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Chemistry & Chemical Engineering (CCE): Newsletter

Library information and resources for the CCE Division at Caltech. Resources for this guide were originally compiled and maintained by Dana Roth.

Newsletter - August 4, 2025

Chemistry & Chemical Engineering — Week of August 4, 2025

Caltech Archives Oral Histories: Shuki Bruck and Lucy Jones

Division News
Update on NIH Public Access Mandate & Publisher Policies

Staff News 
Kristin Briney in Nature

Featured Resources
Tides & Currents

Events & Programming
Outdoor Summer Movie Nights

Workshop Highlights 
Introduction to ArcGIS Online  

Collections News
Proceedings of Symposia in Applied Mathematics

Vroman's @ Caltech Library
Veridical Data Science: The Practice of Responsible Data Analysis and Decision Making 

Library Staff Recommends
Gold Bug 

Caltech Archives Oral Histories:
Shuki Bruck and Lucy Jones
 
Caltech Archives & Special Collections have released two oral histories this summer: Jehoshua (Shuki) Bruck, Caltech’s Gordon and Betty Moore Professor of Computation and Neural Systems and Electrical Engineering, and Dr. Lucile (Lucy) Jones—visiting research associate at Caltech, former head of the Pasadena office of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), and founder of the Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society. Read more at our blog.

Update on NIH Public Access Mandate & Publisher Policies

There is still much uncertainty and confusion around the sudden acceleration of the NIH Open Access Mandate that requires NIH-funded research to be made openly accessible, via PubMed Central, as soon as it is published. The Caltech Library is in consultation with campus partners and will be offering structured guidance very soon.

A few things to note as of right now:
 
1. NIH is looking to cap excessive publisher Open Access fees and is also looking for input on how much (if anything) NIH should reimburse these fees.
 
2. Fees that are paid to make an article freely and publicly available at the time of publication (a.k.a. "Open Access" or "Article Processing Charge" fees) are generally allowed to be charged to NIH grant funding.
 
3. Fees that are paid solely to allow deposit of the accepted manuscript to a repository (a.k.a. "Article Development Charges" or the link) are NOT allowed to be charged to NIH grant funding.
 
4. Caltech is investigating several publisher policies to see which publishers allow, at this time, a fee-free way to comply with the NIH Public Access Policy, as stated by NIH.
 
If you have any questions please feel free to reach out to me.

Kristin Briney in Nature
 
In the latest issue of Nature, Biology and Biological Engineering Librarian Kristin Briney is featured in an article by Sarah Wild about updating data sets while maintaining reproducibility: "Need to Update Your Data? Follow These Five Tips.""Briney regularly helps researchers to wrangle their data. Her favourite tips for data management are to establish a file naming convention, which includes the date (often given as YYYYMMDD or YYYY-MM-DD), and to store files in their correct folders. This is true whether you’re storing data locally or in remote repositories. 'It takes 10 minutes to come up with a file-naming convention, everything gets organized, and that way you can tell related files apart,' she says. 'It’s like putting your clothes away at the end of the day.'"

Tides & Currents
 
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) is the authoritative source for accurate, reliable, and timely tides, water levels, currents, and other coastal oceanographic and meteorological information for any region in the U.S. At Tides & Currents, explore featured news, coastal inundation dashboard, high tide flooding outlooks, and more. Our services support safe and efficient maritime commerce and transportation, help protect public health and safety, and promote robust, resilient coastal communities. 


Outdoor Summer Movie Nights

We have one more Summer Outdoor Movie Night at the SFL Amphitheater, featuring unintentional imagined futures. On Thursday, August 14, join us for The Matrix. "Set in the 22nd century, The Matrix tells the story of a computer hacker who joins a group of underground insurgents fighting the vast and powerful computers who now rule the earth." The film starts at 8:00 pm. Bring a blanket and a friend and enjoy free popcorn and refreshments.

Introduction to ArcGIS Online
 
ArcGIS Online is a geographic information system (GIS) that is used to create, edit, visualize, and analyze spatial data—all in an online cloud-based system, using only your browser. In this introduction, you’ll get an overview of its features, how to access your organization and how to connect to data sources, along with examples on how you can create and share a map. Some basic knowledge of GIS concepts, such as basemaps, layers and shapefiles is recommended, but not required. This class is only open to members of the Caltech community that have a valid and current Access credential log-in. Register here.

Proceedings of Symposia in Applied Mathematics

We now have access to the Proceedings of Symposia in Applied Mathematics from the American Mathematical Society beginning with 2024 (Volume 76) through present. The symposia in applied mathematics have been held under the auspices of the American Mathematical Society and other organizations since 1967. In this series, Volume 21 and most subsequent volumes consist of the proceedings of short courses sponsored by the AMS. Visit this link to access them directly. Please use this proxied link for off-campus access.

Vroman's @ Caltech Library
Veridical Data Science: The Practice of Responsible Data Analysis and Decision Making by Bin Yu and Rebecca L. Barter

This innovative and accessible textbook introduces an actionable framework for conducting trustworthy data science. Most textbooks present data science as a linear analytic process involving a set of statistical and computational techniques without accounting for the challenges intrinsic to real-world applications. Veridical Data Science, by contrast, embraces the reality that most projects begin with an ambiguous domain question and messy data; it acknowledges that datasets are mere approximations of reality while analyses are mental constructs. 

Library Staff Recommends  
Gold Bug 
 
In this week's staff recommendation, Library Communications Coordinator Chris Daley suggests Gold Bug, a store off Kendall Alley in Old Town Pasadena. From the Gold Bug website: "In 1843 Edgar Allen Poe wrote one of his most famous stories, "The Gold Bug", a mystery in which a magic gold scarab beetle leads the way to a most incredible discovery of buried pirates' treasure...Guided by the same firelight, mystery and love of nature as its namesake, the Gold Bug retail shop offers its visitors a visual and sensual experience that will draw them into a trove of rare and unusual wonder and send them on an inspiring journey unlike anything they have yet experienced."

The Caltech Library partners with faculty, students, and staff across the Institute in the creation, dissemination, and discovery of knowledge by providing access to collections and repositories, research and instruction support, publication services, and preservation of data and archival materials. Maintaining a world-class library requires continuous investment. As technology evolves and the demand for digital resources increases, we need your support to ensure that our library remains at the forefront of learning and discovery. We always welcome any donation! 


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Please feel free to contact me with any questions!
Donna T. Wrublewski, Ph.D., MRSC (she/her)
Librarian for Chemistry & Chemical Engineering

dtwrub@caltech.edu

Chemistry Resources:
https://library.caltech.edu/chemistry