Rowland Institute Library Blog

In “How computers change the way we think”, from the January 30 Chronicle of Higher Education (Page B26), Sherry Turkle explores how in terms of privacy, sense of self, sense of reality, “thinking vs. word processing”, “powerful ideas vs. powerpoint” and so forth. (Access restricted to subscribers)

Another study explores inaccurate referencing in scientific literature and attempts to model whether there are patterns; the authors estimate “about 70-90% of scientific citations are copied from the lists of references used in other papers.” Their bibliometric study is based on “twelve high-profile” papers.

Three articles in this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education present the arguments for and against open access journals, digging into the question of subscription versus author-charging, and really including a wide range of voices (researchers, OA advocates, commercial publishers, societies and viewpoints.) A live colloquy takes place on Thursday at 1PM, featuring Peter Suber of Earlham College, creator of Open Access News.

An Associated Press article discusses how weblogs may contribute to, comment on and impact politicial campaigns. While some weblogs are oriented around a specific candidate, some provide journalistic commentary, such as Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo; “blogs let [Marshall] mix news, opinion and personal observations with no meddling from an editor.” Further, the article mentions how blogs synthesize and digest information from mulitple disparate sources. Some take a jaundiced view of political weblogs, however; a GOP operative described bloggers as “armchair analysts in their bathrobes (with) no serious interest in leaving their living rooms to actually help the campaigns.”

The awards, for “outstanding scientific achievements” will presented at the Academies annual meeting on April 19. (Source: Chemical and Engineering News)

The Kept-Up Academic Librarian summarizes recent developments in academia from a wide range of sources (NYT, Chronicle, Educause, etc.), covering issues such as instruction, tenure, endowments, because we need more than one source to tell us what’s going on. (Source: Library Stuff)

I always enjoy reading LLRX.com, a monthly web publication. Though it’s focus is on law libraries and legal information, many articles are of interest to the general reader. A column from this month discusses which federal agencies are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. The Grammar Goddess is frequently full of surprises and good reminders. The feature reviews legal sources on the Children’s Internet Protection Act. Other issues have featured varied topics such as airlines, personal technology and presentations. (Thanks to beSpacific)

A Chronicle of Higher Education article (access restricted to subscribers) reports on problems faced by female graduate students and researchers in physics labs, particularly at Duke University. A colloquy, “the Physics of gender bias” is scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 21 at 1 PM EST on the Chronicle web site. (See also an earlier article in the Gazette reporting a study on women and minorities in the sciences.)

A Boston Globe article examines a surge in stock of nanotechnology companies and some of the key collaborations between industry and local universities. (Source; Harvard in the News)

American Journal of Physics features a review of physics books for the general public, citing and commenting on texts from a variety of topics.