Drop by the Library this afternoon to learn about library services and get help.
We hope to see you there!
Please join us for an open house on Friday, April 10, 2009 to learn more about HOLLIS beta, the new version of the Harvard University Libraries’ search and discovery system. The open house will be held in the HKS Library Group Study Room from 2:30 – 4:00 p.m.
At the open house, we will have informal demonstrations of the new system every 30 minutes.
More information about HOLLIS beta is available here.
We hope to see you there!
The Library is pleased to welcome everyone in the Kennedy School community to the continuation of our popular speaker series. As in the past, this year’s series features HKS fellows, researchers, and faculty who will be making short presentations on their recent research. Please join us for these discussions of timely topics relevant to us all.
Friday, March 13, 3-4 p.m., Fainsod Room
Will Obama’s Recovery Plan Work?
The financial crisis–and now the economic crisis–has neither simple origins nor simple solutions. But Washington has already committed $700 billion to TARP and $800 billion to the President’s recovery plan. Little understood, however, is that those two programs are just a small part of the massive $8.8 trillion the government has so far pledged in spending, loans, and deposit guarantees.
And yet all that may well not be enough: all of us need to understand what’s at stake now. Should we simply restore the current financial system–or do we need a new (or in fact, an old) one? Join us for a talk by Richard Parker, Lecturer in Public Policy and Senior Fellow of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy as he discusses what the government should be doing to get us out of these crises–and why.
Related reading
Richard Parker: “Government Beyond Obama,” New York Review of Books, March 12, 2009
The Library is pleased to welcome everyone in the Kennedy School community to the continuation of our popular speaker series. As in the past, this year’s series will feature HKS fellows, researchers, and faculty who will be making short presentations on their recent research work. Please join us in these discussions of timely topics relevant to us all. Refreshments will be served!
Wednesday, November 12, noon-1 p.m., Taubman 275 / KALB
Foreign Policy Challenges for the New American President
Join us for a brown bag discussion with Nicholas Burns, Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics. Ambassador Burns served in the U.S. Foreign Service for 27 years until his retirement in April 2008. He has held many impressive diplomatic positions including Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, U.S. Ambassador to Greece, State Department Spokesman for Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher, and White House Special Assistant to the President for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia Affairs. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Order of Saint John and Red Sox Nation.
Listen to the talk (HKS only)
These sessions provide a basic overview of conducting Research at Harvard. We’ll be going over how to find journal and newspaper articles online, finding books in the Harvard Libraries collection and more. The same information will be presented at each of the following times.
| Wednesday, September 17th | 12:00 – 1:00 pm | Taubman 301 |
| Friday, September 26th | 3:00 – 4:00 pm | Taubman 301 |
Come learn how to use Harvard’s new citation management software. We’ll show you how to get your citations in to the system, organize them when they’re there, and create instant bibliographies from them when your paper is due!
| Friday, September 19th | 3:00 – 4:00 pm | Taubman 301 |
| Wednesday, September 24th | 12:00 – 1:00 pm | Taubman 301 |
Come meet the HKS Library staff and learn how to find reserve materials, journal articles online, books, subject guides on your topic of research, and how to manage your citations with RefWorks. Browse the library’s DVD collection and book sale while enjoying popcorn and beverages and enter a raffle for movie tickets. We hope to see you on the 8th!
The Library is pleased to welcome everyone in the Kennedy School community to the continuation of our popular speaker series. As in the past, this year’s series will feature HKS fellows, researchers, and faculty who will be making short presentations on their recent research work. Please join us in these discussions of timely topics relevant to us all. Refreshments will be served!
Thursday, May 8, 2008, 3-4 p.m., Taubman 275 / KALB
The Warping of Government Work
The divergent paths of public and private employment have intensified a long-standing pattern: elite workers spurn public jobs, while less skilled workers cling to government work as a refuge from a harsh private economy. In this talk, John D. Donahue, Raymond Vernon Lecturer in Public Policy and Director of the Weil Program in Collaborative Governance at the Harvard Kennedy School, will analyze government’s isolation from the rest of the American economy and lay out the choices we have for narrowing, or accommodating, the divide between public and private work.
