Tim Lambert alerts us that a new book about blogging, Uses Of Blogs, edited by Axel Bruns and Joanne Jacobs, is now out.
Joanne Jacobs, John Quiggin, Mark Bahnisch, Jean Burgess and Melissa Gregg are some of the contributors to the book, looking at various uses of blogs, from personal to political, with quite a heavy emphasis on what I am interested in - the uses in academia and teaching. Unfortunately, there is no chapter about uses of blogs by scientists and/or in science, be it reasearch or teaching or popularization of science.
You can get the more complete information, including the Table of Contents on Axel Burns' blog, and you can read the Introduction for free (PDF).
I blog about blogging quite often, both about science blogging and political blogging, including specifically about various Uses Of Blogs for scientists.
Unfortunately, I cannot currently afford the book, but I have placed it on my wish list for later purchase. I hope I can get it before the Fall science blogging seminar where I am supposed to persuade local scientists that blogging is good for their health, just like spinach, and I want to give them examples of various uses of blogs in teaching, research, networking, popularization of science, dispelling the myths, critiquing science reporting in the media, fighting against superstition and religious/political attacks on science, documenting nature, online activism (e.g., environmental) and medical information.
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So, how often do these local blogging meetings of your happen? I am local to your area and doing my best to get into blogging, though I have to admit that I really don't know what I am doing.
August is empty - everyone needs a break, so, like shrinks, bloggers take the August off.
But if you go to http://blogtogether.org site, there is information about blogger meetups in the area (Chapel Hill/Carrboro meetups tend to be more social/political/science/education, while Raleigh and RTP meetups are more techie), various blogger conferences, the Tar Heel Tavern carnival, and other local blogging activities. Everyone is always welcome. E-mail me if you want more information.
I have also been thinking of ways to persuade colleagues to be more open about their research (using a blog for example). I have sketched out a model of how this could work and why we should do it. The main argument for me is that competing for the production of manuscripts, instead of the bits of knowledge required to answer a question, leads to waste of resources. It should be to everyone's advantage to have a more transparent scientific process.