Technology Blog

source: Proceedings (Baylor University. Medical Center) — new at PubMed Central

PLoS Pathogens is the fifth Open Access journal published by the Public Library of Science and the third title launched in 2005.

Extracts from the inaugural editorial:

The journal aims to publish “… breakthrough[s] in understanding the biology of pathogens and pathogen-host interactions.” The editorial board is “… committed to publishing groundbreaking findings on bacterial, fungal, parasitic, prionic, and viral pathogens.” The journal has addressed the concerns expressed by some publishers in resisting the RCUK and NIH archiving proposals through “… [t]he addition of a short, nontechnical summary accompanying each article in PLoS Pathogens adds another dimension to our accessibility. These synopses represent an important mechanism for sharing scientific advances with nonspecialists, and facilitating communication between scientists and members of the general public.”

PLoS Pathogens - Fulltext v1+ (2005+); Print ISSN: 1553-7366 | Online ISSN: 1553-7374.

source: PLoS Pathogens — inaugural issue

source: Outsell assesses STM trends, including OA

source: “Repository” ambiguity

The EU has launched a consultation on European digital libraries. Excerpt:

The European Commission today [September 30] unveiled its strategy to make Europe’s written and audiovisual heritage available on the Internet. Turning Europe’s historic and cultural heritage into digital content will make it usable for European citizens for their studies, work or leisure and will give innovators, artists and entrepreneurs the raw material that they need. The Commission proposes a concerted drive by EU Member States to digitise, preserve, and make this heritage available to all. It presents a first set of actions at European level and invites comments on a series of issues in an online consultation (deadline for replies 20 January 2006). The replies will feed into a proposal for a Recommendation on digitisation and digital preservation, to be presented in June 2006.

The consultation documents include an FAQ on European digital libraries. Excerpt:

Initiatives that improve the accessibility and flow of information are good for the knowledge economy, and the digital libraries initiative has a considerable economic potential. Once digitised, our cultural and scientific heritage can be used as input for a wide range of information products and services….Google’s [Library] initiative is an example that shows the potential of the online environment for making information more accessible for all. The sheer size of the announced operation – 15 million books – appeals to the imagination. The initiative has certainly triggered a reflection on how to deal with our European cultural heritage in the digital age. It is also interesting in that it highlights the possibilities for public/private initiatives in this area. Public/private partnerships or sponsoring by private companies will accelerate digitisation….Under current legislation only public domain works (where there is no longer copyright) can be made available to the public online. For other works, digital libraries need to get the explicit agreement of rightholders. In practice this means that only works from the 1920s or before will be covered in a digital library, or works for which there is an agreement, on a case by case basis, with the rightholders.

source: Consultation on European digital libraries

source: UK publishers may also sue Google

source: Another lawyer sides with Google

I recently wrote about how the online conversation is real. The basics of that post is that blogging fosters interaction. No surprise, to be a successful blogger, reading, writing, and responding to others within the larger community is an absolute must.

There are a growing number of ways that users can keep track of online conversations. David Teten spoke to one of them in the previous post- PubSub. PubSub is a prospective (forward looking) matching service that provides new information to users as it becomes available. So, for example, if you want news or information on social software, you would create a PubSub subscription with keywords “social software”. You can view a subscription like social software on PubSub or simply by copying the feed they provide into your favorite news aggregator.

Other ways to monitor the conversation include keeping track of “tags” that interest you. Tagging is a growing trend in the social software world and is closely related to “social bookmarking”. I’ll first speak to social bookmarking because it is similar to a word most people are familiar with - bookmarks.

Social bookmarking builds upon collaborative efforts, in that an individual’s bookmarks (or “favorites”) are no longer just their own. Rather, they are shared with the larger community. Unlike storing a bookmark under a particular folder in your browser, social bookmarks are saved online and are not categorized by folders, but are instead “tagged” by keywords. Users (and not computers) select appropriate tags for articles or sites of interest, as they come across them through their surfing of the web.

