Tom Keays

I’ve stopped to look over the new issue of Against the Grain, with its symposium asking “Is There Any Such Thing as an Out-of-Print Book Anymore?” The short answer, it seems, is “no.” I feel like a junkie learning there will be heroin in heaven. Against the Grain is written by, and intended for, what could be called the metapublic for scholarly writing: the research librarians, academic press people, booksellers, and digital publishing mavens. This is where they gather to compare notes. For the ordinary bookish person, this fusion of commerce and conversation is intriguing and revelatory. It leaves you with a better sense of what happens to scholarly writing during the interval between the peer-review process and when you look track it down in the library. - Tom Keays

In January 2009, Dan Reetz made a cheap, simple book scanner and in April he put the complete plans online. Since then, a number of people have built their own scanners and made incredible improvements. This site is a place where we can work together to further the art of DIY book scanners and software. - Tom Keays

Resolution adopted November 18, 2009 by the Oberlin College General Faculty: The General Faculty of Oberlin College is committed to disseminating the results of its research and scholarship as widely as possible. - Tom Keays

Google began lifting the veil on its planned Chrome operating system on Thursday, but it said that computers powered by the software would not be available for a year. The new operating system, which is closely tied to Google’s Web browser, also named Chrome, is seen as a potential challenge to Microsoft, whose Windows software powers the vast majority of personal computers. But with the Chrome operating system, Google is not trying to build a better version of Windows. Instead, it is aiming to shift users toward its vision of “cloud computing,” a model in which programs are not installed on a PC but rather are used over the Internet and accessed through a Web browser. In Google’s approach, a user’s data will also reside on servers across the Internet, rather than on their PC. - Tom Keays

The academic library is threatened. On its face, the challenge facing libraries is simple: declining funding. At a time when universities and colleges are pressed for funds, developing archival, book, journal, and electronic collections costs money. Libraries thus face the same challenge faced by other academic units -- the humanities, the social sciences, the classroom in general -- that rely upon rather than generate revenue. The difference is that across the country deans of libraries are giving up the fight and changing their mission rather than fighting to save an important academic institution. Rather than make clear why we need academic libraries, the library’s leaders are seeking instead to become vague learning environments which, when boiled down to their essence, are nothing more than computer labs with sofas and coffee. - Tom Keays

Pittsburgh mayor Luke Ravenstahl, just seven years out of college, is igniting ire with his plan to levy a 1 percent tax on tuition collected by the city’s 10 nonprofit colleges and universities. ntroduced as part of Ravenstahl’s 2010 budget less than a week after he won reelection on Nov. 3, the so-called “Fair Share Tax” would raise $16.2 million in annual revenue for the city, his estimates claim. “We value Pittsburgh’s nonprofit community,” he said as he announced the tax. “They are our major employers, and a big part of why our economy continues to be strong. However, we can no longer afford to provide city services to those who are not paying their fair share.” Students would have to pay between $27 and $409 annually, depending on tuition, to their colleges and universities, which would then remit the money to the city. Students at the Community College of Allegheny County would pay the least and students at Carnegie Mellon University would pay the most. - Tom Keays

Neylon C, Wu S (2009) Article-Level Metrics and the Evolution of Scientific Impact. PLoS Biol 7(11): e1000242. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000242 Formally published papers that have been through a traditional prepublication peer review process remain the most important means of communicating science today. Researchers depend on them to learn about the latest advances in their fields and to report their own findings. The intentions of traditional peer review are certainly noble: to ensure methodological integrity and to comment on potential significance of experimental studies through examination by a panel of objective, expert colleagues. In principle, this system enables science to move forward on the collective confidence of previously published work. Unfortunately, the traditional system has inspired methods of measuring impact that are suboptimal for their intended uses. - Tom Keays

The reader-hacker is first a reader, then a hacker. The reader still wants good books, often in print, though e-books meet certain needs too. The reader still wants a good story or a proper treatment of an idea. But this reader has discovered that technology increases the chances of finding good books, and extends the reading experience in new dimensions. The reader-hacker may simply be web-savvy, though some have advanced technical skills. It is a new breed of reader. - Tom Keays

Here’s a brief history of the Internet, including important dates, people, projects, sites, and other information that should give you at least a partial picture of what this thing we call the Internet really is, and where it came from. - Tom Keays

Mitochondria, the cell's energy producers, keep a low profile in terms of their genome. Descended from free-living bacteria that took up residence within other cells some 2 billion years ago, they've maintained a modest genetic repertoire — a mere 37 genes in vertebrates, compared with more than 20,000 in a nucleus. Yet within this little genome, researchers have pinpointed a 648-nucleotide stretch as the ultimate identifier of species, dubbed the DNA bar code. The sequence can distinguish between closely related species such as humans and chimps and even classify new species from identical-looking ones. The DNA bar code has been both praised and attacked for its simplicity. Many assume that it misses taxonomic subtleties that can be revealed only through traditional systematics or more extensive sequencing. However, proponents take the criticisms in their stride. - Tom Keays

