Sukhdev in Web Land

Most Indian Bio-Medical Journals with Top Impact Factors are Open Access Journals

2011-07-27T13:04:00.003+05:30

Few days back I got an email giving latest (2010) Impact Factors for Indian Journals according to JCR. I selected Bio-Medical Journals out of these and ranked them according to their Impact Factors.

Journal	ISSN	IF (2010)	Access Type
J BIOSCIENCES	0250-5991	1.888	Open
INDIAN J MED RES	0971-5916	1.826	Open
J POSTGRAD MED	0022-3859	1.589	Open
J GENET	0022-1333	1.338	Open
INDIAN J VIROL	0970-2822	1.133	Closed
ANN THORAC MED	1817-1737	1.06	Open
INDIAN J MED MICROBI	0255-0857	1.006	Open
INDIAN J MICROBIOL	0046-8991	0.938	Closed
INDIAN J DERMATOL VE	0378-6323	0.932	Open
INDIAN PEDIATR	0019-6061	0.9	Open
NEUROL INDIA	0028-3886	0.834	Open
INDIAN J OPHTHALMOL	0301-4738	0.827	Open
J CANCER RES THER	0973-1482	0.825	Open
ALLELOPATHY J	0971-4693	0.635	Closed
INDIAN J PATHOL MICR	0377-4929	0.57	Open
NATL MED J INDIA	0970-258X	0.541	Open
INT J DIABETES DEV C	0973-3930	0.509	Closed
INDIAN J PEDIATR	0019-5456	0.502	Closed
INDIAN J PHARM SCI	0250-474X	0.455	Open
PHARMACOGN MAG	0973-1296	0.432	Open
ANN INDIAN ACAD NEUR	0972-2327	0.415	Open
INDIAN J PHARMACOL	0253-7613	0.303	Open
INDIAN J ORTHOP	0019-5413	0.285	Open
INDIAN J PHARM EDUC	0019-5464	0.163	Open

Contrary to the common myth that open access journals lack quality - the top journals, as can be seen from above table, are Open Access Journals.

Venturing into DSpace

2010-09-10T17:54:00.002+05:30

After using EPrints for a repository that has earned me a bit of fame among Indian LIS professionals, I am now venturing into DSpace. Well this does not imply my preference to either of these.

So, the news is that I managed to install DSpace (1.6.2) on a RHEL 5 box.

Well, to admit, it was not smooth. However the following did helped me:

DSpace Installation (Manual) in Redhat Linux
AN ALMOST IDIOT'S GUIDE TO INSTALL AND UPGRADE TO POSTGRESQL 8.4 WITH YUM
Howto Install Sun Java (JDK, JRE) on Fedora, CentOS, Red Hat

JDK Installation

DSpace 1.5.2 installation procedure on CentOS 5.3
Installing DSpace on CentOS 5
Apache virtual hosting with Tomcat and mod_jk

I got struck at two places. First it was problem with 'xml-commons-apis'. It was missing. When I installed it by
'yum install xml-commons-apis', Yum automatically removed Sun Java. I had to re-install Sun Java. Second time I got struck with 'ant fresh_install'. The problem was with

Downloading http://geolite.maxmind.com/download/geoip/database/GeoLiteCity.dat.gz

The server was not able to download GeoLiteCity.dat.qz file. I had to cheat 'ant fresh_install' by downloading the file from alternative location and placing it on my server and then tweaking the installation script.
Now finally the DSpace 1.6.2 is working for me. But, I have yet started.

Where do Indian Open Access Repositories stand in world ranking?

2010-01-28T13:30:00.003+05:30

January 2010 Edition of the "The Ranking Web of World repositories" is now available. Cybermetrics Lab has been bringing out such ranking of open access repositories for past few years.

Ranking of Indian Repositories in top 400 world's repositories is given below:

82 - Indian Institute of Science Bangalore ePrints

148 - Openmed

180 - Indian Statistical Institute Digital Library

218 - Indian Institute of Astrophysics Dspace

245 - National Institute of Oceanography India Digital Repository

278 - Raman Research Institute Digital Repository

370 - National Aerospace Laboratories Institutional Repository

Visibility occupies more weight in their methodology as compared to number of documents in repository.

So, how does India score - Good, bad or just OK?

