I often get the question: isn't there something I can do to identify my work laptop so that I can go home and the journals, etc., will still recognize me without having to use the proxy or vpn?

Seemed kind of far-fetched. A publisher who was willing to that would be... gasp... giving up some control!

In a recent announcement, the American Mathematical Society informed us that their users are able to do just that.

They're not the first or only. You can roam with EndNote Web for a year. I think there is something similar with some of the Elsevier apps (maybe just scopus?). The ArtStor app used to do this (they might still... not sure).Maybe EngNetBase (but that was really clunky when I tried it).

This is nice - takes down some barriers for the users, increases usage, and still links downloads/reads to institutional subscriptions.

Jonathan Rochkind has written a ton about web services and APIs that libraries can/should/do use. His posts are written from the point of view of someone who understands the programming bit, the data bit, and the library bit. This post is written by someone who watches that stuff with interest and has worked, on occasion, with programmers.

I mentioned some time ago that we got an internal (to my place of work) "ignition grant" to build a system for supporting the listing, searching, lending of personal or desk copies of books. It should be noted that the money was from lab leadership, but we were voted in by lab staff. We have an internal social networking tool that's running on Elgg so we decided to build it to hang off of that. My collaboration partners are from 2 sponsor-facing departments and work in information assurance type CS jobs, not as software developers. My contribution was really in how to track books and how people search for books, and lending books... oh and barcode scanners

So anyway, after a lot of discussion, we went with the Amazon API to provide book metadata including descriptions and book cover images. Unfortunately, Amazon changed their terms of service in November to require an associates ID. We ran this past various parties at the lab, including legal. No go. We couldn't sign up for an associates id because of other things in the license. So our beautiful system couldn't add any new books! And our grant was long over.

Luckily, some folks in the IT department stepped up to make a fix, but the problem is, what API to use?  I used Jonathan's posts and some other things around the web and came up with WorldCat and Open Library for cover images. So we're now back up and running but with no book descriptions.

Assuming we get the go ahead from legal, we hope to make our Elgg add-on open source and make it available from the Elgg site. If/when we do, we'll probably have screen shots to share and more information. It's a neat idea on another way to find expertise and to support collaboration (and saving money) within an organization.

The moral of the story is, watch out for the terms of service on apis, and keep watching because they can change and then your functioning service can go up in smoke. We feel a lot better about open library and somewhat better about worldcat ... but vigilance is important.

We're moving to Occam’s Typewriter. Between all of the infighting between Janet and Sci and the new subscription model (with a paywall like the NY Times)... it's time to go.

Luckily, there will be lots of room over there.

Better late than never. We had chicken pot pie for dinner to celebrate. This is the America's Test Kitchen recipe with me copping out for the topping (store brand Bisquick dropped on there). Looks like dog food but is tasty!

Like Dorothea, I participated in Library Day in the Life today. I work in a research lab, and unlike most days, I didn't do any in-depth literature searching today. I tweeted my day so this is in reverse order (end of the day first).

started working on list of social features needed to support a project.. got tired doing, timesheet..going home...this ends libday6

updating advertising for upcoming training session - had call in number starting at the wrong time  #alwaysglamorous [we make our training sessions available real time and recorded via MeetingPlace, a teleconferencing thingy that also lets you share the computer screen]

googling to figure out how to quit vi (it's been a long day) [had to find a program to do ssh - did with help from a friend - and that was on the terminal server so logged into that and then ssh'd all to change a pw and see more about how a site was set up]

finished meeting, lots more to-dos, now to write up my processes to e-mail to team members [involves a custom bib style in RefWorks which is the MovableType import format with open url linking]

now prepping for 3pm meeting, developing a feature/tool matrix for a new labwide project (sorta like an f1000, but >10 yrs old) [matrix appreciated but looks like we'll go lower tech with a combo of Zotero and SharePoint. Still dunno why Z and not RefWorks]

call out for an expert to help on project on internal mailing lists, posted some information to sharepoint, answered SP questions

before that, lunch with other scitech librarians to do post conference catchup

putting out some fires: something not cross searchable that should be, unsubbed thing still in cross search database [this is the only really librarian thing i did today]

Lots of to-dos fm mtg as local sme on social computing tools [sme is subject matter expert]

getting ready for a project meeting at 10. this is a labwide team I'm embedded in as an info scientist- utility player

editing some content for a project web page

e-mail includes search alerts from research databases - i have them come to me for QC and then fwd to researchers. good stuff today

to work a little earlier than sometimes, checking my e-mail and what meetings are on the schedule today.

Here's where I give you the first sentence of the first post each month of this year.

• January: We’re just about set for a fabulous session on citation/bibliographic/reference managers at the upcoming Science Online conference.
• February: I attended this one day pre-conference session on February 3, 2010. (about the PSP conference)
• March: Back when I was working at the public library, I used to do the “introduction to the internet” classes.
• April: I’m still on this kick on recommender systems.
• May: Anne Jefferson from Highly Allochthonous pointed me to a new essay from Geoscientist Online, the member magazine of the Geological Society (UK).
• June: Many/most/all (?) scientists and engineers who have ever published anything anywhere are now being inundated with calls for papers (CFP).
• July: How do zombies seek and use information?
• August: You found me!
• September: We’re putting scientopia basically in to conservation mode to conserve resources until we get hosting issues squared away.
• October: Update2 (10/2/2009): and I’m back, and typing in the right box this time. yay! (my blogging funk started in September)
• November: Yes, it’s been terribly quiet around here. Not even any prodding about the Donor’s Choose (but please consider giving ).
• December: I had a nice long meeting with my dissertation committee on Monday.

Unfortunately, it looks like things like embedded SlideShare presentations and FriendFeed threads didn't import here when I moved in August.

I started out the year gangbusters but the last quarter has been very slow and awkward. That's also the time when I made a lot of progress on my proposal, so it's not all bad. I'd like to get back to doing ResearchBlogging this year.

My husband gave me a Nook ereader for my birthday – I didn’t know I wanted one, but he did a lot of research and thought I would like this one. This post is a brief review.

There are a few reasons I hadn’t jumped on the ereader bandwagon. First, I’m really not doing any pleasure reading, since I’m spending my free cycles working on writing (and that hasn’t been going all that great). The reading I am doing is reviewing books I have on research methods and then some articles for work. It seems like ereaders are more for immersive reading and I’m more or less skipping around. The second reason is DRM. All of the readers are intended for you to purchase (license) books. Once you purchase books, you can’t lend them, and you have no guarantee that you’ll still be able to read them in a few years. The only books I ever buy are ones that I think are worth having, re-reading, and keeping over time. You can’t borrow books from the library on the Kindle, but you can move over pdfs that are unlocked.

So I now have a Nook and I am pleased to report that, while it is all set up to purchase things from Barnes and Noble, it will take DRM’d ePub and PDF documents from the library. The public library collections, that is. Lending things I’ve purchased is not really all that helpful, but borrowing things from the library is. I’ve borrowed and read a few books now, but need to cut back on that because it’s taking away from my writing time.

Otherwise, the Nook is heavier than I expected, but not really any heavier than a hardback. The page change rate is plenty fast. I have to remember to use the touch screen to navigate – since I’m used to my iphone and touching the screen itself.  It’s really easy to load things on it. The charge has been lasting about a week. I haven’t used the 3G or wifi with it since I’m just loading books from the public library and I do that by downloading them to Adobe Digital Editions and then moving them over the cable.

I can see using this instead of my laptop to read books. Traveling I’ll probably bring both. It can serve as an MP3 player, too, but I haven’t tried that yet. It also has a way you can put an expansion card in, but I haven’t tried that either.