The official Help Desk and web master was able to repair my broken 'L' key. I should have asked him to also paint on a new 'A,' because surely he has keyboard paint in his office somewhere.
On an unrelated matter, is it worth it to pay for copies of an issue of a journal that you wrote a column for? It's not one we get at work, so I can't just steal their copy.
I jest! I wouldn't steal from work. At least, not after I mentioned it on the internet for the world to see. Besides, I have all the pens and sticky notes I can use from loot at conferences.
Anyway, my thieving ways aside, the point is, I won't have a paper copy unless I pay for one, on account of they only send you the PDF. But it's just a review column, not an impressive research article or anything, so I'm honestly not sure how much I care.
I'd probably just stick a paper copy in a drawer somewhere and never look at it again, and it's not as if anyone I know who isn't a librarian cares about the many awesome features of the National Academies Press and their free ebooks.
On another matter unrelated to either of the above matters, there's a blog on my Google Reader that has apparently been attacked by malware, so every time I click on its link I get a terrifying red warning page advising me that my computer could be infected if I proceed.
So I naturally hurry away, but since I can't click on the blog title in Reader, I can't just unsubscribe, and I also can't mark its posts as 'read,' so it just sits there in bold telling me it has unread posts and I can do nothing!
It's kind of annoying. There used to be a way in Reader to edit feeds without displaying posts, but I can't figure it out since they've redesigned it and removed or hidden the Manage Subscriptions link.
And just now I searched Reader Help and it's been placed under Reader Settings, so that solved that problem.
See, I just needed to actually bother to try to find an answer, instead of merely noting my annoyance at the problem! Let that be a lesson to all of you.
Showing posts with label journals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label journals. Show all posts
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Friday, October 28, 2011
So Much Science...[drool]
I see (via Ben Goldacre) that the Royal Society has made its online archives freely available, so anyone can read articles more than 70 years old.
This would be the same Royal Society that has been publishing scientific papers since it originated the peer-reviewed journal back in 1665. So yeah, lots of interesting stuff published in there between then and 70 years ago. Fascinating look at the history of scientific experimentation and the development of scientific thought, etc.
Royal Society titles are not specifically medically focused, so they're not terribly high on the must-read list among the users at my library, but obviously there are going to be articles that are relevant to health topics, and anyway, even if there was no connection at all, it's just cool that they're all out there.
Nice one, Royal Society.
I'm less excited by your frequent slight-yet-significant title changes over the years, but it's all good.
This would be the same Royal Society that has been publishing scientific papers since it originated the peer-reviewed journal back in 1665. So yeah, lots of interesting stuff published in there between then and 70 years ago. Fascinating look at the history of scientific experimentation and the development of scientific thought, etc.
Royal Society titles are not specifically medically focused, so they're not terribly high on the must-read list among the users at my library, but obviously there are going to be articles that are relevant to health topics, and anyway, even if there was no connection at all, it's just cool that they're all out there.
Nice one, Royal Society.
I'm less excited by your frequent slight-yet-significant title changes over the years, but it's all good.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Rejoice!
Good news, everyone!
Not only do I have a luxurious quantity and variety of fresh vegetables at my disposal (although no handfuls of raw beets...this time), but the library has also acquired a number of online backfiles for some dental journals.
I made a snarky comment when I found that eight out of 21 titles were all title changes to one journal, because snarking about serial title changes is what catalogers do, but in fact this is good news. Our holdings for dental journals aren't as extensive as for the biomedical subjects (though this is partly because there just aren't as many dental journals out there), so we always like to extend our coverage.
And this archival purchase pushed our electronic holdings for several titles back even beyond our existing print coverage. So we have more articles online, which the students like, and more articles total, which everyone can enjoy.
Let us now dance the merry dance of vegetables and journals.
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Not only do I have a luxurious quantity and variety of fresh vegetables at my disposal (although no handfuls of raw beets...this time), but the library has also acquired a number of online backfiles for some dental journals.
I made a snarky comment when I found that eight out of 21 titles were all title changes to one journal, because snarking about serial title changes is what catalogers do, but in fact this is good news. Our holdings for dental journals aren't as extensive as for the biomedical subjects (though this is partly because there just aren't as many dental journals out there), so we always like to extend our coverage.
