academia
Category archives for academia
Welcome to Information Culture, the latest blog at Scientific Amerincan
Posted by John Dupuis on May 10, 2012 I’d like to extend a huge science librarian blogosphere welcome to Information Culture, the newest blog over at Scientific American Blogs! This past Sunday evening I got a cryptic DM from a certain Bora Zivkovic letting me know that I should watch the SciAm blog site first thing Monday morning. I was busy that morning…
Around the Web: Even Harvard can’t afford everything, The importance of physical campuses, DRM strategy and more
Posted by John Dupuis on April 25, 2012 Harvard Faculty Advisory Council Memorandum on Journal Pricing: Major Periodical Subscriptions Cannot Be Sustained “No, we can’t” A proposal for the library of the future Harvard: we have a problem Harvard Library: subscriptions too costly, faculty should go open access Could Harvard Library’s “untenable situation” regarding journal costs help move scholars toward open access? Saying…
Open Data & The Panton Principles: Thoughts on a presentation to librarians
Posted by John Dupuis on April 23, 2012 As I mentioned last week, on Tuesday, April 17 I was part of a workshop on Creative Commons our Scholarly Communications Committee put on for York library staff. My section was on open data and the Panton Principles. While not directly related to Creative Commons, we thought talking a bit about an application area for…
Around the Web: Some resources on the Panton Principles & open data
Posted by John Dupuis on April 16, 2012 As part of a workshop on Creative Commons, I’m doing a short presentation on Open Data and The Panton Principles this week to various members of our staff. I thought I’d share some of the resources I’ve consulted during my preparations. I’m using textmining of journal articles as a example so I’m including a few…
Reading Diary: Marketing for Scientists by Marc J. Kuchner
Posted by John Dupuis on April 11, 2012 It’s probably best to start with what Marc J. Kuchner’s new book — Marketing for Scientists: How to Shine in Tough Times — isn’t. It isn’t a social media jackass recipe book for “Success through Twitter.” It isn’t a detailed treatise on marketing theory. It doesn’t come with a guarantee of grants, publications and prizes…
Friday Fun: Five Leadership Mistakes Of The Galactic Empire
Posted by John Dupuis on February 24, 2012 The actual content of the post I’m highlighting isn’t really all that amusing. It’s actually quite pertinent in a real-world context. But I really love how they’ve taken actually useful information that might be a bit dry and businessy and using a Star Wars / pop-cultural reference made it into something a little easier to…
Elsevier boycott: Time for librarians to rise up!
Posted by John Dupuis on February 21, 2012 A little while back the Cost of Knowledge site started up a boycott pledge list in response to mathematician Timothy Gowers’ pledge to stop contributing to Elsevier’s operations by ceasing writing, reviewing and editing for them. Here is the call to action: Academics have protested against Elsevier’s business practices for years with little effect. These…
Penguin ebooks & The Research Works Act: Publishers gain, communities lose
Posted by John Dupuis on February 13, 2012 I was really angry riding home on the bus last Friday night. Not angry because the transit system here in Toronto is royally fudged in general or that transit to York University is fudged in particular. No, it wasn’t that particular aspect of the public sphere that had me upset. It was the growing tendency…
Reading Diary: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Posted by John Dupuis on February 9, 2012 Walter Isaacson’s book on Apple founder & CEO Steve Jobs is a fairly long book. It’s not exactly a thriller either, especially since I know how it ends. As a result it took me a while to plow through it. I tended to read it in bursts of 40 or 50 pages over a few…
Around the Web: Research Works Act & Elsevier boycott
Posted by John Dupuis on February 6, 2012 Note: this post is superseded by: Around the Web: Research Works Act, Elsevier boycott & FRPAA. This post has superseded my previous post which focused solely on the Research Works Act. I have added some coverage of the Elsevier boycott which at least partially grew out of opposition to the RWA. I’m not attempting to…