Being most productive while being idle

2010-01-10T22:11:00.003+05:30

How I am most productive while being idle or is it librarianship at its best?

Well, do you know what I do while I am doing nothing?

I am idle most of the time I commute between my office and residence. It comes out to be about two and half hours on week days. I am also not doing anything while awake in bed but reluctant to come out of my blanket in this Delhi winter. I am also idle while helping my wife in her daily house hold things on Saturdays and Sundays. While washing machine is doing its work I am standing idle waiting to for it to complete its work.

Yes, I do nothing except for “playing” with my mobile phone. Yes, it is the same dying model of Sony Ericsson K750i. But it does wonders for me. It connects me to Internet through that old GPRS protocol which now has been outdated with 3G. Thanks, to MTNL, which makes it possible for me to remain connected at very affordable rates. (It charges 1 paisa per 10 KB. 100 paise makes an Indian Rupee and about 46 Rupees makes an US Dollar)

“Playing” with mobile phone? Well, my wife may say that! But actually, either I am going through my RSS Subscriptions on Google Reader or logged to Twitter. Apart from these I also check my emails. Yes, I am reading while I am doing ‘nothing’. So, what is so great about that? Well, I also share the best of what I read. On, Twitter, I follow interesting links twittered by people I follow. If I find these worth sharing with my followers, I “RT” (Re-Tweet) these links as such or with my comments. I also tweet other information bits which I happen to discover while browsing net or reading my emails. While on Google Reader, whenever I find some interesting RSS item, I simply click on ‘share’.

Now what happens to my ‘shared’ items is interesting and I can call it my ‘productive librarianship’. Yes, “Librarianship”! If you agree with me that selecting, collecting, organizing and archiving objects containing information for re-use comes within the scope of librarianship.

Ok, then what happens to my ‘shared items’. Well, first of all, I am using a service called FriendFeed that automatically picks up my shared items from Google Reader. It then further feed these to twitter with my user account. These items along with my RTs and original tweets are available to my followers. So you see I select items and connect my followers and friends to these. Well, not just on twitter but also on social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Orkut. Such social networking applications can now integrate twitter with them.

However, I was looking for some mechanism to archive my twitter activity as well some time. Recently, I found a way out. I created a blog to archive my twitter activity. Well, it is on a paid server space (I can admit spending some money from my pocket as my wife is not going to read this). I used WordPress as the blogging platform and added a freely available ‘Plugin’ called Twitter Digest. Now, what it does? It automatically pulls out my twitter updates and displays in right hand side-frame. Nothing great, but then it also automatically creates a daily digest of my twitter updates and blogs it as one post per day. So, what started as a piece of information being read and shared on my mobile phone in idle time becomes a part of a blog post.

Here, one important aspect should be noted. I would be following only those people whose tweets are of my interest. Further, I would be picking and reading only those links which would appear potentially useful to me. Then after going through these, I would be deciding as which of these could be useful to my followers and thus can be shared. So, here there is lot of filtering going on. As information passes through more and more filters, it gets enriched and authenticated at each level.

Just look this from a higher level of abstraction. Information generated in the grey cells (brain) of uncountable number of people connected to internet gets filtered at various stages. Bits that generate interest in other grey cells travel far wide and quickly. Ultimately, the best information gets organized according to various interests.

Whatever it may be, I am Librarian at best in my idle time.

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009

2009-11-23T15:51:00.001+05:30

Found this on SlideShare.

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009

View more documents from Jane Hart.

Text Translation on Google Translate

2009-11-18T10:32:00.002+05:30

Google Translate is a tool that allows you to translate text, documents and webpages between over 50 languages.

Not Just Another Brick in the Wall: Engaging 21st Century Learning Through Participatory School Librarianship

2009-11-13T14:01:00.001+05:30

Not Just Another Brick in the Wall: Engaging 21st Century Learning Through Participatory School Librarianship

View more presentations from Buffy Hamilton.

Handwriting fonts.

2009-10-13T16:13:00.003+05:30

Was wondering how people make PPT slides with handwritten fonts. Then I came across this useful post on Rapid eLearning Blog - "Over 100 Free Handwritten Fonts". I am yet to try fontcapture.com to create a font for my own handwriting. Anyway, there are few common handwritten fonts readily available from other sources.

in reference to:

"Over 100 Free Handwritten Fonts"
- Over 100 Free Handwritten Fonts » The Rapid eLearning Blog (view on Google Sidewiki)

YouTube Video: Social Media Revolution

2009-10-12T15:09:00.001+05:30

A writeup on limitations of Google Scholar for academic citing.

