cpikas

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November 18, 2009
It seems like there was nothing new from the established publishers for a while - nothing with their core business.  Some experimented with ways to communicate and most updated content management systems, but it seemed like most weren't touching their standard models.  PLOS' experiments met with…
November 18, 2009
Let me start by quoting an e-mail Dawn Pointer McCleskey sent to the SLA-DC listserv today (I have her permission). This is in reply to an e-mail from a younger member who mentioned how teachers and nurses have reclaimed their place and have formed very active and well-respected communities without…
November 17, 2009
I got back from the SLA conference last June to the whole lab in a crisis. It passed and in e-mail, I got a notice that my SLA renewal was over due. Which is funny because I routed all the paperwork at the same time as my conference registration paperwork (we have an office that processes all of…
November 15, 2009
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/2009/11/sunday-secrets_15.html via Andrew on FriendFeed. (don't sue me, I'm just the messenger!) Even if it isn't true, it's sort of funny and now all I can see is my kitchen sink strainer (not a toilet).
November 14, 2009
Thursday was a half day covering first the cyberinfrastructure and then some discussions of another system that can provide lessons learned to the RSN (reminder: regional scale nodes, the long cabled sensors). My notes are (of course) at work, but I'll reconstruct some of what I heard. I would…
November 11, 2009
And now for something completely different :) I am attending the Ocean Observatories Initiative Science Workshop in Baltimore. Today was the first day and there's a half day tomorrow. OOI is big science in its purest form.  It's multi-decade, multi-hundred million dollar facility for studying the…
November 8, 2009
How do you balance robust enterprise IT services with computer science as a research area? This post has been floating around in my head for a while - I even had this started but lost the draft in a tragic overnight OIT loaner laptop reboot. I can't actually answer this question, and trying to has…
November 8, 2009
There's a nice rebuttal of the Sirsi Dynix anti-open source white paper done by Mark Leggott that just came out (I found it via Jason Griffey). More thoughtful than some. There are so many misconceptions on both sides of this. First, open source is not free. You do need people to install and…
November 3, 2009
One of the great things about my interests overlapping computer science is that computer scientists believe in self archiving and making their work freely available on the web. The scientometric parts of IS are that way, too, but the L of the LIS... well, that's just sad (except for Dorothea, her…
November 1, 2009
On day three I only made two sessions - and the second was incredibly disappointing (I have serious problems with the study design) so I'll just briefly chat about the first, which was pretty awesome. Monitoring, Modeling, and Memory (II): Methods for the Study of Cyberinfrastructure (and Other…
October 30, 2009
Today was a little better. To be honest, itâs probably just that I was a bit more tolerant after I slept in a couple of hours before showing up in the middle of the second session. I started out in: Scientific Practices in Research and in Learning: Cyberinfrastructure Meets Cyberlearning chaired by…
October 30, 2009
It's always strange to go to a conference outside of your own primary research area. This conference had a lot of historians and philosophers as well as social scientists in every other category including media studies and information science.  I was in a couple sessions in which the presenter read…
October 28, 2009
I hope to be blogging this meeting over the course of the next few days. Last STS meeting I attended computer note-taking was completely frowned upon but hopefully this one will be more modern.  I'll be talking tomorrow in session 070. Scientific Communication, (4:00 to 6:00 pm, but I'm guessing my…
October 26, 2009
(I'm posting things from my old blog while I'm on a much-needed vacation) This originally appeared December 21, 2007 Implications of newer models of popularization of science for science library collection development* When we look at science communication - communication about science or by…
October 24, 2009
(I'm posting some classics from my old blog while I'm on a much needed vacation) This originally appeared February 26, 2006 The reference interview in a scientific research setting: question pairs establish intellectual identity (This is thinking out loud stuff not approved scientific paper stuff…
October 21, 2009
(while I'm on a much-needed vacation, I'm re-posting some things from my old blog) This appeared January 5, 2007. On Weeding... Weeding, variously called "pruning", de-selection, de-accessioning, collection management, is a vital part of maintaining a healthy, vibrant, welcoming library collection…
October 20, 2009
I think sometimes the widget on the left side doesn't work. Here's the direct link to support one of the projects I've picked. I think these are some great things that will help students in my state, but if you don't see anything here that floats your boat, please pick a project on one of the…
October 19, 2009
A couple colleagues (Joe and Sara) wondered if support for the new name is divided between corporate and academic members. Actually, I've heard from folks from research labs (gov't, private, and corporate) really who really hate the name, too. My take: it's business researchers vs. science…
October 17, 2009
Here are some ways to define the format/genre/communication channel... etc. I usually go back to Mortensen, Torill and Walker, Jill. (2002). Blogging thoughts: Personal publication as an online research tool. In A. Morrison ed. (Ed.), Researching ICTs in context (1 ed.) (pp. 249). Oslo, Norway:…
October 17, 2009
Cross-language information retrieval is an important research area with lots of activity. There are all kinds of elaborate algorithms and ways of doing it. There's a lot of domain specificity and connotation kind of things that have been really improved in the past decade. Most people searching…
October 15, 2009
My primary professional society, SLA, has been going through this big "align in 2009" business. They've decided we need a new name because CEOs of corporations don't understand what librarians do. So here it is: Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionalswhich will go by ASKpro rrrrright. So…
October 13, 2009
This was in an earlier EOS (pdf, not available online for institutional subscribers so I found this by flipping through the print!) - number 32 of this year from 11 August. They're trying what Nature tried and dropped and what EGU has been fairly successful with in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics…
October 12, 2009
Is it possible or even desirable to have one search interface that serves every need? I have about 10 minutes to write this placeholder of a post. Hopefully, I'll get the opportunity to revisit this topic near and dear to my heart later. I've often railed against naive librarians and administrators…
October 8, 2009
While I'm trying to get back on my blogging feet, here are some quick takes on things happening in library land: The kerfuffle about the institutional subscription price of Scientific American continues. For those of you joining the discussion late, Nature Publishing Group is now integrating it…
October 8, 2009
I still am not online on my own computer at home so I'm not able to add posts as I'd like. Please bear with me!
October 5, 2009
So my faithful little laptop has now died. It's 4 years old and hasn't really been treated all that gently. (my father-in-law just poured his drink in it a couple of weeks ago). I'm faced with the choice of buying new or repairing. It was purchased through the University of Maryland's student…
October 2, 2009
As I've mentioned, science libraries are very much in financial trouble just as their parent institutions and other organizations are right now.  There have been many calls for publishers to hold the line on price increases and some have done so. Some, like SPIE, have decreased prices -yay them!…
October 2, 2009
No, not mis-giving. In fact, there will be no misgivings if you give to any of the projects Iâve selected or any of the other projects on Donorâs Choose. A little background. DonorsChoose.org is a way that you can safely give a little or a lot of money to help teachers in the classroom. The…
October 1, 2009
Update2 (10/2/2009): and I'm back, and typing in the right box this time. yay! posts to come this weekend. Sorry for the time off - technical issues and all sorts of excitement around the house. (b-day celebrations and a cousin returning from Iraq). This is being updated from my iPhone so please…
September 19, 2009
It just hit me this morning that new communications journals are sort of less expected right now. In this post I'll briefly discuss the traditional place of letters or communications publications in scholarly communications (in science) and then weave in some thoughts about pressures on the system…