This post, for example, might be tagged with the word “socialsoftware” on any number of social bookmark sites. The most popular social bookmarking tool to this point is del.icio.us. Take a look at the socialsoftware tag or at my social bookmarks. Each tag also has an RSS feed, so that you can keep track of them in your favorite news aggregator (I’ll provide some more info on how to actually do that in my next post).

Tags can help you stay informed and introduce to information you might not have found otherwise. For a more advanced use of tags, take a look at what I am doing with my first blogoposium.

update: a good reference on social bookmarking basics (via Jyri Engeström) by Tony Hammond, Timo Hannay, Ben Lund, and Joanna Scott; and a very academic piece by Clay Shirky entitled Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags (via David Teten’s suggestion)

This post was written by Ken Yarmosh, source: Monitoring the Conversation

Lawrence Solum, Google Print Lawsuit & Class Certification, Legal Theory Blog, September 21, 2005. Solum is a law professor at the U of San Diego. (Thanks to Law Pundit.) Excerpt:

Putting on my proceduralist hat for a moment, there is a very substantial problem with class certification. The complaint defines the class as follows: “The Class is initially defined as all persons or entities that hold the copyright to a literary work that is contained in the library of the University of Michigan.” That class includes many authors who would be injured if the plaintiffs were to prevail–including, for example, me! I am member of the plaintiff class–owning the copyright to at least three or four dozen works in the University of Michican library. I have a very strong objective interest in Google Print succeeding–because as a scholar, I benefit from the dissemination of my works and because reaching agreement with Google will be costly to me and Google, essentially killing the project. A substantial intraclass conflict of interest destroys “adequacy of representation,” making class certification inappropriate, both under the federal rules of civil procedure and under the due process clause of the fifth amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Opt out is not a solution–because that would create an affirmative duty to monitor the litigation and opt out (in order to preserve a constitutional right), and the Supreme Court has made it clear that no such duty should be created in a number of cases, including Phillips Petroleum v. Shutts. Pro-bono representation for intervenors opposing certification, anyone?

(PS: I have a book under copyright at the U of Michigan library and would gladly join a group of intervenors in opposing class certification. The message for authors who object to Google Library, translated out of legalese: speak for yourselves.)

source: And another law professor sides with Google

Jack Balkin, Search Me. Please. Balkinization, September 28, 2005. Balkin is a law professor at Yale University. (Thanks to Law Pundit.) Excerpt:

As an author who is always trying to get people interested in my books,…I have to agree with Tim O’Reilly’s op-ed: the Author’s Guild suit against Google is counterproductive and just plain silly….Every author wishes that more people read his or her books. Most of us would happily stand on street corners with sandwich boards if we thought it would help. Anything that brings our work in front of a larger public should be welcomed as a good thing, not something to be feared. The Authors Guild, and indeed all authors, should be working with search engines like Google to come up with new and creative ways to get people to know about and sample what we have often spent many months– and sometimes many years– working on. Authors spend their lives putting the best part of themselves into their books. The cruelest fate they can suffer is not criticism and rejection– it is being forgotten. The digitally networked environment gives them a chance to avoid that fate. All authors who care about their work should embrace it.

source: Another law professor sides with Google

source: More on OA to biomedical data

source: New librarians excited by the open future

Open Access a Must for Wellcome Trust Researchers, a Wellcome Trust press release, undated but released today. Excerpt:

Next week (October) the Wellcome Trust becomes the first scientific research funder to insist that papers emanating from its grant awards are placed in an open access repository. From the 1st October it will become a condition of funding, that papers will have to be posted on PubMed Central (PMC)– the free-to access, life sciences archive developed by the National Institutes of Health – and made accessible within 6 months of publication. To facilitate this, the Wellcome Trust has – with the help of NIH – established a manuscript submission system, through which papers accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal can be deposited in PMC. From the 1st October next year all existing Trust grant holders will have to deposit future papers into PubMed Central. This delay will allow existing grant holders time to adjust to the new policy and let us know what problems – if any – they may experience, affording us time to overcome them. During this time the Trust, working in partnership with other UK life sciences funders, plans to establish a UK version of PubMed Central – UKPMC.

