PLoS ONE, an open access publishing site created by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), has instituted a ratings system for articles published through them.
By asking readers to rate every article they read for insight, reliability, and style, they are hoping to provide another means by which to allow the best articles to be found by researchers.
found on Open Access News
A Quick Look of a Few Free Science Search Tools is a post on ResourceShelf (if you only have time to follow two blogs, they should be the other one!) that provides a good starting point for finding free and/or open access science resouces on the web.
Foreign Languages : Translations and Translators is a collection of links from Academic-Geneology.com to help with many of your translation needs.
from a posting to Web4Lib
An interesting, but non-conclusive, study has found that open access journals are ten times less likely to cease publication than their traditional counterparts. Might this become a reason for journals to adopt open access – namely to broaden readership and improve their chances of survival?
from Open Access News
If you want to be, um, whelmed by both the number of Google products that exist, as well as how they are interconnected, check out this organizational chart from Zorgloob. Clicking on an icon takes you to a page with further information about that product. The chart image can be found here.
I have no idea who/what Zorgloob is, or why he/they created the chart; the link came from Search Engine Land and was too interesting to not post.
Some major updates to Citizendium, the wiki which is intended to become an authoratative wikipedia-type site, have been announced by Larry Sanger. He also summarized his own announcement here.
found on Open Access News
The Joy of Computing Cookbook (pdf) comes from the excellent MaintainIT Project, and is an excellent resource for smaller, rural libraries who are trying to manage their technology within confined budgets and tightened schedules.
Like the MaintainIT project, the project is collaborative in nature, drawing upon the experiences of librarians and library staff from all over. It is also another example of how the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is helping the libraries that most need help.
One suggestion: because it would be a handy alternative for many, I recommend that the project make the book available in paper form, via a print-on-demand company like Lulu.com. They could offer the book at cost, which would let people have a traditional book option for this excellent resource.
from BlogJunction
The Library Fix is the title of Garrison Keillor‘s current column, and presents his take on the long-term role that libraries can play in society. It also appears in today’s Chicago Tribune, though you may need to register for access.
It also reminded me of the first library I worked in, a Carnegie library in Brookfield, IL. It was warm in summer, cold in winter, drafty, and the antithesis of ADA compliance, but it was a charming building. Its replacement is a good library building, but doesn’t have the same charming feel to it.
Google as Publisher : Is Google Poised for a New Push into the Information Industry? is a report for sale ( for $1,295.00!!!) by Outsell Inc. detailing how the world’s largest search company would be able to become one of the world’s top publishers “with the flip of a switch.”
For those of us without the chunk of change to purchase the article, their Press Release will just have to do.
In regards to the report, it would be a financial gain for Google to start selling the public domain books they have scanned. They would become the world’s largest print-on-demand company, and could reduce the number of out-of-print books significantly. Food for thought….
found on Open Access News
The Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) has just been made easier to set up and use.
The brief summary: create a page of links to web resources you feel are useful and appropriate for a given topic. Via Google, you generate a short bit of code that is added to the page, and you have a search tool that will let people do a full-text Google search on all of those resources — without you having to maintain anything other than the page of links. If you add or remove links, the CSE automatically adjusts the search to match. Techie description and details are here.
So if your library has lists of web resources, this may be a way to effectively let your patrons search them for the information they want.
Specifically, Bowker has bought the company that owns AquaBrowser.
Bowker, best known for publishing Books In Print, as well as assigning ISBNs, has bought Medialab Solutions, the Amsterdam company that developed the search interface.
If you haven’t used AquaBrowser lately, try it out.
found on ResourceShelf
This isn’t directly related to libraries, and even the indirect aspect only applies to larger libraries, or libraries within larger institutions, but I thought there were some points of interest in this blog post from an anti-Google blog.
Of special interest to me is how Google handles their IT issues (near the end of the post). They have a local IT person (one per floor, it seems) who handles initial troubleshooting, updating and changing equipment, and other tech-related issues. This looks like a very flexible and quick system to get people what they need to keep working effectively. I have lost count how many times something like this would have been beneficial for a workplace.
Some of the gripes (office space, management structure, insurance) could be a reflection of what that particular employee values in their work experience. They could also reflect growing pains on Google’s part, so I leave it to the reader to decide where they would prefer to work, or at least which of these ideas could be applied to your library.
found on Search Engine Land
The Open Text Book blog was started a few days ago by the Open Knowledge Foundation. In their first post, they describe the blog as:
a place to list and keep track of news about textbooks that are open in accordance with the Open Knowledge Definition – i.e. free to use, reuse, and redistribute. While in the future we may post text book content, for now the site will be mainly used as a registry.
I like how this is gaining momentum. There are certain subjects that would benefit greatly from open texts, and I suspect we shall see more of these over the next few years.
found via Open Access News
WebJunction has launched a Rural Library Sustainability Online Course, and it’s free!
Their site has the following synopsis of the course:
found on BlogJunction
Well, it’s not a list from an official generator of trend lists, but Karen Coombs has posted a Top Tech Trends 2007 list that I think is well thought out and close to the mark.
How quickly (and how completely) these trends become our reality is open to debate, but we should be learning about them, and planning how to keep ourselves, and our libraries, as prepared as possible.
The future is coming!
Scitalks is an online collection of science videos, or as they put it, “Smart people on cool topics”.
Many of their videos feature notable researchers, and the topics range from experiments, to demonstrations, to lectures. Don’t miss the classic Protein synthesis: an epic on the cellular level for your education on how to demonstrate the building of protein molecules using college students.
found on Open Access News
The Kirtas–BookSurge book digitization program has arrived, digitizing books from four libraries using Kirtas’ automated book scanning equipment and BookSurge’s position as an on-demand publishing subsidiary of Amazon.com.
Open Access News has a great overview of it, including why it might be a better deal for the libraries involved than Google’s own project.
A neat little post on MetaFilter on the history of alphabetization. We take it for granted, but someone had to develop the system (and I am sure someone else was there to say “what’s wrong with the way we do it now?”).
Buried somewhat within the comments (which on many MetaFilter posts can be more interesting than the posts themselves) was a link to the Straight Dope’s background on the Dewey Decimal System.
(warning: MetaFilter can be a not-safe-for-work place; there is no telling what types of topics will be posted)
WorldWideScience.org is a federated search tool for science resources sponsored by The British Library, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Scientific and Technical Information, and eight other participating countries. It searches 15 science portals and combines the results for your researching pleasure.
found on ResourceShelf
Lawrence Lessig, chair of Creative Commons, writer for Wired Magazine, and much much more, has announced that he is changing the course of his life, and will be attempting to champion the cause of a democratic society. Don’t read my wholly inadequate summary, however: he words it quite eloquently.
from lessig blog
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Libology Blog
Established July 2006
ISSN: 1946-1852
by Rick Mason
