jdupuis | November 28, 2011Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2011 lists are here.
This post includes the following: The Globe 100.
Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick
Here on Earth: A Natural History of the Planet by Tim Flannery
The…
jdupuis | November 26, 2011
The scandal of publisher-forbidden textmining: The vision denied
Textmining: NaCTeM and Elsevier team up; I am worried
The Trouble With Bright Kids
Yeah, but who pays?
If I were Dean of Graduate Studies: Rethinking the PhD
Our audience awaits
Is librarianship in crisis and should we be talking about it?
The humanities in the culture of research
An Open Letter to MLA Executive Director Rosemary Feal
9 Reasons Publishers Should Stop Acting Like Libraries Are The Enemy and Start Thanking Them
The future in one word: platforms
The Productivity Perplex
NSSE, Peer-Driven Learning, and Getting…
jdupuis | November 25, 2011Kids today! They just can't suffer deprivation like we could back in my day!
Take a look: 'Youngest' expedition to South Pole abandoned after 3rd day without Twitter.
Plucky 20 year-old Belinda Baron had to abandon her attempt to be recognised as the youngest person to reach the South Pole on skis, after becoming cut off from all social networks for nearly 72 hours. Baron described the experience as 'chilling', claiming she hadn't experienced such feelings of isolation since switching her phone off on the flight out.
Baron had spent months planning her expedition, and took advice from…
jdupuis | November 24, 2011Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
For my purposes, I define science books pretty broadly to include science, engineering, computing, history & philosophy of science & technology, environment, social aspects of science and even business books about technology trends or technology innovation. Deciding what is and isn't a science book…
jdupuis | November 23, 2011Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
All the previous 2011 lists are here.
This post includes the following: New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2011.
The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker
The Boy in the Moon: A Father's Journey to Understand His Extraordinary Son by Ian Brown
Destiny of the Republic: A…
jdupuis | November 22, 2011Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure.
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
For my purposes, I define science books pretty broadly to include science, engineering, computing, history & philosophy of science & technology, environment, social aspects of science and even business books about technology trends or technology innovation. Deciding what is and isn't a science book…
jdupuis | November 21, 2011This past Friday there was a one-day symposium on the state of academic librarianship at the University of Toronto entitled Academic Librarianship - A Crisis or an Opportunity?.
In response to recent developments in academic libraries in Ontario and elsewhere, academic librarians are invited to gather to discuss the challenges facing the profession of academic librarianship today.
This one-day Symposium will serve as an opportunity to hear stakeholders' views of the profession as well as an opportunity for academic librarians to explore ways of re-affirming the legitimacy and the integrity of…
jdupuis | November 21, 2011I like to think I'm developing a little niche here on Confessions of a Science Librarian, at least as far as some of my book reviews. And I like to think that niche is reviewing science-oriented graphic novels. And I've reviewed a few over the past couple of years. Logicomix (review), Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth (review) and The Stuff of Life: A Graphic Guide to Genetics and DNA (review).
And now the amazing new graphic novel Feynman, written by Jim Ottaviani and art by Leland Myrick. (Colours by Hilary Sycamore).
Now when I first heard about this new biography of Richard Feynman…
jdupuis | November 18, 2011Yeah, I'm sorta an IT guy, or at least I used to be a real IT guy. I guess now I'm a former fake has-been IT guy.
In any case, this one from Cracked really tickled my cyborg funny bone: 5 True Stories That Prove You Shouldn't Piss Off The IT Guy.
Let's take a quick peek at number 5:
#5. Omar Ramos-Lopez Remotely Shuts Down 100 Cars
If we told you that a young computer whiz disabled more than 100 cars from his computer, you'd probably think "Man, this Hackers remake is gonna suck." That's the sort of wildly impossible feat that could only come from Hollywood's ridiculous conception of…
jdupuis | November 18, 2011It is time. The season of lists begins!
Every year for the last bunch of years I've been linking to and posting about all the "year's best sciencey books" lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year.
From the beginning it's been a pretty popular service so I'm happy to continue it.
For my purposes, I define science books pretty broadly to include science, engineering, computing, history & philosophy of science & technology, environment, social aspects of science and even business books about technology trends or technology innovation…
jdupuis | November 16, 2011It all started with this innocent little tweet from @seelix:
In going through the twitter list, I believe that half the #scio12 people are either a librarian, a marine scientist or named Emily.
To which I responded:
@seelix is there a marine science librarian named Emily? #scio12
@BoraZ had to chime in as well:
The holotype #scio12-er RT @dupuisj: @seelix is there a marine science librarian named Emily? #scio12
With @seelix getting the last word:
Found my new career path! RT @BoraZ The holotype #scio12-er RT @dupuisj: @seelix is there a marine science librarian named Emily? #scio12
Over the…
jdupuis | November 12, 2011
Why Engineering Majors Change Their Minds
Why Science Majors Change Their Minds (It's Just So Darn Hard)
Why The Internet of Things Will Be Open
Access or ownership: Which will be the default?