2009-09-29T17:33:00.001+05:30

Newswire Analysis: Google Scholar’s Ghost Authors, Lost Authors, and Other Problems - 9/24/2009 - Library Journal

Via Mallikarjun Dora on Lis-Forum

Why Libraries should use and adopt Open Source Software?

2009-09-27T16:37:00.003+05:30

I am just back from 12^th NATIONAL CONVENTION ON KNOWLEDGE, LIBRARY AND INFORMATION NETWORKING (NACLIN 2009) of DELNET. There, I argued that Open Source Software is best candidate for being used in Libraries. Both Library as well as Open Source Communities have similar ideologies. Computing history has shown us that both hardware and software have very short life span. They tend to get obsolete in no time when compared to Libraries - which are long term entities. Open Source software is a community effort. Thus there would be someone from community to take place of original developers in case they leave the project. Using Open Source Software is as good as legally owning it. Even libraries can sponsor further development. Thus it is worth to use and adopt open source software for long-term gains and continuity.

Digital Research Tools (DiRT) Wiki

2009-05-15T14:56:00.000+05:30

Digital Research Tools (DiRT) Wiki collects information about tools and resources that can help scholars conduct research more efficiently or creatively.

Pazpar2

2009-05-15T14:52:00.000+05:30

Pazpar2 is a metasearching middleware webservice featuring merging, relevance ranking, record sorting, and faceted results.

Twitter Hindi Reference

2009-05-11T17:28:00.000+05:30

Twitter:
`Chidiyaghar` ya phir `Chahchahati Bahar`

Tweet:
Chahchahana

Tweetup:
Chahchahata Milan

VT:
Yeh Bapu ne bola hai. VT bole toh Vaapis Tweet

Trending Topics:
Ubharta Vishay

Hashtag:
Soochak Shabd

LOLZ:
MKH=Mogambo Khush Hua(Ho Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha)

ROTFL:
MLLKH=Mogambo Lot Lot ke Khush Hua

Via Jai Hind: Proud to be an Indian in 'Twitter Hindi Diwas'

24 new features planned for the next release of EPrints

2009-04-21T15:42:00.000+05:30

Leslie Carr in his post EPrints and its Development talks about new features planned for the next release of EPrints.

Access to the scientific literature in India

2009-04-21T14:54:00.000+05:30

A paper Access to the scientific literature in India uses an evidence-based approach to assess the difficulties faced by developing country scientists in accessing the scientific literature. According to this paper Indian scientists have shorter references lists; they are more likely to cite articles from open access journals and are less likely to cite articles from expensive journals.

Evolution of Librarianship in ICE age.

2009-04-15T15:43:00.002+05:30

Who, Why & How We Serve: The Evolution of Collaborative Librarianship Through Social Media

View more presentations from Health sciences Libraries.

It talks about how librarianship is changing in this era of WEB 2.0 / Social Web. Hope all of us can fellow the evolution path indicated in the presentation.

Repositories Support Project (RSP)

2009-04-03T17:14:00.001+05:30

Repositories Support Project (RSP) is a useful resource to guide establishing, maintaining and promoting Open Access repositories.

New Launch: Open Access Solutions

2009-04-03T16:54:00.002+05:30

OPENACCESSSOLUTIONS.COM may be of interest for those who wish to edit, publish and electronically distribute a highly professional OA journal, yet remain independent.

VTLS Announces the Release of VITAL 4.0

2009-03-12T10:36:00.000+05:30

Release of VITAL 4.0

VITAL is VTLS' solution for today's digital and institutional repositories. Designed to provide all functions of a repository VITAL provides capabilities to ingest, create, maintain, validate, uniquely identify, secure, preserve and export the contents of institutional collections.

Video on XAMPP - Install Apache, PHP, MySQL without fuss

2009-03-09T16:55:00.002+05:30

If you want to try out an Open Source Software that requires LAMP (Linux, Apache, MyQSL and PHP / Perl), here is a simple solution. You don't have to run to a Linux Box. You can try and play with it on your Windows desktop itself. There is a packaged software that will install required files of Apache, MyQSL and PHP / Perl on your windows desktop. It is called XAMPP.

