Jeffrey Pomerantz

Pomerantz

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The blog event horizon

Posted on 22 February 2005

When I was at the Web Conference in NYC in May, Marianne and I participated in the pre-conference Workshop on the Weblogging Ecosystem: Aggregation, Analysis and Dynamics. I remember someone in that workshop saying that most blogs that don’t survive are discontinued within 4 months of the writer starting them up. Four months is the blog event horizon. Well, yesterday was my 4-month anniversary with this thing, so I guess.. Read More

Hacking NASA

Posted on 17 February 2005

I’m a little behind in my reading of Nature News, so I only just read this article from mid-January: Amateurs beat space agencies to Titan pictures. A group of enthusiastic amateurs managed to process raw images of Titan from the Huygens probe faster that any of the giant space agencies in charge of the mission. This is remarkably timely, since just a couple of days ago I read chapter 3.. Read More

A Research Agenda on Open-Access Publishing

Posted on 17 February 2005

The Reality of Open-Access Journal Articles, from The Chronicle of Higher Education Cutting right to the chase: It is time to move beyond rehashing tired arguments about whether open access poses a threat to publishers, professional societies, or research budgets. We should begin to discuss how best to use what open access gives us: the unfettered availability of scholarly literature. The authors, from PLoS, practically spell out a research agenda… Read More

People’s Network Enquiry Service

Posted on 16 February 2005

I wrote just yesterday that there’s not much digital reference work going on in Europe. Well, I take it back. I saw a post to the Dig_Ref listserv just this morning about the People’s Network Enquiry Service, a pilot chat-based reference service in England, staffed by public librarians. A few points of interest that I’ve gleaned from the service’s site: The service had a “soft” launch in November/December 2004. Training.. Read More

Google & Wikimedia

Posted on 16 February 2005

According to this post on SearchEngineWatch, Google has offered to donate servers and bandwidth to the Wikimedia Foundation. This is old news apparently; the first post on Slashdot on this was Feb 10. Slashdot has a link to a very brief unofficial statement from Wikimedia on this. The terms of the offer are currently being discussed by the board… …this agreement does not mean there is any requirement for us.. Read More

Croatia-bound

Posted on 15 February 2005

I got an email yesterday that the paper I submitted to the Libraries in the Digital Age (LIDA) conference was accepted! I’m more excited about this than I usually am about getting a paper accepted to a conference because this one is in Croatia. The first part of LIDA 2005 will be held in Dubrovnik and for the second part, the conference will move to island Mljet, less than a.. Read More

ALA 2004 Most Challenged Book List

Posted on 13 February 2005

The ALA has released their list of 2004 most challenged books of 2004. Here’s the list: The Chocolate War, Robert Cormier Fallen Angels, Walter Dean Myers Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture, Michael A. Bellesiles Captain Underpants series, Dav Pilkey The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky What My Mother Doesn’t Know, Sonya Sones In the Night Kitchen, Maurice Sendak King & King, Linda de Haan.. Read More

BloggerCon: Gillmor

Posted on 12 February 2005

In a weird confluence of work-related events, I just ran into AE, who I’m working with in a small way for a project for my DL course. We talked about the issue of anonymity or toning yourself down on account of not knowing which of your colleagues are reading. We also talked about the project. Sally has just started liveblogging: I feel I’ve peer pressured her into it! Gillmor discusses.. Read More

BloggerCon: Aggregation

Posted on 12 February 2005

Building a geographically focused aggregator. Heck, the Participants list for this is a good start towards that for this area. Cone: Letters to the editor posted on a blog, attracts comments from a wide community. I’m reading We The Media & he mentions letters to the editor as an example of Big Media’s trivial effort to make media two-way. So is this a way to increase two-way-ness? Someone: “I’m the.. Read More

BloggerCon: Discussion

Posted on 12 February 2005

Damn, this liveblogging is difficult. It’s more work than taking notes in a presentation even. Maybe good practice for taking notes at conferences though? Eric Muller, IsThatLegal?. Two blogs that are on opposite sides of the political spectrum both linked to him on one day, thus bringing 2 very divergent communities together in a friendly way. Dave Winer: The obsession with links & traffic is like the dot-com boom, only.. Read More