Designing for the phase change: Local communities and shared infrastructure
There is a pathetic lack of functionality in scholarly publishing. We must end for-profit publishing and allow libraries to make available the works of their scholars for all
Retaining the STEM Dropouts
Finding Scholarship and Scholarship Finding Us
Thoughts on 2011 Open Access Week
"We Don't Read That Way"
The Walled Garden…
jdupuis | November 11, 2011It's not everyday that The Cronk News has a science-themed article but when they do, I'm all over it!
Today it's Agronomy Lab Calls Flesh-Eating Plants "A Mistake."
"Yes, we admit our mistake," says Blackheart. "Of course this doesn't lessen the university's commitment to sound agricultural policy and responsible research. Nor does it reflect negatively in any way on the integrity of our technicians."
When pressed on this point one of the labs' senior researchers, Dr. Seymour Krellburn, admitted that the release was "probably unintended...Actually, someone just accidently dumped the wrong…
jdupuis | November 10, 2011Welcome to the latest installment in my very occasional series of interviews with people in the scitech world. This time around the subject is Michael Nielsen, author of the recently published Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science and prolific speaker on the Open Science lecture circuit. A recent example of his public speaking is his TEDxWaterloo talk on Open Science.
You can follow his blog here and read his recent Wall Street Journal article, The New Einsteins Will Be Scientists Who Share.
I'd like to thank Michael for his provocative and insightful responses. Enjoy…
jdupuis | November 9, 2011I was at The Charleston Conference last week, thanks to Mike Diaz of Proquest who invited me to be on a panel that he moderated, along with Karen Downing and Clifford Lynch. The topic of the panel was Keeping Up with the Things That Matter: Current Awareness Tools and Strategies for Academic Libraries. Karen, Cliff and I came up with different takes on the subject but overall the panel was quite well attended and I think useful and interesting for audience members.
Not surprisingly, my take was a bit on the "stealthy librarian" side of things:
I enjoyed being a bit provocative and think…
jdupuis | November 8, 2011Before heading off to the Charleston Conference last week, I blogged about the big announcement of Pierre Lassonde's big $25 million donation to York to found the Lassonde School of Engineering.
I attended the announcement and livetweeted it quite extensively: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
I also created a Storify story of a fair bit of the quite extensive twitter traffic of the annoucement and that is here. I've embedded the Story at the end of this post. It's mostly tweeting form the day of the announcement but I have…
jdupuis | November 4, 2011OK, the Friday after Halloween. But at least I'm typing this the day after Halloween!
And what might be some of the things you'll regret the day after Halloween?
Ages 45+: Shot a Kid
And every Halloween, teenagers will come around and shit on your stuff. Sometimes figuratively, but also sometimes not. This will, for lack of a strong enough word, make you unhappy.
So one Halloween, you'll find yourself lurking in the bushes in front of your house, armed with a garden hose, waiting to douse young punks with righteous, chilly justice. This is fine and normal, and except for the fact that the…
jdupuis | November 3, 2011
True scientists are irreverent
Bookshops, You Have Three Choices
The three biggest myths about women in tech
On thumb twiddling (how not to run your IR)
Why parents help their children lie to Facebook about age: Unintended consequences of the 'Children's Online Privacy Protection Act'
Tightening the Net: Intellectual property micro-regimes and peer-to-peer practice in higher education networks
The Creepy Librarian Stalker Hypothesis
Students Push Their Facebook Use Further Into Course Work
Hacking (Higher) Education: An Intro
(Some) garbage in, gold out
Building the perfect data repository…
jdupuis | November 1, 2011It's a big day here at York University, especially for us science & engineering types both within the Faculty of Science and Engineering and those of us who support their teaching and research missions. There's a big announcement about the coming expansion of our engineering programs to include many of the more traditional streams, such as electrical and others.
The details are being announced today at a news conference at 1pm. I'll be there livetweeting as will others, I imagine.
There was a first announcement a little while back about some government money that was being committed.…
jdupuis | October 31, 2011Another list of books for your reading and collection development pleasure.
Abelard to Apple: The Fate of American Colleges and Universities by Richard A. DeMillo
When academics get together to talk about the future, they talk mainly to each other, but the American system of higher education has many more stakeholders than that. Over the course of months, the intended audience for what was now clearly becoming a book manuscript shifted noticeably from my academic colleagues to a more general readership--parents, students, taxpayers, elected officials, employers, decision makers at all levels…