jdupuis | February 24, 2015Welcome to my latest "liberation bibliography" project. This time around I'm gathering resources concerning the recent rather worrying trend towards people not vaccinating their children. In particular the last couple of months have seen multiple cases where vaccination has been in the news, from statements by politicians, outbreaks among hockey players and at amusement parks and many others. There's been an awful lot written about vaccines and their safety recently and my aim here is to gather some of the best information, both in terms of outlining the main events as well as some commentary…
jdupuis | February 11, 2015
Why Science Journal Paywalls Have to Go
Authors or journal editors: Who faces more pressure in the academic publishing system?
STM Consultation on Article Sharing (Draft principles here)
ICOLC Response to the International Association of Scientific Technical and Medical (STM) Statement
A second front
STM’s new publishing licenses raise antitrust concerns amid wider efforts to pollute open access standards.
Scientists have the power to change the publishing system
The costs for going Gold in the Netherlands
Springer and universities take key step towards open access (The Netherlands)
CERN and…
jdupuis | February 3, 2015As I mentioned last week, I did a presentation at the recent Ontario Library Association Super Conference using my work on Canadian science policy as a case study in altmetrics.
Here's the session description:
802F Altmetrics in Action: Documenting Cuts to Federal Government Science: An Altmetrics Case Study
The gold standard for measuring scholarly impact is journal article citations. In the online environment we can expand both the conception of scholarly output and how we measure their impact. Blog posts, downloads, page views, comments on blogs, Twitter or Reddit or Stumpleupon mentions…
jdupuis | February 3, 2015The default mode, politically-speaking, for most scientists seems to be professionally neutral. In other words, most scientists would tend to see their personal political beliefs as more or less completely separate from their work as scientists. Even for politically sensitive topics like climate change, the tendency is to focus on the the best available evidence rather than commenting more directly on the potential policy implications of that evidence. Only by maintaining that politcal neutrality with scientists will be able to maintain their surface veneer of objectivity. If you're too…
jdupuis | January 27, 2015On May 20th, 2013 I published my most popular post ever. It was The Canadian War on Science: A long, unexaggerated, devastating chronological indictment. In it, I chronicled at some considerable length the various anti-science measures by the current Canadian Conservative government. The chronological aspect was particularly interesting as you could see the ramping up since the 2011 election where the Conservatives won a majority government after two consecutive minority Conservative governments. The post is my most popular by an of magnitude, with around 10 times more page views that the…
jdupuis | January 26, 2015I'm doing a presentation at this week's Ontario Library Association Super Conference on a case study of my Canadian War on Science work from an altmetrics perspective. In other words, looking at non-traditional ways of evaluating the scholarly and "real world" impact of a piece of research. Of course, in this case, the research output under examination is itself kind of non-traditional, but that just makes it more fun.
The Canadian War on Science post I'm using as the case study is here.
Here's the session description:
802F Altmetrics in Action: Documenting Cuts to Federal Government…
jdupuis | January 20, 2015As you all have no doubt noticed over the years, I love highlighting the best science books every year via the various end of year lists that newspapers, web sites, etc. publish. I've done it so far in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
And here we are in 2014!
As in previous years, my definition of "science books" is pretty inclusive, including books on technology, engineering, nature, the environment, science policy, history & philosophy of science, geek culture and whatever else seems to be relevant in my opinion.
Today's list is Kirkus Reviews.
The Human Age: The World Shaped by…
jdupuis | January 18, 2015As you all have no doubt noticed over the years, I love highlighting the best science books every year via the various end of year lists that newspapers, web sites, etc. publish. I've done it so far in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
And here we are in 2014!
As in previous years, my definition of "science books" is pretty inclusive, including books on technology, engineering, nature, the environment, science policy, history & philosophy of science, geek culture and whatever else seems to be relevant in my opinion.
Today's list is Backchannel Top 10 Tech Booksof 2014 part I and II…
jdupuis | January 8, 2015As you all have no doubt noticed over the years, I love highlighting the best science books every year via the various end of year lists that newspapers, web sites, etc. publish. I've done it so far in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
And here we are in 2014!
As in previous years, my definition of "science books" is pretty inclusive, including books on technology, engineering, nature, the environment, science policy, history & philosophy of science, geek culture and whatever else seems to be relevant in my opinion.
Today's list is Cocktail Party Physics My Favorite Physics Books of…
jdupuis | January 7, 2015Think of this as a combination 2014 recap and 2015 resolutions post. Neither of which I really planned to do after doing recaps for the last couple of years. Two years ago, 2013, was very clearly a year I was more obsessed than usual with advocacy around the current Canadian government's treatment of science and information. The year before that, 2012, was a year I was very clearly more obsessed than usual with open access advocacy.
