’s current areas of research include digital libraries, digital humanities, hypermedia systems and models, structured documents, and document engineering. In the area of Digital Libraries, he was one of the founders of the 1994 and 1995 Digital Libraries Conferences, which subsequently evolved to form the ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL). He will be program chair for JCDL 2009 and was program chair for ACM Digital Libraries 2000. He currently serves on the Steering Committee for ACM/IEEE-CS JCDL and was its chair from 2001-2005. He also is an Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Digital Libraries. Dr. Furuta received the B.A. degree from Reed College in 1974, the M.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Oregon in 1978, and the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Washington in 1986.
This colloquium is sponsored by the School of Library and Information Science and the IMLS Funded Digital Librarian Training Program.
Finals are just around the corner and you’re probably thinking about writing research papers, but don’t know where to start. It’s easy, you can start at the Old Capitol Town Center Food Court.
What!?! Go to the mall? Yes. That’s where you’ll find some Info to Go. University librarians are available to help you Monday-Friday from 1-3 p.m.
They can help you do some preliminary searches through InfoHawk; they can point you to the most relevant journal article databases for your topic; they can show you how to organize your sources with RefWorks.
You’re already there studying, so why not take advantage of a little extra help? Ask a Librarian!
Author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier Ishmael Beah spoke about his life in Sierra Leone as a child soldier and his activism for the rights of children on Wednesday, October 29 to an estimated crowd of 1,400 people. To see this lecture again or for the first time, tune into UITV on your local channel.
If you were unable to attend, UITV has decided to air the program as soon as possible. It will be shown three times this week as follows:
Is the election becoming a little too intense for you? Lighten up by casting your Great Northern Bean to vote in the Main Library’s strictly unofficial presidential bean poll on Election Day, Nov. 4th.
The bean poll will be located at the kiosk near the Information Desk at the Main Library.
Here’s how it works; simply drop a bean in the glass jar marked with your candidate’s name between 8:00 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 4th, Election Day. Library Poll workers will tally the count and announce the results on Wednesday, Nov. 5th.
Through a display at the Main Library, the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., proudly presents, “Delta Women Who Have Served in the Political Arena,” to honor past and present members of the sorority who have served in public office. Members of the 95-year-old organization have labored in various capacities of local, state and federal government.
Political Awareness and Involvement is one of the organization’s Five Point Thrust, and only months after founding the sorority, young Delta women at Howard University participated in the Suffrage Parade on Washington on March 3, 1913. Although Black women suffragists had few allies and their concerns were not on the agenda, Delta women realized that Black women needed the ballot. Asked to march at the rear of the procession, Delta women were not discouraged and marched on Pennsylvania Avenue alongside women representing states, countries, organizations, and colleges. In 2008, Delta women continue to march for freedom and justice!
Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. is a private, non-profit organization whose purpose is to provide assistance and support through established programs in local communities throughout the world. The Delta Chapter at the University of Iowa will celebrate its 90th anniversary in April 2009. The Iowa City-Cedar Rapids Alumnae chapter is composed of UI alums and current graduate students.
This year due to the closure of the IMU, the Flu Vaccine Clinic will be held in the Main Library in the Second Floor Study Lounge (directly upstairs from the the North Circulation Desk).
The Clinic will be held on TODAY Tuesday, October 28 from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
How did librarians manage the natural disasters throughout Eastern Iowa? Please join the School of Library and Information Science for this exciting and informative panel as those in the trenches relay their first-hand knowledge of disaster planning, managing volunteers, preservation efforts at area museums and libraries, and ongoing activities by public and academic libraries to rebuild and recover after the flood.
Tuesday, November 4
Main Library, Second Floor Conference Room (2032)
10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Scheduled to speak
Nancy Baker, University Librarian, University of Iowa Libraries
Tamara Glise, Interim Director, Cedar Rapids Public Library
Nancy Kraft, Head, Preservation, UI Libraries
Ruthann McIntyre, Head, UI Music Library
Rijn Templeton, Head, UI Art Library
For more information contact, Patricia Katopol, in the School of Library and Information Science.