And this archival purchase pushed our electronic holdings for several titles back even beyond our existing print coverage. So we have more articles online, which the students like, and more articles total, which everyone can enjoy.
Let us now dance the merry dance of vegetables and journals.
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Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Further Journals on PubMed
I had previously expressed my grudging acceptance of PubMed's new setup, admitting that it had refrained from completely wrecking my entire working life by messing up the journals information (thanks, NLM!).
Well, now I have to suddenly move from grudging acceptance to wholehearted and gleeful embrace of the new 'Journals in the NCBI databases' replacement for the old Journals Database, because guess what they do that they didn't use to do?
Hyperlink to continues and continued by titles! This is one of those simple things I always kind of wanted, but it was never there so I kind of forgot I wanted it.
I got used to just copying the alternate title and pasting it back into the search line, and then if it's a title for which there are several similar titles, to sorting through them to find out which was the correct relation to the original.
It took seconds, I tell you entire seconds out of my life every time I had to do it. And you know those add up.
Now, I can see the related titles in the record and click on them and get to the related journal record. It's revolutionary! So much so that I had to take the seconds I would have spent looking for Emergency Medicine to write this blog post about it.
Now if this would only work in DOCLINE someday...
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Well, now I have to suddenly move from grudging acceptance to wholehearted and gleeful embrace of the new 'Journals in the NCBI databases' replacement for the old Journals Database, because guess what they do that they didn't use to do?
Hyperlink to continues and continued by titles! This is one of those simple things I always kind of wanted, but it was never there so I kind of forgot I wanted it.
I got used to just copying the alternate title and pasting it back into the search line, and then if it's a title for which there are several similar titles, to sorting through them to find out which was the correct relation to the original.
It took seconds, I tell you entire seconds out of my life every time I had to do it. And you know those add up.
Now, I can see the related titles in the record and click on them and get to the related journal record. It's revolutionary! So much so that I had to take the seconds I would have spent looking for Emergency Medicine to write this blog post about it.
Now if this would only work in DOCLINE someday...
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Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Journals on PubMed
So I've been sitting here cataloging this afternoon, using the option that has replaced the just-retired Journals database on PubMed (an NLM catalog search limited to "Journals referenced in the NCBI databases"), and...it works fine.
All the information I used to look up in the Journals database--ISSN, title abbreviation, sometimes notes on continuation and years of publication--is still here and looks basically the same. My work can continue unhindered by the need to learn a new layout or find a new source for this precious information.
OK, PubMed. I am suspicious of change, but you have proved my doubts unfounded. This time.
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All the information I used to look up in the Journals database--ISSN, title abbreviation, sometimes notes on continuation and years of publication--is still here and looks basically the same. My work can continue unhindered by the need to learn a new layout or find a new source for this precious information.
OK, PubMed. I am suspicious of change, but you have proved my doubts unfounded. This time.
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Tuesday, July 20, 2010
A Little Heavy Reading
This is an intriguing collaboration (via Running a Hospital):
It says space is limited, and this is obviously targeted for people who are actually directly involved in patient care rather than people out in the extended suburbs of health care like librarians, so I won't try to register and thus take up a space that someone who could better use the information might want.
It would be cool to get this sort of perspective on the biomedical literature, though. I can help people (mainly students) find stuff, so I have this abstract sense of how the broad information system works, but looking at how people actually use it, and how they might get more use out of it, is most interesting.
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Join the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on Wednesday, July 21, 2010, from 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM Eastern Time for “Author in the Room,” an interactive conference call aimed at closing the gap between knowledge – what is published in an article - and action – how much of this knowledge is put into practice to improve care. This interactive call will help readers consider the implications of the study results for improving their practice.
It says space is limited, and this is obviously targeted for people who are actually directly involved in patient care rather than people out in the extended suburbs of health care like librarians, so I won't try to register and thus take up a space that someone who could better use the information might want.
