Believe it or not I’m starting my 3rd year in SILS, so it’s time for my Third Year Review. It’s a bit strange that it happens at the beginning of year 3 & not at the end, or even in the middle, but that’s the way it is. For those of you not familiar with how this process goes, here’s how this process goes: I have to put together a.. Read More
Long on Horns, Short on Books
Thanks to Paul for pointing this out: Academic libraries empty stacks for online centers, from the CSM There are 2 interesting issues here: The suggestion of a library without books, & The library as place. My first reaction to reading this article was to object to the idea of a library without books. Heaven knows, I’d be the last person to defend print against electronic sources. But even I can’t.. Read More
College Rankings & Methodology
US News & World Report’s rankings of America’s Best Colleges were released today. US News’ ranking criteria: …measures fall into seven broad categories: peer assessment; graduation and retention rate; faculty resources (for example, class size); student selectivity (for example, average admission test scores of incoming students); financial resources; alumni giving; and, only for national universities and liberal arts colleges, graduation rate performance. The indicators include both input measures, which reflect.. Read More
Reconstituted Research and Information Services Department at NCSU
I hope I’m not leaking this memo, but it is pretty old news. From the NC State Libraries. MEMORANDUM SUBJECT: Announcement of Departmental Merger DATE: 1 June 2005 I am pleased to announce that, effective 1 June 2005, the Distance Learning Services Department will join with Research and Information Services (RIS) to create a department whose mission encompasses a full range of services to both on-site and off-site users, including.. Read More
Kohl-Davis & Impact Factor
In the July issue of C&RL, Thomas Nisonger & Charles Davis have a paper titled “The Perception of Library and Information Science Journals by LIS Education Deans and ARL Library Directors: A Replication of the Kohl-Davis Study.” This is, well, a replication of the 1985 Kohl-Davis study, which ranked LIS journals based on the perceptions of LIS school deans and research library directors. Mostly because I was just curious (and.. Read More
PLoS Bio impact factor
PLoS Biology finally has an impact factor! Measures of Impact, from PLoS Biology …why did anyone submit great work to a journal that didn’t even exist yet, from a publisher with no established reputation? The answer is that it was on the strength of promises made by our in-house editors and academic editorial board to uphold high standards and rigorous peer review, to launch an open-access alternative to the best.. Read More
Paul’s new job
Library To Expand Digital Collections Duke Libraries is expanding its collection of digital images, books, articles, videos and recordings. Leading this Digital Asset Initiatives effort is Paul Conway, who recently was promoted to the newly created position of director of digital asset initiatives. He previously was the director of information technology services at Perkins Library.
Database indexing & journal copyright agreements, Part 3
This is the hopefully final chapter in a saga that began a long time ago in three previous posts far, far away. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. I had a paper accepted for publication in a journal. Given the choice, I signed the copyright agreement by which I retain copyright. Question: Will this paper be indexed in the databases I want it in?.. Read More
SCOTUS Market
Can You Predict Justice O’Connor’s Replacement? Kevin McGuire of the Poli Sci department here at Carolina is running a futures market with play money to predict who will replace Justice O’Connor. I’ve heard about these mock markets & I understand they’re almost alarmingly accurate in predicting political proceedings (a lot of alliteration from anxious anchors placed in powerful posts!). I’m totally going to participate in this one. And I’ll indulge.. Read More
Bad News Blogs
Bloggers Need Not Apply, from the Chronicle We’ve seen the hapless job seekers who destroy the good thing they’ve got going on paper by being so irritating in person that we can’t wait to put them back on a plane. Our blogger applicants came off reasonably well at the initial interview, but once we hung up the phone and called up their blogs, we got to know “the real them”.. Read More