Citations: Incitement or Excitement?

In recent months, a lot of new citation approaches have landed in my email box. Alternatives and tangents seem to have arisen amidst angst about the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and their traditional impact factor. (Note to ironists: displeasure […]

Journals: Salvation through Conversation?

The mainstream media may be registering the revolution, but is it too late? A recent New York Times story reveals in all its glory how younger readers parse news through social media. One focus group participant is quoted saying, “If […]

The Rise of Blogs, the Death of Newspapers

In a superb article by Eric Alterman, the New Yorker has assessed the state of American newspapers, and the rise of the Huffington Post. The (r)evolution is viewed through the lenses of Walter Lippmann‘s debates with John Dewey in the […]

Does Turnitin Decision Bode Well for Google?

A federal judge’s decision this month (reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education) cleared plagiarism-detection tool Turnitin of charges that it violates student copyrights, even though it stores digital copies of their papers. An appeal will likely be filed. The […]

Web 2.0 Critiqued in “First Monday” Issue

The March 2008 issue of the online journal First Monday is entitled, “Critical Perspectives on Web 2.0.” It’s worth a look. Some pieces are especially provocative, including “Loser Generated Content: From Participation to Exploitation,” “Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance,” […]

Google’s New Search Trick

The New York Times reports that Google has unveiled a new search trick, allowing users on Google to search within a specific site and generate results without visiting that site. Google sells ads against this additional captive traffic, sometimes for […]

A New Video for Author Rights

The Association of College & Research Libraries, the Association of Research Libraries, and the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) have created a short video designed to familiarize researchers with some of the issues around author rights. A slide […]

Keep Reference Works Referential?

The New Scientist recently reported that a group of physicists and the American Physical Society (APS) are having a disagreement over inclusion of derivative materials on Wikipedia and other, more specialized wikis. Peter Suber has a good analysis of the […]

Infomania and Loss of Productivity

It’s from August 2007, but a paper in the online peer-reviewed journal First Monday caught my attention just now. It’s about the phenomenon the authors term “Infomania,” but which can also be called Attention Deficit Trait (ADT). ADT was first […]

A False Choice

“Wisdom of the crowds” vs. “expertise” is a common contrast these days, with the social web being scrutinized for failings and weaknesses by people who think there’s still a chance of turning back the clock. This week was an interesting […]