Dmitry Baranovskiy, the creator of the Raphaël and gRaphaël JavaScript libraries, has little patience for poorly-written JavaScript like the code he found in Google’s just-released Closure Library. Having delivered a talk on how to write your own JavaScript library at the the Edge of the Web conference, Dmitry shared his thoughts on the new library over breakfast the next morning. “Just what the world needs—another sucky JavaScript library,” he said. When I asked him what made it ‘sucky’, he elaborated. “It’s a JavaScript library written by Java developers who clearly don’t get JavaScript.” For the rest of the day, to anyone who would listen, Dmitry cited example after example of the terrible code he had found when he went digging through Closure. His biggest fear, he told me, was that people would switch from truly excellent JavaScript libraries like jQuery to Closure on the strength of the Google name. - Tom Keays

He said he really appreciated my presentation on prewriting and on developing a regular writing routine. Then he admitted that he struggles with writing and that my experience with procrastination resonated with him. But this was his dilemma. He had a deadline for his master’s thesis in a few months and how does he go about trying to employ these new writing techniques while also getting a thesis written? Isn’t that too much to take on? - Tom Keays

The more Verizon gouges, the worse it looks. In time, the only people who will stay with Verizon are people who have no coverage with any other carrier. Every company's dream, right? A base of miserable customers who stick with you only because they have no choice. I realize that it's a business, that Verizon exists to make money. But the part I don't get is, why doesn't Verizon calculate the business cost of making customers unhappy? Surely some accountant can show that customer anger over these fees and dirty button tricks translate into negative corporate image, and therefore lost business. Why wouldn't it be a hugely profitable move to start pitching yourself as the GOOD cell company, the one that actually LIKES its customers? - Tom Keays

The more Verizon gouges, the worse it looks. In time, the only people who will stay with Verizon are people who have no coverage with any other carrier. Every company's dream, right? A base of miserable customers who stick with you only because they have no choice. I realize that it's a business, that Verizon exists to make money. But the part I don't get is, why doesn't Verizon calculate the business cost of making customers unhappy? Surely some accountant can show that customer anger over these fees and dirty button tricks translate into negative corporate image, and therefore lost business. Why wouldn't it be a hugely profitable move to start pitching yourself as the GOOD cell company, the one that actually LIKES its customers? - Tom Keays

Ithaka S+R has completed a multi-year investigation of innovative funding models to sustain digital projects, culminating in a summary paper and twelve detailed case studies. Now, Ithaka has produced three briefing papers for use across the public sector, highlighting suggestions drawn from this project, and suggesting how the examples provided by some of the case studies might be useful to specific professional areas of digital content creation and curation. If you are a curator, archivist, librarian, digital project leader or involved in digital content provision at any level, these briefing papers provide tailored guidance at a glance. - Tom Keays

unAPI is a very simple protocol to let a machine know what other formats a document is available in. Zotero is a bibliographic management tool (like Endnote or Refworks) that operates as a Firefox plugin. And it speaks unAPI. Let’s get them to play nice with each other! - Tom Keays

The DuraCloud project is a pilot program that is exploring the use of cloud computing technologies to test the perpetual access to digital content. The pilot will focus on a new cloud-based service (DuraCloud) developed and hosted by the DuraSpace organization. Among the NDIIPP partners participating in the DuraCloud pilot program are the New York Public Library and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Cloud technologies use remote computers to provide local services through the Internet. DuraCloud will let an institution provide data storage and access without having to maintain its own dedicated technical infrastructure. Partners: New York Public Library; Biodiversity Heritage Library; Duraspace - Tom Keays

Sheldon Stone, professor of physics in The College of Arts and Sciences, was quoted in the Christian Science Monitor in a story on the physicist working on the CERN’s Large Hadron Collider who is accused of collaborating with an Al Qaeda spinoff group. - Tom Keays

Research by Bruce Hudson, professor of chemistry in The College of Arts and Sciences, and his colleagues was featured in a SpectroscopyNow.com article on Raman spectroscopy and organic ferroelectrics. - Tom Keays

In January 2009, the Library of Congress (LC) contracted with R2 Consulting LLC (R2) to investigate and describe current approaches to the creation and distribution of MARC records in US and Canadian libraries. The primary focus is on the economics of existing practice, in effect mapping the “marketplace” for cataloging records, including incentives for and barriers to production. The underlying question is whether sufficient cataloging capacity exists in North America, and how that capacity is distributed. This project was designed to be descriptive rather than prescriptive, seeking to understand in detail the ways in which cataloging records are produced and distributed, as well as who bears the costs and who realizes the value. We are not attempting to offer solutions or suggest changes, though some have become obvious as we’ve looked at the data. - Tom Keays

