April 25, 2014
I'm always interested in the present and future of libraries. There's a steady stream of reports from various organizations that are broadly relevant to the (mostly academic) library biz but they can be tough to keep track of. I thought I'd aggregate some of those here. Of course I've very likely…
April 21, 2014
Publishing may be a button, but publishing isn’t all we need
The Vacuum Shouts Back: Postpublication Peer Review on Social Media
bioRxiv: The preprint server for biology
Debt, Pensions and Capitalisation: Funding schol comms innovation
How to maximise usage of digital collections
Librarian, Heal…
April 17, 2014
Up to Here With Trolls?
This Is What It’s Like To Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meet-up
An Open Letter to Brogrammers
So You’ve Got Yourself a Policy. Now What?
Technology’s Man Problem
Why the ‘Open’ Internet Is So Closed to Women
The Brutal Ageism of Tech Years of experience, plenty of talent,…
April 14, 2014
As part of the celebrations for Canada's upcomming 150th birthday, the Canadian federal government has released its Digital Canada 150 strategy paper, and while it`s not all bad, at the same time there is not an awful lot to recommend it. Especially considering it was four years in the making.
My…
April 11, 2014
Oh, Cracked, you are so funny. So funny it just really hurts sometimes. And these so definitely apply to the pickle that libraries and other cultural/content institutions and industries find themselves in as we try and find our place in a future that is very different from the past.
5 Reasons The…
April 2, 2014
Yesterday was April Fools' Day, a day I enjoy immensely. I even contribute to the fun every now and then. This year the crop among the science/scholcomm/library community seemed especially strong so I thought I'd share.
Science, Nature Team Up on New Journal / Science
PeerJ now requires authors to…
April 1, 2014
Added: Please note the date this post was published on.
After a couple of years of implementing some really amazing and progressive change at Elsevier, I've decided to refocus some of my advisory efforts over the next few years. As a result, I'll be taking on a senior advisory role for the…
March 27, 2014
I'm always interested in the present and future of libraries. There's a steady stream of reports from various organizations that are broadly relevant to the (mostly academic) library biz but they can be tough to keep track of. I thought I'd aggregate some of those here. Of course I've very likely…
March 17, 2014
York University mathematician and civil rights activist Lee Lorch died February 28, 2014 at the age of 98.
A few years ago I posted on the 2007 Joint Mathematics Meetings in New Orleans Lee Lorch where Lee was awarded the Yueh-Gin Gung and Charles Y. Hu Award for Distinguished Service to…
March 15, 2014
Trope or fact? Technology creates more jobs than it destroys
Will robots steal our jobs? The humble loom suggests not.
The technology and jobs debate raises complex questions
Chasing Entertainment
Thinking the unthinkable: a library without a catalogue
You're not going to read this
The OPAC is Dead…
March 14, 2014
Earlier this week I was invited (er, invited myself, really) to give a talk to a class of first year computer science students about open access and open science. Sadly, there was a partial snow day that day and I was unable to actually give the talk. Which is too bad, because I've done similar…
February 25, 2014
I'll be at Science Online Together for the next few days. I missed last year so I'm really looking forward to getting back into the Science Online swing of things.
As is occasionally my habit, I'll be listing here some attendees that are either Canadian, librarians or, in a few select cases, both.…
February 19, 2014
I have a son who's in the middle of his second year as a physics undergrad. As you can imagine, I occasionally pass along a link or two to him pointing to stuff on the web I think he might find particularly interesting or useful. Thinking on that fact, I surmised that perhaps other science…
February 14, 2014
I love science, I love science fiction. The common misconception about science fiction in particular is that it is somehow about the future, about predicting and describing it. Same with science, in a slightly different way. Science (and technology...) should be about inventing the best gizmos to…
February 12, 2014
Welcome to the rebooted science interview series here at Confessions of a Science Librarian! The previous incarnation mostly concentrated on people in the broadly defined scholarly communications community, like Mark Patterson of eLife, Peter Binfield and Jason Hoyt of PeerJ or author Michael…
February 11, 2014
Many of my readers may recall that back in October I published a post announcing the Draft Open Access Policy consultation process launched by the Canadian Tri-Councils -- Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council, Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council and Canadian Institutes…
February 10, 2014
Sometimes a book isn't quite what you expected. And you're disappointed.
Sometimes a book isn't quite what you expected and you're pleasantly surprised.
Chris Impey and Holly Henry's Dreams of Other Worlds: The Amazing Story of Unmanned Space Exploration definitely falls into the latter category.…
February 5, 2014
Taking a Longer View
Why librarianship is difficult and contentious
Schism in the Stacks: Is the University Library As We Know It Destined for Extinction?
The Future of Libraries: Harvard Students Are Thinking Outside the Box
Why piles of bad applications may not portend disaster
Silencing,…
February 4, 2014
Silicon Valley goes to school – notes on Californian capitalism and the ‘disruption’ of public education
The End of Higher Education’s Golden Age
The Death Of Expertise
Closing Time for the Open Internet
Tech Workers, Political Speech and Economic Threat
Does Ikea Hold The Secret To The Future Of…
January 29, 2014
A couple of weeks ago I was approached by Rabble.ca to write a piece for them with some of my thoughts about the current controversy surrounding the government of Canada's closure of several Department of Fisheries and Oceans libraries. I have a link compilation here.
I was happy to write up…
January 28, 2014
Looking over all the books I read in 2013, there's one non-fiction book that really stands out as the best. Former astronaut Chris Hadfield's memoir An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth. wasn't the deepest or most information-packed book I read last year, but it was the most entertaining and…
January 16, 2014
I have an article up at Rabble.ca today about the library closure situation at Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
When closures happen, the librarians and staff work very hard to minimize the impact on their community, especially to make sure valuable collections are not lost and that…
January 13, 2014
Welcome to the rebooted science interview series here at Confessions of a Science Librarian! The previous incarnation mostly concentrated on people in the broadly defined scholarly communications community, like Mark Patterson of eLife, Peter Binfield and Jason Hoyt of PeerJ or author Michael…
January 9, 2014
As is occasionally my habit when a big story breaks, I have gathered together all the relevant documents I could find concerning the recent controversy about the Canadian Conservative government's recent consolidation of the libraries at their Department of Fisheries & Oceans. The consolidation…
January 7, 2014
The story on Albert Einstein is pretty well known. Great scientist, had probably the best year anybody ever had in anything, made a lot of important discoveries revolutionized the way we understand the physical world.
But.
But somehow he never seemed to get on board with quantum theory. Relativity…
January 6, 2014
Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that I can find around the web in various media outlets.
From the beginning it’s been a pretty popular service so I’m happy to continue it. The previous posts for all the 2013 lists…
January 6, 2014
Welcome to the rebooted science interview series here at Confessions of a Science Librarian! The previous incarnation mostly concentrated on people in the broadly defined scholarly communications community, like Mark Patterson of eLife, Peter Binfield and Jason Hoyt of PeerJ or author Michael…
January 5, 2014
Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that I can find around the web in various media outlets.
From the beginning it’s been a pretty popular service so I’m happy to continue it. The previous posts for all the 2013 lists…
January 4, 2014
Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that I can find around the web in various media outlets.
From the beginning it’s been a pretty popular service so I’m happy to continue it. The previous posts for all the 2013 lists…
January 4, 2014
Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that I can find around the web in various media outlets.
From the beginning it’s been a pretty popular service so I’m happy to continue it. The previous posts for all the 2013 lists…
