Category: Scholarly Communication

New Book: Vanishing Act: The Erosion of Online Footnotes and Implications for Scholarship in the Digital Age

by RoryLitwin

Vanishing Act: The Erosion of Online Footnotes and Implications for Scholarship in the Digital Age Authors: Michael Bugeja and Daniela Dimitrova Price: $18.00 Published: Summer 2010 ISBN: 978-1-936117-14-7 Printed on acid-free paper A decade ago, most research was done in the library rather than through its Web site, and scholars, editors, graduate directors and librarians … Read more New Book: Vanishing Act: The Erosion of Online Footnotes and Implications for Scholarship in the Digital Age

A Seismic Shift in Epistemology

by RoryLitwin

John Buschman sent a link out this morning to this article by Chris Dede in the current EDUCAUSE Review, “A Seismic Shift in Epistemology. The article examines the deep changes in the meaning of knowledge in the academy and elsewhere that are being effected by new technologies, with a focus on Wikipedia and other Web … Read more A Seismic Shift in Epistemology

The constraining effects of information privatization: Google’s purchase and shutdown of Paper of Record

by RoryLitwin

From today’s Inside Higher Ed, “Digital Archives That Disappear,” a brief article about Google’s shutdown of the historical newspaper archive Paper of Record, which it secretly purchased in 2006. This is a good example of what many people have feared about Google’s success – that turning over information resources from shared, public control in library-related … Read more The constraining effects of information privatization: Google’s purchase and shutdown of Paper of Record

Open Invitation

by RoryLitwin

Librarians facing an expanse of free time this economic season, please contact me with your project ideas for Library Juice Press. I know from first-hand experience how good unemployment can be for creative projects, and how creative projects can end up leading to employment or at least things to boast about on a resumé. Let … Read more Open Invitation

Call for Papers: The Society for Textual Scholarship

by RoryLitwin

CALL FOR PAPERS The Society for Textual Scholarship Fourteenth Biennial International Interdisciplinary Conference March 18-21, 2009, New York University Program Co-Chairs: Andrew Stauffer, Boston University [astauff@bu.edu]; John Young, Marshall University [youngj@marshall.edu] Deadline for Proposals: October 31, 2008 The Program Chairs invite the submission of full panels or individual papers devoted to interdisciplinary discussion of current … Read more Call for Papers: The Society for Textual Scholarship

Lewis Lapham on education and intellectual life in the postmodern USA

by RoryLitwin

Kevin Arthur has posted a few paragraphs from recent article by Lewis Lapham on the education and intellectual life in the United States. Kevin picked out a few choice parts that concern the place of the humanities in the technological age (this being the focus of his blog), but Library Juice readers may be interested … Read more Lewis Lapham on education and intellectual life in the postmodern USA

Electronic journal access found to reduce breadth of citations

by RoryLitwin

Noting an article of interest: “Electronic Publication and the Narrowing of Science and Scholarship” Science 18 July 2008: Vol. 321. no. 5887, pp. 395 – 399 DOI: 10.1126/science.1150473 James Evans finds that scholars’ access to online journals tends to reduce the breadth of the citations to other articles in their work; that is, articles outside … Read more Electronic journal access found to reduce breadth of citations

Drug companies authoring articles in medical journals and adding scientists as authors after the studies are written

by RoryLitwin

Here’s some predictable news: A group of four researchers have published findings in the new issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association showing that articles in medical journals are often written by drug companies and publishers, with legitimate scientists added as authors when the articles are submitted. Their research was based on court … Read more Drug companies authoring articles in medical journals and adding scientists as authors after the studies are written

How library research is really done

by RoryLitwin

David Bade pointed me to this very interesting talk (in transcript form) by Andrew Abbott of the University of Chicago, given as the Windsor Lecture at the University of Illinois this month: Library Research and Its Infrastructure in the Twentieth Century. This paper is the author’s own ethnography of library research by scholars in the … Read more How library research is really done

Interview with Toni Samek

by RoryLitwin

The BCLA IFC blog has an interview with Toni Samek, who is a very progressive LIS professor at the University Alberta. Toni writes and teaches on topics in critical librarianship, and had a book published earlier this year from Chandos Press: Librarianship and Human Rights: A Twenty-First Century Guide. The interview at the BCLA IFC … Read more Interview with Toni Samek

Steven Bell tough on LIS discourse in Inside Higher Ed

by RoryLitwin

Steven Bell has an article in the current Inside Higher Ed, entitled, “Good at Reviewing Books But Not Each Other,” about the major disfunctionality in LIS discourse: our excessive “niceness” toward each other and discomfort with open disagreement. In this article, Bell elucidates an uncomfortable contrast between us nice, non-confrontational librarians and academics in other … Read more Steven Bell tough on LIS discourse in Inside Higher Ed

Jesse Shera on academic librarians’ professional values

by RoryLitwin

Here is an excerpt from Jesse Shera’s 1936 article in The Bulletin of the American Library Association, “The College Library and its Future.” (Vol. 30, pp. 495-501.) A PROFESSIONAL CREDO Having seen that technologically librarianship has made significant progress, and that investigatory activities have already achieved impressive beginnings, we now turn our attention to a … Read more Jesse Shera on academic librarians’ professional values

Alternative Lit and Libraries

by RoryLitwin

This post is a compilation of web resources having to do with alternative literature and libraries. It replaces an out-of-date page on my personal site. By “alternative literature” I mean books, magazines, and other written media coming from any of a myriad Left perspectives (socialist, anarchist, green, feminist, queer, or specific-issue-based) and published independently of … Read more Alternative Lit and Libraries

Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past

by RoryLitwin

Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past, by Roy Rosenzweig, originally published in The Journal of American History Volume 93, Number 1 (June, 2006): 117-46, and republished on the web by The Center for History and New Media. This article discusses Wikipedia from an historian’s point of view, and provides … Read more Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past

WSJ claims STM journals rig impact factors

by RoryLitwin

The Wall Street Journal published an article on Monday claiming that science journals routinely manipulate impact factors by encouraging contributors to cite heavily prior articles from the same journals. (The link goes to a login-free copy of the article as found on the Stay Free! blog.) Now, I think it’s true that because many journals … Read more WSJ claims STM journals rig impact factors

“Facts Count”: Examination of David Horowitz’s Dangerous Academics book

by RoryLitwin

Free Exchange on Campus, a coalition of academic and public interest groups formed in response to David Horowitz’s “Academic Bill of Rights” initiative campaign, has just released a major report refuting Horowitz’s book, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. The coalition’s researchers introduce the report… After conducting interviews with the professors in … Read more “Facts Count”: Examination of David Horowitz’s Dangerous Academics book