September 14, 2010
Yet another science blogging community: Wired Science Blogs.
From Meet the New Wired Science All-Star Bloggers:
At Wired Science we are always looking for new ways to deliver you more science and more awesome. Starting today, we are bringing on a group of hand-picked, superstar science bloggers to…
September 13, 2010
UTSA opens fully electronic science, engineering library
The Future Of Reading
Bye Bye, Big-Box Bookstores
The Rubik's Cube Conjecture PROVEN! (Do we care?)
On Great Myth of the Librarian Grays
What Do You Call Facebook For Scientists? Um...Facebook
Shutting down social media access: I take umbrage…
September 10, 2010
It's nice to see the occasional Cracked post that is definitely SFW and funny enough to be worth highlighting here.
And The 5 Strangest Things Evolution Left in Your Body definitely qualifies on both counts.
If you don't believe in evolution, you have to spend a lot of time wondering about the…
September 9, 2010
That's the question Eugene Wallingford asks in a recent post at his blog, Knowing and Doing.
If you studied computer science, did your undergrad alma mater or your graduate school have a CS culture? Did any of your professors offer a coherent picture of CS as a serious intellectual discipline,…
September 9, 2010
Has the Future of the Internet come about?
A virtual counter-revolution: The internet has been a great unifier of people, companies and online networks. Powerful forces are threatening to balkanise it
How a watch works (via)
On Wikipedia, Cultural Patrimony, and Historiography (via)
Institutional…
September 7, 2010
Inspired by Bora, but with perhaps a slightly different emphasis.
Eight Strategies for Communicating with Challenging Parents (via)
Why natural history museum collections rock!
How to Write Up Major Results
Get in the goddamn wagon
The All E-Book Diet
A glimpse into the future of the classroom:…
September 6, 2010
Forty-four or 44 Blues is a fairly well know blues standard and is certain a song that I really love. I was first introduced to it during an Eric Clapton concert a number of years ago, during his From the Cradle tour. It wasn't part of the album, but he did perform it live. It actually took me a…
September 3, 2010
It seems like everything's dead these days: the Web, our attention spans, Microsoft, Apple, Google, whatever.
Harry McCracken has a nice post summarizing the casualties over at Technologizer: The Tragic Death of Practically Everything:
Wired Editor in Chief Chris Anderson is catching flack for the…
September 2, 2010
Peter Brantley has a provocative post up on his blog Shimenawa: Get in the goddamn wagon. It's basically a call to arms -- specifically for younger librarians to seize a greater role in discussing and shaping the future of libraries.
The problem is that a lot of the public, official discussion…
September 1, 2010
The last little while has seen an amazing proliferation of science blogging communities. Scientopia, Guardian Science Blogs and PLoS Blogs are only the three most recent that I know of.
I think it's great -- the more the merrier I say. Of course, as networks take up more and more space in the…
September 1, 2010
Yes, YASBC. Yet another science blogging community.
Welcome to PLoS Blogs!
From the introductory post:
Today we are pleased to announce the launch of PLoS Blogs a new network for discussing science in public; covering topics in research, culture, and publishing.
PLoS Blogs is different from other…
August 28, 2010
Some interesting articles, as usual, in the latest issue:
External Characteristics of Computer Operations: Toward Large Conversational Time-Sharing Systems by Wiehle, Hans Rudiger
First Edition Unix: Its Creation and Restoration by Toomey, Warren
The Network Information Center and its Archives by…
August 27, 2010
Classic, just classic: 15 Signs You're Talking To A Canadian.
Here they are:
We Are Completely Comfortable With The Term "Homo Milk"
We Correct You When You Say "Soda"
We Are Offended When You Ask Us If We Know A Friend Of Yours Who, Coincidentally, Also Lives In Canada. You're from Canada? Do…
August 26, 2010
Here's a list of the reasonably active Science & Technology library blogs I know about. I've not included medical library blogs in this post because it's not a field I'm all that knowledgeable about. That list would make a great post in it's own right, but it's not this one.
My definition of…
August 25, 2010
The latest issue of ISTL has just been released and, as usual, it's filled with very interesting-looking articles.