In this election season, competing proposals for health reform have again taken center stage. Colin Gordon, the author of Dead on Arrival: The Politics of Health in Twentieth Century America, will place these proposals—and their prospects for success—in historical perspective.
Colin Gordon, Ph.D. is a professor of history at the University of Iowa, specializing in 20th Century U. S. History. For this program, Professor Gordon will provide a brief background on health care policy and its interaction with Presidential politics, prior to facilitating what we hope will be a lively discussion by all those in attendance.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
5:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, Information Commons, 2nd floor
The University of Iowa History of Medicine Society is an informal group of students, faculty, staff, and members of the community sharing an interest in the history of medicine and the health sciences. We present speakers about once a month and, in the spring, host a banquet with a presentation from a well-known medical historian. We have no membership dues and we welcome participants from the University and the general community.
To become a member, simply send an e-mail to either Ed Holtum or Donna Sabin and ask to be placed on our electronic mailing list. In addition to alerting members of forthcoming presentations, the list is also a vehicle for members to communicate matters of interest relating to the history of medicine and the health sciences.
The dark blue indicates that over two-thirds of the households have a home computer.
In your marketing class, you may be developing a marketing plan for a pre-made meals restaurant specializing in vegetarian menus in Chicagoland. How do you learn where the highest percentage of people who purchase Boca Burgers live in Cook County?
Maybe you are working with an elder services agency in Des Moines and would like to provide computer classes for senior citizens across the state, but the question is where would be the best place to hold the classes?
The answer is in Simply Map. SimplyMap is a web-based mapping application that lets you quickly create professional-quality thematic maps and reports, using the thousands of US demographic, business and marketing data variables.
Dark blue indicates counties with a high number of retired people.
What Information Does Simply Map Contain? SimplyMap contains thousands of socio-demographic, business and marketing variables. Data comes from US government sources (Census, Labor Statistics, e.g.), as well as Market and Quality of Life data from EASI Inc., and Dun & Bradstreet “Points of Interest” data.
Most data sets are available down to the block group level, a geographic level used by the Census Bureau that is smaller than zip codes, although there is zip code data also.
What Does Simply Map Do? Maps can be created and saved within the program, then made into Powerpoint slides, added to Word documents, put on the web, etc.
Dark red shows counties with a high number of retired people AND where over two-thirds of the households own a computer.
Custom data tables can be created then exported in Excel spreadsheet format, and can also be downloaded as shapefiles-with-data that can then be put into a desk-top mapping program, such as ESRI’s ArcMap. Maps can then be created in ArcMap from SimplyMap’s shapefiles-with-data, with no need to join the data to existing Arcmap tables.
Who Uses Simply Map?
SimplyMap is of use to those interested in the demographics of large and small geographic areas of the US, e.g., sociologists, political scientists, journalists, business and marketing students and faculty. In addition, the data would be of use to life scientists who need background information for their demographic studies. SimplyMap includes 1980, 1990, and 2000 Census data, adjusted to 2000 census geographies, as well as 2006 and 2007 estimates and 2012 projections. 1970 census data will be available in future, but will not be geographically adjusted.
How Do I Use Simply Map?
This resource is available to individuals affiliated with the University of Iowa. To use SimplyMap, type “simplymap” into the Smart Search box on the Libraries website (if you’re off campus, you’ll need to type in your HawkID and password). You can create a personal workspace by clicking on “Create Personal Workspace” and entering your e-mail address and a password. SimplyMap will then send a confirmation e-mail to your e-mail address – please click on the link in this e-mail to activate your account.
Can I Work on Group Projects in Simply Map?
Yes. All members of your project group can share the same SimplyMap personal workspace and do collaborative work.
Can I Add My Own Data to Simply Map?
Yes. At this point, you should send your geographical-based data set to SimplyMap, and they will put it on the web. In future, users will have the capability to upload their data directly.
For any questions about Simply Map and how to use it, please contact Maps Librarian Mary McInroy in the UI Libraries Map Collection.