The manner in which copyright law is being applied to academe in the digital age is destructive to the advancement of human knowledge and culture, and higher education is doing nothing about it, according to Lawrence Lessig, speaking at the 2009 Educause Conference here. In his talk, Lessig described how digital and Web technology has exploded the conditions under which copyright law had been written. “If copyright law, at its core, regulates something called ‘copies,’ then in the analog world… many uses of culture were copyright-free. They didn’t trigger copyright law, because no copy was made. But in the digital world, very few uses are copyright-free because in the digital world … all uses produce a copy.” The paradigm for copyright law enforcement emerged out of this "analog world" as a way of ensuring authors were remunerated for their contributions to culture, thereby creating an incentive to make further contributions and drive the progress on human art and discovery forward. - Tom Keays

Data analysis skills are critical to staying competitive in the 21st century economy. In this webcast the author of "Head First Data Analysis," Michael Milton, provides some useful tips for common data problems that everyone faces, including: -How to enhance your career (and save the world) by applying the tools of data analysis to your problems. -How to make messy data well-structured and squeaky clean. -How to create and interpret the most powerful chart you've never used: the histogram. - Tom Keays

To annotate an organism's genome, biological information about the organism must be matched to the genes and genetic elements in the sequenced genome. The process is iterative and open-ended: new information is constantly incorporated into the annotation. It can also be recursive: analysis of the annotation may provide insight about the organism that in turn leads to changes to the annotation. Unfortunately, the generation of new information and annotation of the genome are at present completely separate processes. Often new information does not become incorporated into the annotation in a timely manner, a costly loss for those who rely on it to advance their research. - Tom Keays

As I discovered on a three-day trip this year, the passage, which travels 132 miles from McKeesport, Pa., to Cumberland, Md., is part industrial history lesson, part nature excursion and part fun house, with thrilling and spooky moments: barely lighted corridors through mountainsides, whitecaps on rivers a hundred feet below and the lonely sound of a freight-train whistle. Word is getting out that the trail is a world-class biking destination. - Tom Keays

The Kids’ Science Challenge online competition encourages third- through sixth-grade students to submit experiments and problems for scientists to solve in any of three categories. It’s a classic “who done it.” The prize-winning brownies are missing and it’s up to kids across the nation to learn to use science to solve “The Brownie Caper.” The mystery is part of the 2010 Kids’ Science Challenge (Year 2) “Detective Science” category. The category features the Forensic Science Program in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences, the Onondaga County Wallie Howard Jr. Center for Forensic Sciences and four students from Central New York schools. - Tom Keays

In the past decade, the proliferation of Web 2.0 tools for sharing and creating knowledge, coupled with the creation of open-access journals, databases, and archives across the web, has begun to redefine the concept of “openness” in higher education. Advocates of the open-access campaign argue that free, virtual access to scholarly works and research advance scientific discovery and lead to faster knowledge dissemination and richer research collaborations, throwing open the doors that once restricted knowledge sharing and exploration. Critics of the movement have doubted its economic sustainability and raised concerns about its impact on peer review. Regardless, open access requires a new examination of campus copyright and publishing policy. Join us as we discuss the strategies and definitions behind open access and its implications for campus IT, librarians, administrators, and policy offices. - Tom Keays

Although the impact of a published study can be measured many ways, the most common tactic has been to tally how often, over the years, others cite the study in their published works. A small industry has emerged over the past half century to quantify these citations. A new analysis has now compared citation counts from three different companies and shown that their performance differs. At least when it comes to published biomedical studies, some citation indices may make a given piece of work appear substantially more — or less — influential than do others. For their new analysis, Abhaya Kulkarni of the Hospital for Sick Children, in Toronto, and his colleagues compared three indexing services: the Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar. All regularly index thousands of biomedical and medical journals, books and more. - Tom Keays

Buying a single article from a scientific journal is usually prohibitively expensive if you are not a student or teacher at a school that subscribes to the journal. Most academic journals are available only behind these paywalls, but Deep Dyve just announced a new product that could radically change the marketplace for scientific, technical and medical articles. Until now, Deep Dyve only indexed articles and directed users to the journal's own site. Starting today, users can rent articles from Deep Dyve. Deep Dyve offers a plethora of features, including persistent searches, email, RSS alerts and the ability to bookmark articles. This new and potentially disruptive business model is intriguing. The company has indexed over 30 million articles from thousands of journals. Most of these weren't easily available to the public until now. Few users would buy an article for $30 when confronted with a journal paywall. $0.99, though, is a far more palatable price. - Tom Keays

The Open Dinosaur Project was founded to involve scientists and the public alike in developing a comprehensive database of dinosaur limb bone measurements, to investigate questions of dinosaur function and evolution. We have three major goals:1) do good science; 2) do this science in the most open way possible; and 3) allow anyone who is interested to participate. And by anyone, we mean anyone! We do not care about your education, geographic location, age, or previous background with paleontology. The only requirement for joining us is that you share the goals of our project and are willing to help out in the efforts. - Tom Keays