The table of contents is below:
Metrics and Science Monograph Collections at the Marston Science Library, University of Florida by Michelle F. Leonard, Stephanie C. Haas, and Vernon N…
August 24, 2010
I'm just finishing four weeks of vacation, a nice break from the regular routine. No, I don't get the whole summer off because I work at a university. I do get four weeks of vacation every year and when you work at a university it just makes sense to take it all in the summer.
Anyways, we didn't…
August 23, 2010
The Who is pretty well my favourite band of all time. Without a doubt. Way back in the seventies (yes, I'm that old) when everyone else was arguing about whether the Beatles or the Stones were the greatest rock 'n roll band in the world, I always argued it was The Who. Townshend, Daltry, Moon…
August 21, 2010
From the Eligibility and Submission Requirements page:
The annual Lane Anderson Award will honour two jury-selected books, adult and young reader, published in the field of science by Canadian-owned publishers, and authored by Canadians. The winner in each category will receive $10,000.
Two three-…
August 20, 2010
Check it out: Scienceblogging.org. On twitter too!
Thanks to Dave Munger, Bora Zivkovic and Anton Zuiker for coming up with what we've all been waiting for -- a way to keep track of all the new science blogging networks that have been sprouting up everywhere lately.
From Bora's Drumroll, please!…
August 20, 2010
Ah, zombies. I found myself feeling a certain, ah, nostalgia for the good old days when I used to post non-stop about shambling dead, decaying wrecks. The good old days, way back at the beginning of July and even earlier.
I seem to be obsessed.
So, from Cracked: 7 Scientific Reasons a Zombie…
August 19, 2010
A nice post from computer scientist Amy Csizmar Dalal on Five things that helped me survive summer:
5. Interlibrary loan and ebooks (tie). I am almost certain that I have checked more out of the library through interlibrary loan this summer than I have in my previous 7 years at Carleton combined.…
August 16, 2010
I actually read the freely downloadable version of Cory Doctorow's novel Makers on my Kobo ereader, even though I did buy the hardcover when it came out last year. Mostly, I wanted to check out the experience of reading a long text on my reader. Overall, the Kobo reading experience was terrific,…
August 13, 2010
I'm still enjoying my informal, semi-serious, so-funny-it-hurts Friday Fun series on the slings and arrows of online social media/networking practices.
The first three have been:
5 Signs You're Talking To A Social Media Douchebag
5 Terms Social Media Douchebags Need To Stop Using
5 Things Serious…
August 12, 2010
I recently had an interesting online exchange with Andrew Colgoni, Science Fluencies Libraries at McMaster University in Hamilton, ON. (blog).
He's interested in how I somehow seem up-to-date on all the various cool conferences and happenings in the Science 2.0 space. While I'm not sure I have all…
August 11, 2010
Consider this a bonus Friday Fun entry for the summer silly season...
Anyways, the Cronk of Higher Ed finally sees fit to subject librarians to the mockery we deserve: Librarians Abandon Dewey Decimal System in Favor of Netflix Categories!
"We found that we were spending an extraordinary amount of…
August 10, 2010
Now that's an attention-getter!
It comes from Ted Chiang's Big Idea post on John Scalzi's blog Whatever. It's a promotional piece for Chiang's latest book, The Lifecycle of Software Objects, which is about artificial intelligence.
For those of you that haven't heard of him, Chiang is one of the…
August 9, 2010
Eugene Wallingford of the blog Knowing and Doing was at the SIGCSE Computer Science Education conference this past spring and as usual he provides a very fine report over a number of posts.
SIGCSE DAY 0 -- Media Computation Workshop
I headed to SIGCSE a day early this year in order to participate…
August 6, 2010
Today's Friday Fun continues the curious informal summer series of light-hearted takes on social media/network etiquette, begun two weeks ago with 5 signs you're talking with a social media douchebag and last week with 5 terms social media douchebags need to stop using.
This time around it's 5…
August 5, 2010
Dorothea Salo asks the question over on The Book of Trogool.
What do you, scientists, want librarians to know about how you communicate with other scientists? Where do you feel uncertain about the process? Where do you think it's coming up short? Do you think the process should change, and if so…
August 5, 2010
Thanks to Mike the Mad Biologist for tagging me with this meme. Like Mike, I'm not much of a memer, but this one looks interesting (and simple) enough to give a try.
The idea is to "Sum up your blogging motivation, philosophy and experience in exactly 10 words" and then to tag 10 further blogs.
So…
