cpikas
Posts by this author
September 16, 2009
quality? popularity? utility? I'm pretty sure I've blogged about MESUR (a research project that studied how usage statistics - as we call them in the industry - can be a metric like citations are). I've also blogged a discussion by MJ Kurtz in which he discusses how usage is very much like…
September 16, 2009
Sure Hubble's pictures are prettier, but there's a lot of cool science coming out of the nifty MESSENGER spacecraft. She's up for a third Mercury fly-by in two weeks. She'll go into orbit in 2011 and she's the first spacecraft there for 30 years!
Already we've seen her video leaving Earth on a…
September 15, 2009
Anybody can code but what just anybody codes can be crap.
There's a real problem in my place of work and probably in other places where you have scientists and engineers who haven't been formally trained in CS and haven't taken the time or effort to learn about proper techniques but who are writing…
September 11, 2009
So anyone who's spent any time at all with Google Books (hence forth GB), has probably noted some really bizarre - I mean truly strange - metadata. Like messed up titles, authors, publication years, oh and categories are totally hit or miss. I frequently take for granted that everyone has seen all…
September 5, 2009
...'cause I thought I heard of a software and I know people at x conference said and seems like....
I get this all the time. Most recently I did a pretty detailed presentation of some analysis I did. Once I was done, I got the question: can you demo the tool that provided these answers for our boss…
September 2, 2009
Sometimes so many things come up at the same time it becomes difficult if impossible to ignore. Here's just a brief list:
An oceanographer came to me and asked to see a print copy of an AGU journal article. If you've followed me here from elsewhere, then you'll know my place of work was mandated to…
August 29, 2009
So often we hear of large studies like the GSS being used for attitudes towards science. We also hear the results of science achievement metrics and are disappointed. This article provides a great mix between generalizable quantitative understanding gained through use of a validated instrument and…
August 28, 2009
I love the DOI. It's the best thing since sliced bread. Actually, it's better than sliced bread - I can slice my own bread - but I can't do what DOIs do so easily.
If you've been living under a rock for a while, you might not know that a DOI is a document object identifier - it's a unique…
August 25, 2009
See: Book of Trogool, The Humble Index. http://scienceblogs.com/bookoftrogool/2009/08/the_humble_index.php
Excellent (luckily Dorothea's and my expertises are almost completely orthogonal :) )
BTW: any half decent librarian who knows her reference collection can answer a lot of fact-type questions…
August 24, 2009
In case you can't read this screenshot of an e-mail (source, via), I'll quote it for you:
"Are you on a first name basis with the librarian? If so, chances are, you're spending too much time at the library. What you need is fast, reliable research you can access right in your office. An all it…
August 23, 2009
On one side, there are some who say the future of scholarly communication in science is databases - or, rather, more or less shared and curated data sets. Some of the folks in this crowd go farther to say that science is a continuous stream and people should be able to comment on and point to this…
August 22, 2009
Dr. Free-Ride answers the question about what credentials are needed to become a philosopher. It's interesting to note, actually, that in library schools - places where one goes to study to become a librarian - folks might have a PhD in just about anything. From education to computer science to…
August 20, 2009
I've used a citation managers/ bibliographic managers for years - ever since I came to my current job in which I do in-depth literature searching for scientists and engineers. I report my results as an annotated bibliography with analysis. To do this I need to search a bunch of research databases…
August 14, 2009
Here are some things academic libraries are doing to cope. The primary caveat is that I have less experience in this area (my research lab is affiliated with a university, but we're different). I have heard a lot about this from my colleagues in my professional association and online. I would be…
August 12, 2009
Why Friendfeed's acquisition by Facebook concerns this user.
The title is an imitation of Walt's Monday, old, and insufficiently paranoid. I love friendfeed. It's really the porous boundaries between the groups that really does it. You get to know people because things they share/post are "liked"…
August 9, 2009
Now that I'm not scared to look at my responses... This one doesn't look so bad, so I'm sharing. Please do keep in mind that this was written in 2 hours, by a tired person, with tired fingers!
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Christina K. Pikas
Comps Information Retrieval (Minor)
July 20, 2009
Question F2: Design an…
August 8, 2009
Eleventy!!!!111!!!!111!, and so forth :)
So now I'm eligible to advance to candidacy. So I would be a PhD Candidate, if I were to put the paperwork in right away. At my advisor's suggestion, I'm going to hold off on that for a few months to not start the next clock (and my work have to pay more…
August 8, 2009
Public libraries are incredibly important in economic bad times. Things people just bought for themselves without thinking, they now borrow if they can. People need emergency assistance with housing or medical or childcare and they don't know how to find an appropriate agency or charity. People are…
August 5, 2009
Louisville was hit with a massive rainstorm that overwhelmed the sewer system and caused massive flooding everywhere. It took out the bottom floor of the library. Preliminary damage is assessed at $1M, but I would expect that to go higher (see).
I divided a session at CIL with Greg Schwartz a few…
August 2, 2009
A quick note on the tension between sharing everything as quickly as possible and keeping things for yourself.
The thrill of collaboration when like minds come together to brainstorm and solve big problems and the egoboo of having something you created "liked" or reused should not exclude or…
August 1, 2009
John Wilbanks is brilliant - let's just get that down first. He makes some great points in his most recent posts (1,2), but I also disagree with a few of the things he has said.
In my abstract for the upcoming 4S conference, I echoed what Borgman and Bohlin both said, and one of his main points:…
August 1, 2009
I've been fascinated by these projects, but I felt that I didn't have sufficient time to really do them justice here. Michael Nielsen has discussed them in several venues so it wasn't clear what I could add. Then I thought about it some more, and I realized that I probably do have different readers…
July 25, 2009
Some of these are better than others. Some don't have nice controlled vocabularies and are a bit wonky in the free version. Nearly all of them you can get through another interface for a fee if you need more precision in searching or to export your results. (oh, as an aside - you've got the…
July 24, 2009
Previously, I had a post about finding information in books using things like Google Book Search. This post talks about finding information on a topic, or more specifically, why you should start your search with a research database and more about what research databases are (like the real ones). In…
July 23, 2009
Ack. NO.
...Ok, well when you gonna finish?
ARRRGHGH
PhD students unite! Rebel against these questions!
My answer - I don't know, and it will probably be a while. Like ask me in 3-4 years.
Here are some ways my program differs from others you might know more about:
very linear - we do coursework,…
July 20, 2009
This was the last day of comps - it's up to waiting for the results. The essays were emailed out to the readers immediately at 4pm when I finished.
This day's questions were much more attractive.
First exam was Information Retrieval - a minor area. I had to pick one of three:
- something about a…
July 17, 2009
W00t! The newest libr* Scibling is none other than Dorothea Salo at The Book of Trogool.
July 17, 2009
Sigh. TGIF and TG I have 2 days free before the next 2. I really felt like I was very, very familiar with these articles but I had a really hard time.
I think when I look back on my response, I'll see it really wanders and doesn't make a good case.
Here are the questions. Choose one of:
- Olson…
July 16, 2009
So this was the dreaded STS. Crap. Good questions, but really, really not sure about my answers. I did have the guts to shush people talking loudly outside the door and they gave me dirty looks. Oh well!
Q 1 choice between:
- relationship btwn science - technology - society. specifically,…