This past year, 2014, was both a relatively light blogging year and a year when my twin obsessions from 2012 and 2013 seemed about tied. So I more or less decided…
jdupuis | January 5, 2015As you all have no doubt noticed over the years, I love highlighting the best science books every year via the various end of year lists that newspapers, web sites, etc. publish. I've done it so far in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
And here we are in 2014!
As in previous years, my definition of "science books" is pretty inclusive, including books on technology, engineering, nature, the environment, science policy, history & philosophy of science, geek culture and whatever else seems to be relevant in my opinion.
Today's list is io9 The Best Science Books of 2014.
Me, Myself and…
jdupuis | December 24, 2014Carlos Bueno's new book, Lauren Ipsum: A Story About Computer Science and Other Improbable Things, is another example of how to create a fun and informative books for kids that is both entertaining and engaging. While not without some faults, it does a great job of using character and story to convey serious ideas about computer science in an accessible way.
The premise of the story is that our plucky heroine, Lauren Ipsum, or Laurie, gets lost in the forest after an argument with her parents and somehow finds her way into the mysterious alternate reality Userland. In order to find her way…
jdupuis | December 22, 2014As you all have no doubt noticed over the years, I love highlighting the best science books every year via the various end of year lists that newspapers, web sites, etc. publish. I've done it so far in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
And here we are in 2014!
As in previous years, my definition of "science books" is pretty inclusive, including books on technology, engineering, nature, the environment, science policy, history & philosophy of science, geek culture and whatever else seems to be relevant in my opinion.
Today's list is Scifri – The Best Science Books of 2014.
The…
jdupuis | December 18, 2014As you all have no doubt noticed over the years, I love highlighting the best science books every year via the various end of year lists that newspapers, web sites, etc. publish. I've done it so far in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
And here we are in 2014!
As in previous years, my definition of "science books" is pretty inclusive, including books on technology, engineering, nature, the environment, science policy, history & philosophy of science, geek culture and whatever else seems to be relevant in my opinion.
Today's list is Wired: The Best Science Books We Read in 2014.…
jdupuis | December 17, 2014As you all have no doubt noticed over the years, I love highlighting the best science books every year via the various end of year lists that newspapers, web sites, etc. publish. I've done it so far in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
And here we are in 2014!
As in previous years, my definition of "science books" is pretty inclusive, including books on technology, engineering, nature, the environment, science policy, history & philosophy of science, geek culture and whatever else seems to be relevant in my opinion.
Today's list is The Guardian Best Books of the Year Science,…
jdupuis | December 15, 2014For those that don't know, Elizabeth May is the leader of the Green Party of Canada and one of only two Greens in the Canadian Parliament -- and the only one elected as a Green. As such, you would expect that she would be a strong advocate for democracy and the environment, willing to stand up to the current Conservative government of Stephen Harper and tell it like it is.
In her latest book, Who We Are: Reflections on My Life and Canada, she does just that in an entertaining and inspiring amalgamation of memoir and manifesto.
This is an amazing book, sarcastic and hopeful but still witty and…
jdupuis | December 9, 2014As you all have no doubt noticed over the years, I love highlighting the best science books every year via the various end of year lists that newspapers, web sites, etc. publish. I've done it so far in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
And here we are in 2014!
As in previous years, my definition of "science books" is pretty inclusive, including books on technology, engineering, nature, the environment, science policy, history & philosophy of science, geek culture and whatever else seems to be relevant in my opinion.
Today's list is NBC News Brainy Reads: Top Science and Tech Books of…
jdupuis | December 8, 2014As you all have no doubt noticed over the years, I love highlighting the best science books every year via the various end of year lists that newspapers, web sites, etc. publish. I've done it so far in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
And here we are in 2014!
As in previous years, my definition of "science books" is pretty inclusive, including books on technology, engineering, nature, the environment, science policy, history & philosophy of science, geek culture and whatever else seems to be relevant in my opinion.
Today's lists are The Washington Post ten best books of 2014 and 50…
jdupuis | December 5, 2014As you all have no doubt noticed over the years, I love highlighting the best science books every year via the various end of year lists that newspapers, web sites, etc. publish. I've done it so far in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
And here we are in 2014!
As in previous years, my definition of "science books" is pretty inclusive, including books on technology, engineering, nature, the environment, science policy, history & philosophy of science, geek culture and whatever else seems to be relevant in my opinion.
Today's list is Physics World Top physics books for 2014.
Wizards,…
jdupuis | December 4, 2014As you all have no doubt noticed over the years, I love highlighting the best science books every year via the various end of year lists that newspapers, web sites, etc. publish. I've done it so far in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
And here we are in 2014!
As in previous years, my definition of "science books" is pretty inclusive, including books on technology, engineering, nature, the environment, science policy, history & philosophy of science, geek culture and whatever else seems to be relevant in my opinion.
Today's list is Library Journal Best Books of 2014.
The Sixth…