Wellcome-funded researchers should submit their papers to PMC via the NIH manuscript submission system and consult the Wellcome page of manuscript submission information.

source: Wellcome Trust OA mandate starts tomorrow

Inspired by Cory’s talk at Accelerating Change, I’ve started Second Life. (Someone described it to me as a home for retired Warcraft players. ;-P) My name there is… Joi Ito. I’m still pretty confused, but if you have a character there, please give me a holler or tell me something interesting to do. Thanks!

Update: Philip just flickr’ed a photo he took when I visited him in Second Life.

Comment - TrackBack

source: Second Life

I recently wrote about how the online conversation is real. The basics of that post is that blogging fosters interaction. No surprise, to be a successful blogger, reading, writing, and responding to others within the larger community is an absolute must.

There are a growing number of ways that users can keep track of online conversations. David Teten spoke to one of them in the previous post- PubSub. PubSub is a prospective (forward looking) matching service that provides new information to users as it becomes available. So, for example, if you want news or information on social software, you would create a PubSub subscription with keywords “social software”. You can view a subscription like social software on PubSub or simply by copying the feed they provide into your favorite news aggregator.

Other ways to monitor the conversation include keeping track of “tags” that interest you. Tagging is a growing trend in the social software world and is closely related to “social bookmarking”. I’ll first speak to social bookmarking because it is similar to a word most people are familiar with - bookmarks.

Social bookmarking builds upon collaborative efforts, in that an individual’s bookmarks (or “favorites”) are no longer just their own. Rather, they are shared with the larger community. Unlike storing a bookmark under a particular folder in your browser, social bookmarks are saved online and are not categorized by folders, but are instead “tagged” by keywords. Users (and not computers) select appropriate tags for articles or sites of interest, as they come across them through their surfing of the web.

This post, for example, might be tagged with the word “socialsoftware” on any number of social bookmark sites. The most popular social bookmarking tool to this point is del.icio.us. Take a look at the socialsoftware tag or at my social bookmarks. Each tag also has an RSS feed, so that you can keep track of them in your favorite news aggregator (I’ll provide some more info on how to actually do that in my next post).

Tags can help you stay informed and introduce to information you might not have found otherwise. For a more advanced use of tags, take a look at what I am doing with my first blogoposium.

This post was written by Ken Yarmosh, source: Monitoring the Conversation

Posted by Thomas Crampton

My experiences in changing cities five times and continents three times in the last 18 months have given me an insight into the shallowness of certain aspects of globalization from a consumer perspective.

(My experiences are used merely as example I know well, not because I think they are of world significance. )

I first had an American Express card in Hong Kong, then in the US and now in France. When I applied for the new Amex card in the US and in France, I was assured that my membership date would go back to when I first joined.

Each time I got the card, however, (my French card just arrived) they considered me a new member. A longer term of membership can confer benefits.

When I complained to the French Amex yesterday, the customer service person explained that American Express in Hong Kong is not the same as American Express in France. Funny, because that is not what their advertising seems to imply.

I had a similar experience with HSBC. Their Hong Kong service has been excellent (great website), so I checked out the bank in the US and then here in France. Each time I was informed that although they market the bank as HSBC in these different places, each bank is fairly independent country-by-country. They said this is partly due to banking legislation that varies in each jurisdiction.

What generalizations can be drawn? Products (McDonalds burgers, Coke, etc) globalize more quickly than services?

Comment - TrackBack

source: Does globalization exist?

What makes an idea viral? Because it’s easy to understand? I hardly think anyone sending me those Microsoft Email Lottery CCs really understood the message. I doubt they even read it though I do believe there’s not one of them truly intending to spread any hoax or phishing disinformation, and yet you and I both know it takes only taken the very slight effort of one single google search to completely debunk these postings. What’s more, the social un-benefits of propagating these viral spams, myths, scams and hoaxes does not appear to deter anyone from pressing the Forward button, no matter how many times they may get told the whys and hows of properly dealing with these mega-CCList remailing reflex reactions.