The Warping of Government Work - John D. Donahue (mp3 file)
Friday, March 21, 2008, noon-1 p.m., Fainsod Room
The Subprime Saga: What Happened and What’s Next
The early days of the subprime industry seemed to fulfill a market need—and millions of renters became homeowners as a result. But rapidly escalating home prices masked cracks in the subprime foundation. Join us for a brown bag discussion with Nicolas P. Retsinas, director of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, as he lays out what went wrong and why.
The Subprime Saga: What Happened and What’s Next – Nicolas P. Retsinas (mp3 file)
Related Readings
Nicolas P. Retsinas: “Building Sandcastles: The Subprime Adventure,” Working Knowledge, September 12, 2007
Joint Center for Housing Studies
Friday, February 22, 2008, 3-4 p.m., Fainsod Room
Trust and Honesty in the Real World: A Case Study
Join us for a case study discussion examining the potential conflicts of interest in medical and scientific research. The case, “Managing Conflicts of Interest: The Lead Paint Dilemma,” is drawn from Trust and Honesty in the Real World (Fathom Publishing 2006) coauthored by M-RCBG Senior Fellow Mark Fagan. Mark will facilitate a conversation examining the nature of conflicts of interest in scientific research and the public policy, business and legal issues that arise.
Read the case here (HKS only)
Read an outline of the case here (HKS only)
Friday, April 27, 2007, 3-4 p.m.
Fixing Elections in Boston
In the wake of the 2000 election, notorious for hanging chads, butterfly ballots, and long lines at the polls, David King, Lecturer in Public Policy at the Kennedy School, worked with the National Commission on Federal Election Reform. That effort culminated in the 2002 passage of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which was supposed to “fix” many of the problems. Yet nearly every election since has been beset with problems, ranging from poor voter lists and inaccessible polling places, to outright failures of new voting equipment. In this talk, David King will review his recent work with the Boston Election Department in devising a new “top-to-bottom” reform of elections in the City.
Related Readings
David King: “ Election Reform as an Unfunded Mandate ,” Boston Review, October/November 2001
CalTech/MIT Voting Technology Project: http://www.vote.caltech.edu/
Journal articles from the CalTech/MIT project: http://www.vote.caltech.edu/journals.htm
Friday, March 16, 2007, 3-4 p.m.
Building an Army that meets our Defense Strategy
BG(ret.) Kevin Ryan, Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, will give a presentation and answer questions on the methodology used to establish force size and capabilities in the US Army. Using the current defense strategy, Ryan will explain how Army leaders develop their assessment of the number of troops and units the Army should have. Ryan will discuss the impact of the surge on the US military in general and how expanding the Army will affect operations in Iraq and elsewhere.
There are no required readings but persons interested in this subject are encouraged to read Thomas Barnett’s, The Pentagon’s New Map.
Friday, December 1, 2007, 3-4 p.m.
So, You’ve Got a Crisis — Improving Disaster Response in the United States
Arn Howitt, Executive Director of the Kennedy School’s Taubman Center for State and Local Government and Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, will be speaking about emergency preparedness and crisis management in the U.S. What exactly is a crisis? Why does the U.S. seem to have difficulty managing events as diverse as Hurricane Katrina and the anthrax letter attacks? How can we do better?
Presentation Slides(PDF)
Related Readings
Herman B. “Dutch” Leonard and Arnold M. Howitt, “Against Desperate Peril: High Performance in Emergency Preparation and Response,” forthcoming in Communicable Crises, edited by Deborah E. Gibbons.
Arnold M. Howitt and Herman B. “Dutch” Leonard, “Beyond Katrina: Improving Disaster Response Capabilities,” Working Papers 2006 (Center for Public Leadership, Kennedy School of Government, May 2006). Published as a two-part series in the Crisis/Response Journal (June and September 2006).
Friday, October 27, 2007, 3-4 p.m.
Privacy – the Personal and the Professional
Leigh Williams, M-RCBG Senior Fellow and former Chief Privacy Officer for Fidelity Investments, will lead a roundtable on the privacy issues affecting all of us – as individuals, consumers, employees and citizens. Leigh’s opening comments and the subsequent discussion will touch on a variety of topics, including identity theft, target marketing, privacy expectations and government surveillance.
Related Readings
Data Protection and the Commerce Clause by Edward H. Freeman
Stolen Identities by Zach Patton