It would be cool to get this sort of perspective on the biomedical literature, though. I can help people (mainly students) find stuff, so I have this abstract sense of how the broad information system works, but looking at how people actually use it, and how they might get more use out of it, is most interesting.
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Saturday, March 6, 2010
Interesting Weeding Options
We just gave a whole pile of weeded bound journals to some folks doing set decoration for a TV show that features a doctor.
They need to design an office for this character, and wanted books and journals and what-not.
This better be the best-stocked doctor's office ever!
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They need to design an office for this character, and wanted books and journals and what-not.
This better be the best-stocked doctor's office ever!
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Monday, November 2, 2009
Here's Money: Give Me an Article!
I like this post from Sarah at Librarian in Black about DeepDyve, a new service that provides limited time access to online articles at the low low price of 99 cents.
She notes:
Good point, that. I too appreciate the fact that a service exists to provide affordable access to a single article if that's all you want (it hearkens back to my deep-seated longing to buy a single cable channel), but it's certainly true that we'd like a person's first thought to be "does my library have access to this journal?"
I am definitely going to be looking closely at DeepDyve as an option for those occasions when it turns out we don't have access to the journal a patron needs, though. Because sadly those occasions do arise, and I hate to disappoint the wonderful, library-literate people whose first thought actually is "does my library have access to this journal?"
It seems likely that DeepDyve would cover a lot of the big, popular journals that we're likely to subscribe to, so I'll have to try to think of something we don't get that people ask for before I can test its value as a backup for our collection. And of course right now my mind is a blank. But something will come to me in time.
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She notes:
While I like the idea of being able to purchase articles one at a time instead of having to buy a yearly subscription if you don’t want one, it saddens me that services like this exist…and get subscribers. If only their customers would get library cards (for free) and access the articles they need for free from the library’s website. The success of a service like this speaks to the horrible job we’ve done as a profession of getting the word out about what we do.
Good point, that. I too appreciate the fact that a service exists to provide affordable access to a single article if that's all you want (it hearkens back to my deep-seated longing to buy a single cable channel), but it's certainly true that we'd like a person's first thought to be "does my library have access to this journal?"
I am definitely going to be looking closely at DeepDyve as an option for those occasions when it turns out we don't have access to the journal a patron needs, though. Because sadly those occasions do arise, and I hate to disappoint the wonderful, library-literate people whose first thought actually is "does my library have access to this journal?"
It seems likely that DeepDyve would cover a lot of the big, popular journals that we're likely to subscribe to, so I'll have to try to think of something we don't get that people ask for before I can test its value as a backup for our collection. And of course right now my mind is a blank. But something will come to me in time.
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Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Let the Record Show
I have previously written about unreliable brains and their secretive plans to make us think that events happened differently than they in fact did.
I'm not sure why they do it, but there's documentation. It's happening all around you, people! The plot even extends inside your own head!
T. Scott is with me on this (though in a less alarmist fashion), with an interesting post about keeping a journal over the years, and sometimes finding, on re-reading entries, that the way he remembers something is not the way he initially wrote it down.
I too have kept a journal for many years, and one of these days if I go back over the collected volumes, I expect I'll be startled to find things I thought happened one way, that actually were somewhat different. If my contemporary description is to be believed, that is. There's always the chance that I lied about it when I first wrote it down, and remembered it accurately, but in general the opposite is probably more likely. I don't remember lying to my journal, anyway.
Mostly when I glance back over the pages I find that I seem to spend a lot of time talking about how tired and busy I am. I am apparently always simultaneously stressed out and on the verge of falling asleep. My faithful legions of blog followers are fortunate, since I occasionally try to think of something more interesting than that to say here, or at least to find interesting things that other people are saying.
This makes me wonder if memory will get better now that it's easier for people to record and document events in their lives. If we can go back and fact check our recollections, will we be inclined to preserve the memories more accurately?
Or will we just misremember the things that aren't recorded, since pretty much no one documents everything, and think we remember perfectly the things that are recorded, even if the memory has actually faded and what we're remembering is the documentation?
Knowing the wiliness of our slippery minds, I'm betting on the latter.
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I'm not sure why they do it, but there's documentation. It's happening all around you, people! The plot even extends inside your own head!
