Journals & Magazines

Cites & Insights 8:6 available

Walt — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:10:40 -0500

Cites & Insights 8:6, June 2008, is now available for downloading.

The 28-page issue is PDF, as usual, but (since My Back Pages is missing) all segments are also available as HTML separates at the Cites & Insights homepage.

The issue consists of:

Bibs & Blather: Quick Updates: Limits and Slouching - A brief reminder of a timely essay, and a progress report about where things stand on the possible 2007-2008 liblogs project.
Perspective: On Wikis and Transparency - Transparency is great, as long as you're aware of it. MediaWiki makes your wiki (and most other wikis) very transparent to outsiders. A good thing, but do pay attention.
©3 Perspective: DRM and ISP Surcharges - Comments on the slow death (?) of DRM for purchased audio downloads--and the latest plan to assure Big Media of ongoing profitability.
Perspective: On Semantics, Reality, Learning and Rockstars - "Reality" in this case: When is a book not a book? Discover the connections between these four mini-perspectives and win yourself a virtual candy bar!
Retrospective: Pointing with Pride, Part 2 - Selected excerpts and comments on issues past, another part of the centenary celebration.

Cites & Insights 8:5 available

Walt — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:00:57 -0500

Cites & Insights 8:5, May 2008, is now available for downloading.

This 28-page issue (PDF as usual, but each essay is also available in HTML form) includes:

Bibs & Blather: One Book at a Time - A year's experience with self-publishing.
Perspective: Offtopic or Not? Mill Creek & Libraries - Do 50-movie (and 100-movie and 250-movie!) packs make sense for public libraries?
Making it Work Perspective: Changes in Liblogs: Slouching Toward a Study - How have 227 liblogs changed between 2005/2006 and 2007? Notes toward a possible study of 500+ blogs.
Net Media Perspective: Citizendium and the Writer's Voice - Notes on Citizendium and how it's developing--and why I disagree with one fundamental tenet of both Wikipedia and Citizendium.
Offtopic Perspective: 50 Movie Hollywood Legends, Part 1 - From the sublime to the ridiculous, from Good News to The Fat Spy, two dozen movies with big-name stars.
Retrospective: Pointing with Pride, Part 1 - Looking back at "the 1s"--the first, 11th...91st issues of C&I.

Sticker Shock 2: The cost of journal subscriptions continues to rise and the prices will shock you

Blake — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 07:28:11 -0500

An exhibit highlighting the rising cost of library journal subscriptions to support faculty and student research. The Cornell Libraries subscribe to over 60,000 journals in paper or electronic form. Five years ago the most expensive engineering-related journals cost $4,000 to $12,000. Now prices reach $18,000.

To get a better sense of what this much money is worth, please Enter the Exhibit!

Sticker Shock 2 (2007) updates the original 2002 Sticker Shock display.

The second issue of Code4Lib Journal is out!

Blake — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 08:53:33 -0500

Eric Lease Morgan sent out word that issue #2 of the Code4Lib Journal is out!

http://journal.code4lib.org/

Each article in this issue has a little bit of something for all who call themselves a librarian or work in a library. Each identifies some sort of library problem to be addressed, and offers one or more solutions.

For those of us who enjoy cataloging and metadata issues, Jonathan Gorman outlines how he modified VUFind to exploit Wikipedia and cataloging authority records to enhance information about authors in a library catalog. Chris Freeland, Martin Kalfatovic, Jay Paige, and Marc Crozier illustrate a different use of Library of Congress Subject Headings by integrating place names with Google Maps. Carol Jean Godby, Devon Smith and Eric Childress describe a technique for crosswalking just about any metadata format into just about any other metadata format.

Doing the Work of a Librarian

Hedgie — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 09:10:59 -0500

Rachel Singer Gordon has a really thoughtfully written post about the title "librarian" and those with and without the MLS who use it.

Check out the comments too, a couple of interesting responses.

Cites & Insights 8:4 now available

Walt — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:34:40 -0500

Cites & Insights 8:4, April 2008, is now available for downloading.

The 28-page issue is PDF as usual (or not as usual--I'm now using Word 2007 and Microsoft's free PDF-output download), but HTML separates are available from the C&I homepage

The issue includes:

Bibs & Blather - a very short introduction to the issue and what got left out.
Library Access to Scholarship - Harvard and Institutional Repositories
Old Media/New Media Perspective: Thinking About Kindle and Ebooks
Making it Work Perspective: TechNos and TechMusts

By the way, if you know anyone who's been getting issue alerts via email, let them know they need to sign up for C&I Updates or Walt at Random; Topica no longer accepts my posts (and entirely lacks help/contact info).

An Economic Take On Open Access

Blake — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:36:41 -0500

The Marginal Revolution Blog Says the partial monopolization of for-fee journals makes it possible to produce status returns to motivate both editors and referees. Returning to the free setting, refereeing will survive insofar as writing detailed referee comments on other people's work helps with your own research; it is interesting to ponder in which fields this might hold.

Abandoning Print, Not Peer Review

Blake — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 07:33:38 -0600

Abandoning Print, Not Peer Review: A recent announcement out of Indiana hasn’t received the same attention, but may represent a larger challenge in the end to the traditional model of scholarly publishing, which has evolved to a system with expensive print and online publications and limited access for readers. A professor at Indiana University who is editor of an anthropology journal published traditionally has started a new journal — online and free — using tools made available by the library. After a one-year experiment, the journal is now officially launched and is already attracting many more readers than the establishment print model ever did.

Iraqi journalist Shihab al-Timimi Dies

zzshupinga — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:50:55 -0600

The chief of the Iraqi Journalists' Union Shihab al-Timimi died on Wed. after being fired upon by gunmen.

IU Bloomington Libraries publish their first electronic journal

Blake — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 23:54:15 -0600

Through a partnership that marks a turning point in scholarly publishing at Indiana University, Ruth Lilly Dean of University Libraries Patricia Steele announced today (Feb. 21) the publication of Museum Anthropology Review, the first faculty-generated electronic journal supported by the IU Bloomington Libraries.