Recently in links and resources Category

From Symposium on the Role of Scientific and Technical Data and Information in the Public Domain:

"The body of scientific and technical data and information (STI)* in the public domain is massive and has contributed broadly to the economic, social, and intellectual vibrancy of our nation. The “public domain” may be defined in legal terms as sources and types of data and information whose uses are not restricted by statutory intellectual property laws or by other legal regimes, and that are accordingly available to the public for use without authorization. In recent years, however, there have been growing legal, economic, and technological pressures that restrict the creation and availability of public-domain information—scientific and otherwise. It is therefore important to review the role, value, and limits on public domain STI."

From Information Environments and Learning Environments?:

"In a white paper Neil McLean and Clyfford Lynch try to give an overview of the many problems that arise when the educational world meets the library world, just after both have met the ICT world. Basically, they say that both worlds don't know each other. Sadly, this paper will not change that."

Nice observations and critique.

Article:
Towards a European Framework for the Re-use of Public Sector Information: a Long and Winding Road
by Katleen Janssen and Jos Dumortier

Abstract:
"Information owned by public sector bodies has, next to democratic importance, a considerable economic value for the industry in general and the information industry in particular. Since the 1980s, the European Commission has tried to stimulate the public sector to make its information available for re-use. In June 2002, it finally presented a proposal for a directive on this subject. This article gives an overview of events and documents leading to this proposal and attempts to make an assessment of the proposal. It is updated until 1 February, 2003."

The Year of the Blog: Weblogs in the Writing Classroom provides a set of educational related blogging resources.

Especially interesting are the viewpoints on blogs as writing practice, blogs as class content, and Academics Who Blog (under more resources).

The writings present the 'other' side of blogs and blogging, the side that is less talked about in the press. However, this side might emerge to be the most important one as far as education, academia, and research are considered.

A great resource! Nice food for thought! :)

The Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography

"This bibliography presents selected English-language articles, books, and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet. Most sources have been published between 1990 and the present; however, a limited number of key sources published prior to 1990 are also included. Where possible, links are provided to sources that are freely available on the Internet."

Check the TOC.

Here is an article describing the bibliography, publsihed in The Journal of Electronic Publishing.

ACRL's Principles and Strategies for the Reform of Scholarly Communication (June 2003):

"Scholarly communication is the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated to the scholarly community, and preserved for future use. The system includes both formal means of communication, such as publication in peer-reviewed journals, and informal channels, such as electronic listservs. This document addresses issues related primarily to the formal system of scholarly communication."

The European network for Information Literacy (EnIL):

"The European network for Information Literacy (EnIL) aims at opening a discourse on Information Literacy at European level, in order to promoting the establishment of a Culture of Information in Europe."

Greenstone Digital Library Open Source Software:

"Greenstone is a suite of software for building and distributing digital library collections. It provides a new way of organizing information and publishing it on the Internet or on CD-ROM. Greenstone is produced by the New Zealand Digital Library Project at the University of Waikato, and developed and distributed in cooperation with UNESCO and the Human Info NGO. It is open-source, multilingual software, issued under the terms of the GNU General Public License"

From http://www.dspace.org/:

"DSpace is a groundbreaking digital institutional repository designed to capture, store, index, preserve, and redistribute the intellectual output of a university’s research faculty in digital formats."

"Developed jointly by MIT Libraries and Hewlett-Packard (HP), DSpace is now freely available to research institutions worldwide as an open source system that can be customized and extended. DSpace is designed for ease-of-use, with a web-based user interface that can be customized for institutions and individual departments."

Definition of information design from InfoDesign:

"Information Design is the intentional process in which information related to a domain is transformed in order to obtain an understandable representation of that domain." [Peter J. Bogaards, 1994]

STC Information Design SIG
InfoDesign
Information Design Theory - A representation in the making
INFORMATION DESIGN ATELIER - R&D in information theory
Information Design and Technology program at Georgia Tech
Information Design - Tech Head Stories A nice collection of resources
organic information design [A Thesis]

How to Publish in Top Journals by Kwan Choi, is a very valuable resource to any publisher, especially to current Ph.D. students on the road to academia and publishing.

Brief and to the point, it covers the following topics:

- Introduction
- General Publication Strategies
- Writing Strategies
- Preparation and Submission
- Rejection and Revision
- Being a Good Referee
- Questions and Answers

From The Open Archives Initiative:

"The Open Archives Initiative develops and promotes interoperability standards that aim to facilitate the efficient dissemination of content. The Open Archives Initiative has its roots in an effort to enhance access to e-print archives as a means of increasing the availability of scholarly communication. Continued support of this work remains a cornerstone of the Open Archives program."

Greg Schwartz of Open Stack has written an interesting and very informative article on why Blogs [matter] for Libraries.

"Blogs are perfect for this kind of information dissemination as the system of dated entries makes it easy for viewers to identify new content. The Suburban Library System has gone so far as to make a blog the central content of their home page. A number of the system's libraries have caught the fever as well. Librarians at St. Joseph County Public Library in South Bend, Indiana are being encouraged to use their respective knowledge domains to publish topical blogs. So far, they offer a Book Blog and a Sights and Sounds Blog. Notice that blogs can represent both the collective voice of the organization and the diversity of the individuals that comprise it."

Nicely said ...

Courtesy of Information Literacy Weblog:

"For those interested in information society issues, and interesting website is World-Information.Org This is "a collaborative effort of organizations and individuals who are directly concerned with issues of participatory involvement in Information and Communication Technologies, and the Internet as we know it today." It involves artists, scientists and others, and encourages a creative and critical approach to the internet and digital media. They organise conferences and exhibitions (with some online material), and their Read me section includes some interesting material (e.g. on "disinformation", the role of government intelligence etc.)"

Open Access News is an excellent up-to-date blog dedicated to:

"Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature on the internet. Making it available free of charge and free of licensing restrictions. Removing the barriers to serious research. "

You may also want to check the The SPARC Open Access Newsletter and its archives.

(found this link via ResourceShelf)

Stevens at librarystuff has done a great job in proving lengthy repository (ongoing and fresh) of library resources.

librarystuff: "The library weblog dedicated to resources for keeping current and professional development."

The THE INTERNET COURSES Weblogs by Dr L. Anne Clyde, is an extensive weblog/blog and blogging resource page.

Apart from the blog and blogging resources it also provides a list of LIS related blogs.

However, the most interesting link on this page is the one pointing to a test that can answer the question Are You a Blogaholic? Try it.. it is fun :)

Courtesy of Blogroots:

"Blog Change Bot Blog Change Bot (blogchangebot on AIM) is a blog monitoring service which updates you via AOL Instant Messanger when a blog you are interested in is updated. Subscribe via AIM or iChat to be automatically notified when the blog is updated."

I came across an interesting website (GeoURL) that maps geo locations to URLs and most interestingly provides 'neighborhood' functionality so you can see who is blogging near you or what other things around you are present in cyberspace. Nice ... :) Wanna see who is bloggin near you or has cyberspace presence?