T. Scott is with me on this (though in a less alarmist fashion), with an interesting post about keeping a journal over the years, and sometimes finding, on re-reading entries, that the way he remembers something is not the way he initially wrote it down.
I too have kept a journal for many years, and one of these days if I go back over the collected volumes, I expect I'll be startled to find things I thought happened one way, that actually were somewhat different. If my contemporary description is to be believed, that is. There's always the chance that I lied about it when I first wrote it down, and remembered it accurately, but in general the opposite is probably more likely. I don't remember lying to my journal, anyway.
Mostly when I glance back over the pages I find that I seem to spend a lot of time talking about how tired and busy I am. I am apparently always simultaneously stressed out and on the verge of falling asleep. My faithful legions of blog followers are fortunate, since I occasionally try to think of something more interesting than that to say here, or at least to find interesting things that other people are saying.
This makes me wonder if memory will get better now that it's easier for people to record and document events in their lives. If we can go back and fact check our recollections, will we be inclined to preserve the memories more accurately?
Or will we just misremember the things that aren't recorded, since pretty much no one documents everything, and think we remember perfectly the things that are recorded, even if the memory has actually faded and what we're remembering is the documentation?
Knowing the wiliness of our slippery minds, I'm betting on the latter.
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Thursday, February 5, 2009
Journals? What Journals?
Aunt B. at Tiny Cat Pants brought me the news of Google's GPeerReview: "A tool that enables peers to review and sign each others' works."
This project aims to provide scientific creds for online scholarly publications; why bother submitting to a journal? Just put your awesome paper online and get experts in the field to review it, comment, and generally affirm for others that you know what you're talking about.
This takes the scholarly publishing question even beyond open access journals. As long as you can get someone to critically review your paper.
I can see it still being pretty tough to get your work reviewed, but I suppose that's not really a huge downside: presumably if your work's good, someone will eventually agree to review it, and if not, busy experts with a lot to do shouldn't be wasting their time on it, so it might all balance out and wind up with peer reviewed work still being made available.
Interesting idea.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Writin' About Distance Education
As one who had a recent satisfying experience with distance education myself, I was interested to hear from the Distant Librarian that the Journal of Distance Education/Revue de l'Éducation à Distance has made its archives (dating from 1986) available online.
Cool! I don't at this time have any very pressing distance ed questions that I need to research, but it's nice to know that this resource is available should any arise.
It would also be very interesting to see how the field has changed in the time the journal has been publishing. Someday, if I get a few spare hours, it would be fun to look back at older issues and see what concerns and approaches remain constant, and which ones differ, as computers and the internet become widespread.
Since I didn't participate in distance education before a couple of years ago I have no personal comparison, but I'm sure it must have been very different in the 1980s.
If nothing else, I imagine the sheer expense and hassle of having to set up a loft for the carrier pigeons must have deterred a lot of would-be distance students.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Visual Learners Rejoice
This is pretty cool: PubMed is now indexing JoVE, the Journal of Visualized Experiments.
JoVE, in the site's own words, "is a peer reviewed, open access, online journal devoted to the publication of biological research in a video format." It publishes videos demonstrating research and experimental techniques in categories from Basic Protocols to Immunology, and looks like a really useful educational resource.
I'm totally going to try some of these techniques at home, too. Proper Care and Cleaning of the Microscope? I'm all over it. (OK, I'm lying. I do my part to practice proper lab safety, by not attempting to do anything near or related to labs.)
This announcement back in April notes that inclusion in PubMed "demonstrates the official acceptance of new approaches to science communication, such as video online, by the scientific community," and this really does seem noteworthy. There are a lot of valuable resources that it could be handy to have indexing access to, and not all may be in conventional journal form (to the extent that even a lot of journals are 'conventional' anymore, considering the amount of material on the web).
A not-primarily-print format journal providing the kind of value that merits PubMed indexing suggests that newer media forms are maturing and getting some recognition. Interesting stuff!
David Rothman gets credit for alerting me to this. I mean, I was just about to notice it myself, on one of my regularly scheduled reviews of the entire list of indexed journals, but...
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