Here is a video that will help in installing this wonderful package.

Recent article cautioning over-reliance on Impact Factors

2009-02-18T14:03:00.001+05:30

Here is yet another article cautioning over reliance on Impact Factors for measuring research impact.

[0902.2183] A principal component analysis of 39 scientific impact measures

..scientific impact is a multi-dimensional construct that can not be adequately measured by any single indicator, although some measures are more suitable than others. The commonly used citation Impact Factor is not positioned at the core of this construct, but at its periphery, and should thus be used with caution..

Open Source for Libraries

2009-02-10T12:53:00.003+05:30

Good presentation on Open Source Softwares and issues associated with Open Source model. Surveys few Open Source Softwares that can be used in Libraries. Remember, there are many more.

Open Source for Libraries

View more presentations from Nicole Engard. (tags: opensource open)

novo|seek

2009-02-09T11:06:00.000+05:30

novo|seek is an another search engine for PubMed. It claims to retrieve more relevant references with ability to fine tune search query.

RSS and Libraries

2009-02-03T16:12:00.000+05:30

RSS and Its Use In Libraries

View more presentations from Sukhdev Singh. (tags: rss libraries)

Ranking of Indian Repositories

2009-01-30T23:51:00.001+05:30

Ranking of Indian Repositories based on Ranking of Web of World Repositories, January 2009 Edition.

World Ranking among all types of Repositories

38 Indian Institute of Science Bangalore ePrints
105 Indian Statistical Institute Digital Library
119 OpenMED@NIC
208 Indian Institute of Astrophysics Dspace
212 Raman Research Institute Digital Repository
234 National Institute of Oceanography India Digital Repository

World Ranking among Institutional Repositories

Science Blogging

2009-01-22T16:17:00.001+05:30

Just came across a write up on science blogging in SciDev.Net - How to set up a science blog. If you are into scholarly, scientific or academic profession, writing a blog would help you to communicate with your peers.

India 2009 - an authoritative reference book on India available for download

2009-01-20T16:30:00.005+05:30

Publication Division of Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (Government of India) brings out an annual reference book on India every year. It usually contains comprehensive and authentic information on various subjects and facts on India. It covers economy, rural and urban development, industry and infrastructure, art and culture, health, defense, mass communication etc. It also covers important events of previous year.

It is a priced publication costing Rs. 345/- and available both in Hindi and English languages. However it available as PDF files from Publication Division's website. I could download it from the following links.

India 2009 (A Reference Annual) in English. File Size 9.90 MB
भारत 2009 in Hindi. File Size 14.92 MB

Annual Review of ReadWrite web technology in India - State of Innovation in India: 2009

2009-01-18T22:26:00.001+05:30

ReadWriteWeb has a latest post calling it annual review of State of Innovation in India: 2009. Zoho; DimDim; Mkhoj; iYogi; TutorVista; Ubona; Mscriber; Obopay and Naukri finds mention in it.

Understanding how libraries (and librarians) can survive in the new media ecosystem

2009-01-18T20:41:00.001+05:30

Just came across PowerPoint Presentation of Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet & American Life Project. The presentation is on How libraries can survive in the new media ecosystem. I am trying to understand the message conveyed by this presentation. It is about "how people's use of the internet and cell phones has fundamentally changed the 'information ecosystem' in 10 ways". Information in this age is Abundant, Cheap, Personally Oriented and Designed for participation. According to Lee, 'information ecosystem' is changing in the following manner:

- Volume of information grows

- Variety of information and sources of information grow

- Velocity of information increases and smart mobs emerge

- Venues of intersecting with information and people multiply and the availability of information expands.

- People’s vigilance for information changes. Attention is 'truncated' and 'elongated'.

- The vibrance and immersive qualities of media environments makes them more compelling places to hang out and interact.

- Valence (relevance) of information improves – search and customization get better

- The voice of information democratizes and the visibility of new creators is enhanced.

- Voting on and ventilating about information proliferates as tagging, rating, and commenting occurs and collective intelligence asserts itself

- Social networks become more vivid and meaningful.