So that throws a lot of the Viral Why reasons out the window. We can also discount the trust of the meme source; Seth Godin notwithstanding, I have never once encountered any intentional viral-ploy so powerful as the least of these doggedly persistent pit-bull tenacious email hoax letters. So, sorry Seth, all due respect, but I can’t buy your main points. What makes an idea viral? I can’t tell you for certain, but of all your points, the only one that bears my own experience is this point:

“That’s because spreading an idea is rarely a thoughtful, voluntary act. Instead, it is near the core of who we are, and we often do it without thinking much about the implications.”
[ Seth’s Blog: What makes an idea viral? ]

Who we are … aye, true words, mate, very true. Not who we think we are or want to be, but the creature itself, the ‘who’ that we are, I think that’s right on the button, and from that I’ll proffer you one more clinically useful tip on your meme-crafting, though it’s not anything advertising doesn’t already know: whether or not we accept new evidence of our correlative essence, our simian brethren may still show us how a meme virus can be propelled by the celebrity of the trend-setter, regardless if the celeb method is faster, better or even right!

Now that is a viral effect we can see in the blogdex leaders every single day.

source: Understanding the Mechanics of a Viral Diffusion

Nick Webb, Digitalization, Google and all that…., EPS Google Debate, September 28, 2005. Webb is the former Marketing Director of Simon & Schuster UK. Excerpt:

If Google succeeds with this project – even if it starts only with public domain titles – it will be able to offer the most seductive information service on the planet….Why will the Google service be unbeatable? Because it will make the greatest archive on Earth searchable. That’s the archive called All the Books in the World….Universal digitization will make it easy to publish, but exceedingly difficult to pay for anything new to be written….Perhaps an author will eventually make as much from downloads as he or she would have earned from an advance – maybe more. But the money will come after the work is published….Come on, I hear you saying, publishers will still pay advances. Yes, but against what – and when? If traditional book sales fall – as surely they must – the paper version of the work will become a bibliophile’s indulgence, generating less income, though possibly at better margins….If GoogleWorld really takes off, authors will also have to ask themselves what publishers bring to the party. It will not be distribution. Individuals and great corporations will have the same access to a global network. Publishers will offer the cachet of their imprint, their editing skills and panache at marketing. Authors are often bitterly cynical about these virtues, especially the last. Will there be enough money in the GoogleWorld environment for proper marketing budgets?…GoogleWorld offers a potentially brilliant resource, one I would use in a heartbeat. But it’s short-term. By plundering history, it undermines the economic basis of a market that in its bumbling and inefficient way has served as a repository of culture and learning (and a deal of crap too, it must be said) for centuries.

(PS: Webb assumes without evidence –in fact, contrary to mounting evidence– that Google Print will decrease rather than increase the sale of priced, printed books.)

source: More on publishers v. Google

KU Provost to Step Down After 13 Years, Kansas City InfoZine, September 29, 2005. Excerpt:

David E. Shulenburger, who has overseen impressive gains in the academic profile of University of Kansas students and a renewed emphasis on effective teaching, announced today that he will step down as executive vice chancellor and provost of the Lawrence campus at the end of June 2006….Shulenburger, a labor economist, will return to teaching in the School of Business. He leaves a long legacy of achievements as provost. Among them:…Leader of a national dialogue on the economics of scholarly communication in the digital era. For drawing attention to making scholarly publications affordable and his proposal to create a National Electronic Article Repository, Shulenburger received commendation from the Association of Research Libraries.

(PS: David Shulenburger is a first-generation leader of the OA movement, from his October 1998 proposal for a National Electronic Article Repository (NEAR) to the March 2005 University of Kansas resolution on OA and his accompanying memorandum urging Kansas faculty to deposit their research output in the Kansas ScholarWorks repository. Under his leadership, the University of Kansas became the first U.S. university to sign the Registry of Institutional OA Self-Archiving Policies. All the best to him in his retirement.)

source: David Shulenburger will retire in June

source: Public-domain multimedia