Dark Data – Increasing Transparency And Access To Raw Research
(science20.com): The sharing, preservation and reuse of data has become an increasingly important element of modern scientific research, but even though granting agencies like the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) naturally embrace data sharing, resistance from parts of the scientific community has continued to block… Read More
Transformation of a traditional library service into a Learning Commons
(conferences.alia.org.au): Libraries are spoilt for choice as each technological advance seems to open up exciting and boundless possibilities. Latterly, the development of intelligent mobile devices such as iPhones and iPads have raised the prospect of providing access to learning tasks and materials with a flexibility which would have seemed magical… Read More
The case of the vanishing taxonomists
(theglobeandmail.com): Just as our planet's organisms have begun dying off, the scientists who classify them have also begun to decline. This could have dire implications. Taxonomy faces a staggering enterprise. In the 250 years since Carl Linnaeus invented the system of classification still in wide use, about 1.9 million plants… Read More
NIH expands key pharmacogenomics resource
(pharmpro.com): The goal of pharmacogenomics is to use information about a patient's genetic make-up to optimize his or her medical treatment. As the field has grown, so has PharmGKB. Begun in 2000 to catalog links between human genetic variation and drug responses, the PharmGKB website is now a centralized hub… Read More
German Court Rules Against Google in Copyright Case
(blogs.wsj.com): The Hamburg Regional Court in Germany ruled that Google is liable for videos uploaded by users on YouTube that violate German copyright laws. The court said Google asking users whether they have the right to post videos doesn’t relieve the Internet giant of the responsibility to seek proof from… Read More
Are TVs and Smartphones the Future of the Internet?
(connectedworldmag.com): The days of the personal computer as the main gateway to the Internet are numbered, as new categories of connected devices show enormous potential. Two of these market segments—smartphones and connected TVs—could be set to change the way we access information and entertainment. Read More
The Editorial Fallacy
(scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org): The editorial fallacy is the belief that all of a publisher’s strategic problems can be solved by pursuing and publishing the finest books and articles. The publishers of journals know that not all things are equal. There are significant advantages to those few publishers that can offer bundling (the… Read More
Peer reviewers swamped, so extras get the heave-ho
(timeshighereducation.co.uk): A biomedical journal has sparked debate about transparency and the limits of peer review after announcing that it will no longer accept extra material submitted with academic papers. Until now, in common with many scientific journals, The Journal of Neuroscience has hosted supplementary material - additional content that can… Read More
China to double science communicators by 2020
(scidev.net): China will double its number of science communicators to four million by 2020, according to the Chinese Association for Science and Technology. The association will train and support professional communicators to work in rural areas and museums Read More
E-Books: What a Librarian Wants
(chronicle.com): Many university presses are working hard to figure out how to be effective players in the e-book market. What do academic libraries want when it comes to e-books? Users have made their own shift toward digital materials. The University of Chicago Library recently did a survey of Chicago's graduate… Read More
