I’ve been here both Tuesday and Wednesday and on both days, students have had items stolen here in the Library. In one case a laptop was stolen, in the other case, a musical instrument. In both cases, these students left their valuables unattended for only a few minutes. Not sure what we can do, but please warn students that if they have valuables, they need to keep them in sight at all times.
Year: 2013
ThomsonOne: access will be likely be lost by Friday midnight
Access will be lost for a few weeks probably. I am sorry for the inconvenience.
Two Ways to Access WRDS Databases
Currently enrolled Baruch students and current Baruch faculty have two options for getting to any of the WRDS databases we subscribe to. They can get a “day pass” e-mailed to them or they can register for a personal account that, depending on the standing of the person (undergraduate student vs. masters vs. doctoral vs. faculty), will not expire for a long time. Because the process of setting up a personal account is somewhat hidden on the WRDS interface, it’s worth documenting it here with some screenshots.
Step 1: On the databases pages, click on any link for one of the WRDS databases (e.g., CRSP).
Step 2: The main WRDS login page will show up (if the user is off campus, they will see our usual remote access login page first and then the WRDS login page next). If a “day pass” is all that’s needed, then the user can enter their Baruch email address in the box provided. If the user wants to set up a personal account, they should click on the link on the lower left corner of the page:
Step 3: On the sign-in page for personal accounts, new users should click the link “Register for a WRDS account.”
Step 4: Complete the registration form and click “Submit”:
Step 5: The user will get an automated email that confirms their request for a new account. Those incoming requests are approved manually by Frank Werber in BCTC. Once approval has been given, the user will get a 2nd email with a link in it that takes them to a page in WRDS where they will be prompted to create a personal password and then login with their newly minted credentials.
If there are any problems, contact Frank Werber in BCTC.
Bloomberg is back on.
More on Harvard Business Review and EBSCO
Recently, BRASS (Business Reference and Services Section) of RUSA issued a statement decrying the restrictions that Harvard Business School Publishing has put on use of the Harvard Business Review in EBSCO. Today, the Chronicle of Higher Education covers that story in more detail.
Bloomberg terminals to be shut off tonight
We are working on resolving this issue.
Please Update All Links to THOMAS on Your LibGuides
On November 19, all links to THOMAS will be redirected to Congress.gov, as the old THOMAS site will be retired (details here on the change). Please make sure that you update all links you have on your LibGuides to any pages on THOMAS. If you click this URL below, it will run a search in LibGuides for the word “thomas” and help you find any guides where you may have linked to it:
http://guides.newman.baruch.cuny.edu/search.php?iid=771&c=0&pid=&search_field=&search=%22thomas.gov%22
MapPluto Tax Lot / Parcel GIS Data
Over the summer the NYC Dept of Planning changed course and started providing their MapPluto product – a GIS dataset with boundaries of every tax parcel and detailed attributes like zoning, land use, land value, building descriptors, and administrative identifiers – for free. Previously the dataset cost $300 for each borough and had very tight restrictions on use. Now anyone can download the latest version from their website.
We had purchased a copy of the 2008 MapPluto data for all five boroughs, and I handled the few requests I had via email. But now that the restrictions are off I’m providing free access to it on the Baruch Geoportal. The data is in shapefile format and can be used in any GIS system (ArcGIS, QGIS, etc.). There is one file for each borough. At this point it’s useful for historic purposes; users who want the latest data should go directly to the City’s website.
China Data Center GIS Datasets
We have purchased some GIS datasets from the University of Michigan’s China Data Center. The datasets include boundaries for provinces, counties, prefectures, and cities, as well as current and historic census data that can be joined to these boundaries for mapping and analysis. The datasets also include geographic features like roads, railroads, and rivers. In addition to the national series we have some detailed collections of data for the provinces of: Beijing, Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Shanghai.
The data is in shapefile format and can be used with any GIS software (ArcGIS, QGIS, etc.) In some cases some of the data tables are provided in Excel format, for patrons who are interested in working with the statistics without the mapping elements.
A list of the datasets is available on the Baruch Geoportal. Use is limited to current Baruch students, faculty, and staff for educational, non-commercial purposes. Since the data is copyrighted and I don’t have a secure method of distribution, anyone who is interested should contact me (using their Baruch email address) and I can send them the data, or make arrangements to give them copies.
EBSCOhost and Internet Explorer 9 Problem
On some machines (but not all), we are seeing a problem when the user is in an EBSCOhost database while using the Internet Explorer 9 browser. When the user is viewing an article record, the row of icons on the right (to save the article, cite it, etc.) are inoperable; you click them and nothing happens. I’ve just submitted a support request to EBSCO to find out why this is only happening on some machines running IE9 but not all. If you hear of a student or faculty member having this problem, please suggest that they use Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc. instead until we can figure out what’s behind the problem.