March 9, 2011
This is about the symposium upcoming at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, The Future of the Academic Library. The symposium is co-presented by Library Journal and McMaster.
It was announced on Twitter this past Sunday and there was a bit of a Twitter-storm about the conference as quite a…
March 7, 2011
And I mean zombie vampire in the best way, as a comment on how hard it seems to be to kill my Stealth Librarianship Manifesto. It's even been translated into French! (Merci, Marléne!)
For a post I mostly wrote in an hour of white hot typing from midnight to 1 a.m. some weeknight when I should…
March 4, 2011
Over on the Tor.com blog, mysterious librarian blogger RuthX tells us the story of how she created a free ebook (downloaded!) with all the public domain stories that were published by noted horror author H.P. Lovecraft.
In the course of compiling the book, she was able to analyze the word usage…
March 3, 2011
I saw this just after I published my previous post and think it really encompasses what I'd like to say to HarperCollins and its fellow travelers.
This is from The Capitalist's Paradox by Umair Haque.
So here's my question: Does what you're doing have a point -- one that matters to people, society…
March 3, 2011
Over the last week or so a huge issue has sprung up in the library and publishing world, which I touch on in my eBook Users' Bill of Rights post.
The publisher HarperCollins has restricting the number of checkouts an ebook version of one of their books can have before the library needs to pay for…
March 1, 2011
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (TILoHL) by Rebecca Skloot was far and away the top science book of the year in my Best Science Books 2010: The top books of the year post from last month. In that post I took all the Best Science Books 2010 posts and tallied up the books with the most mentions…
February 28, 2011
This one is via Christina Pikas, Bobbi Newman and Sarah-Houghton-Jan, who originated it.
It's released under a CC0 license, so please feel free to repost, remix and whatever else strikes your fancy.
This arises from the current controversy in the library world (and beyond) about a particular…
February 27, 2011
I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll…
February 26, 2011
The Tablet Wars Are On, With Big Stakes for Publishers
5 Reasons Why Your Online Presence Will Replace Your Resume in 10 years
How will undergraduates navigate a post peer-review scholarly landscape?
Social Network Mapping Fun with NodeXL and Science Online 2011
Authors, Readers and…
February 25, 2011
I have to admit, opening a used bookstore has always been one of my romantic, "what if I won the lottery" idle musings. Communing with books and book people has always been one of my favourite pastimes.
Of course, I've always known that the reality of owning and operating a used bookstore is a far…
February 25, 2011
In the spirit of openness and transparency and "does anybody really care except me" I've included some blog hit statistics below for 2010. These stats are from the Google Analytics application that ScienceBlogs has installed.
For 2010, this blog got 77,630 visits and 91,022 pageviews. To put it…
February 23, 2011
The authors over at In the Library with the Lead Pipe have posted about my recent manifesto on Stealth Librarianship.
There's some pretty healthy debate, agreement, disagreement, qualification, additions and subtractions going on there, so please do check it out: Lead Pipe Debates the Stealth…
February 23, 2011
The problem with online reputation
E-Book Piracy on the Rise
How to Use Social Media for Marketing
Another Lesson About Cognition And The Web: Lara Logan And Hate
Hawking contra Philosophy
The 'Triumph Of The City' May Be Greener
Email is Over
Early results: public data archiving increases…
February 21, 2011
While I don't have a huge amount of experience reading science-themed graphic novels, I do sort of have a sense that they come in two different broad categories.
The first is basically transforming a boring, stilted, text-heavy textbook into a boring, stilted, illustration- and text-heavy graphic…
February 20, 2011
I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll…
February 19, 2011
Earn a Nobel Prize in your Lunch-Break! The Best "Citizen Science" Games Reviewed!
Digital Technology Innovation in Scholarly Communication and University Engagement
On Twitter and Machiavellian Intelligence
Who Needs a Netbook?
Tech Tools for Scholars - The Sequel
From the Archives: On Blogging…
February 18, 2011
Twitter brings us some truly wonderful and, yes, bizarre things. I saw this one a few days ago via Vitor Pamplona and thought it was too good to pass up.
Anyways, here's the story from the original Listverse post, Top 10 truly bizarre programming languages:
This is a list of some of the most…
February 17, 2011
The Edupunks are coming ... to an Edu-Factory near you!
The connected company
Scholarly Reportage: Fad or Movement?
The Importance Of Physical Space
2010 State of the Computer Book Market, Post 1 - Overall Market
Taking scientific publishing to the next level
A father knows best: Vint Cerf re-…
February 16, 2011
McMaster University colleague Andrew Colgoni (Twitter) has taken my Stealth Librarian Manifesto and tamed it a little bit and come up with his own version, which is here.
I like what Andrew has to say in a post titled, I prefer Ninja Librarianship, myself:
[T]here's much that can be learned from…
February 14, 2011
Welcome to the long-awaited latest instalment in my occasional series of interviews with people in the library, publishing and scitech worlds. This time around the subjects of my first group interview are the gang at EngineerBlogs.org.
From my welcome-to-the-blogosphere post, here's a condensed…
February 14, 2011
Way back when, I used to post fairly frequent interviews with publishers, bloggers, librarians and scientists who I thought were interesting people to hear from. Mostly I wanted to hear about what they thought about changes in the scholarly publishing environment.
I've got links to a bunch of them…
February 13, 2011
I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll…
February 12, 2011
Five Tips for Smarter Social Networking
Contemporary Student Life
Discovering the scientific conversation
It isn't just students: Medical researchers aren't citing previous work either
The Evolution of Book Publishing; or, On the Trail to Stage Five
Turning vanity publishing on its head
One in…
February 11, 2011
Sometimes we collect stuff that we think no one else wants. Sometimes, maybe we should be anti-librarians and erase from all human memory things that should never have existed.
Kind of like that scene in The Ten Commandments where The Pharaoh orders all mention of Moses be obliterated from…
February 11, 2011
Startups in the Personal Data Ecosystem
Elements of an Effective Public Education Toolkit
The Politics of the New Huffington Post at AOL
How to Promote Zotero at Your Institution and Why
Disruption, Delivery and Degrees
Measuring Impact Beyond Academic Fame: An Alternative Social Impact Factor…
February 10, 2011
Stealth librarianship is a way of being.
This particular edition of the manifesto applies to academic libraries. The principles of stealth librarianship apply to all branches of the profession, each in particular ways. Other manifestos could exist for, say, public or corporate librarians.…
February 10, 2011
Are science blogs stuck in an echo chamber? Chamber? Chamber?
What's a PhD worth at the finish line? On hiring committees
'Academically Adrift'
Dlib on research data
E-books and Their Containers: A Bestiary of the Evolving Book
Managing your scholarly identity
To Library, or Not to Library…
February 8, 2011
Many thanks to Peter Janiszewski and Travis Saunders of Science of Blogging for reposting my old chestnut, If you don't have a blog you don't have a resume.
I've closed the comments here so you can argue with me over at the other site.
February 7, 2011
Or make that the house that the house that Calculus: Early Transcendentals and Calculus: Concepts and Contexts built. And more books too, all in multiple editions!
A few days ago The Toronto Star's Katie Daubs published an article on the home of James Stewart, the Toronto resident who wrote all…
February 6, 2011
I have a whole pile of science-y book reviews on two of my older blogs, here and here. Both of those blogs have now been largely superseded by or merged into this one. So I'm going to be slowly moving the relevant reviews over here. I'll mostly be doing the posts one or two per weekend and I'll…