So what can Libraries and Librarians do in such an 'information ecosystem'? Well, they have been advised to take following actions:

-Be findable and available

-Think of yourself as a news node for information and interaction.

-Think of yourself as a social network node for people looking for 'friendsters'

-Think of yourself as an information hub -- an aggregator and a linker to others who have useful, interesting material

-Experiment with Web 2.0 applications

-Offer your good offices to help people master new literacies - Graphic; Navigation; Context; Focus; Skepticism; Ethical and Personal literacies.

The new information ecosystem and required actions for being relevant in this new ecosystem has been well explained by Lee. However, I am trying to understand how the ideas expressed by Lee Rainie correlate to the theory and philosophy of Library and Information Science. Changes in 'information ecosystem' is consistent with Ranganathan's Fifth Law - Library is a Growing Organism. The Library (system) being an Organism, grows and thus get more and more differentiated. It evolves like any other living organism on earth in response to changes in ecosystem. Most 'actions' suggested by Lee are consistent with Forth Law - Save the Time of The Reader. Well, I am not able to fit the concept of 'social networking' on Internet in terms of philosophy of library science. Perhaps, someone from you can help me.

LIS Blogs in India

2009-01-13T00:23:00.001+05:30

Sri Badan Barman of Guwahati has compiled a list of 44 Library and Information Science Blogs in India. He has picked these from 69 blogs after hard work of ten days. He feels that Indian LIS bloggers are not professional enough to attract large number of readers. He advises bloggers to remain focussed on one or two themes.

Anyway, let me console myself - I write for myself.

MixedInk

2009-01-12T23:41:00.001+05:30

MixedInk is a Free Collaborative Writing Tool.

OpenGoo

2009-01-12T23:36:00.001+05:30

OpenGoo: An Open Source Web Office to create, collaborate, share and publish documents.

Article on UGC - User Generated Content in SEARCHER

2009-01-11T23:38:00.001+05:30

A nice writeup on User Generated Content (UGC) appears in SEARCHER - U-Content: Project Gutenberg, Me, and You.

Open Access and Ranganathan's Laws of Library Science

2009-01-11T22:30:00.001+05:30

About a week back I was seeking comments on Open Knowledge Society from subscribers of few library and information email groups. I expressed my personal view that Open Access is merely an extension of philosophy behind. Ranganathan's First Law of Library Science - Books Are For Use. I got few responses. I would to like share one response from Miss Charu Mathur. She is a School Librarian in Delhi and blog at VIRTUAL WORLD and LIBRARY WORLD. She feels that Open Access is not just extension of First Law but can applied to all Five Laws of Ranganathan."..The demand of second law, to get every reader his/her book can be fulfilled by only open access. Internet has opened the new door and information explosion already has taken place. In that situation only Open Access is the way by which any reader/user can have the required piece of information at the right time. Same is the case with third law which urges that every book/information has its reader/user. In absence of open access it is just like the situation where books were used to be kept in locked and chained wooden shelves. In As the demand of fourth law, only freely available information can save the time of reader/user, otherwise the process of opening the door of closed access is too cumbersome and time consuming and this is sheer violation of this law. In fifth law, Ranganathan suggest that Library is the growing organism, so as information. Peter Suber initiative is the best answer of this golden rule.." (Charu).

2009 - Yet Another New Year for me?

2009-01-03T09:50:00.001+05:30

Wish you all a very Happy New Year - 2009. I rarely write about myself. So I will not write much.

People make 'New Year Resolutions'. I don't know how many of them actually stick to these resolutions. I had no any such resolution last year. So the question of sticking to such a resolution did not arise.

Last year was just fine for me. I was involved in few things, but the one that gives me satisfaction is the formation of a professional society - Open Knowledge Society. This is what I dreamed about three years back - a platform for people involved in promotion of "Open Access" in India. I am happy that a platform has been erected. I am proud to be one of its founder members. So now the stage is there, but now what about the actors? Well, they are still missing. So, If I can bring in more actors to this stage in 2009, I would consider having done something in this New Year.

Happy New Year.

SMS Channel Google

2008-10-05T00:00:00.008+05:30

Google has come up with a new service called SMS Channel Google. It is a SMS based application for mobile phones. It is still in its "Labs" but seems to be a promising service.

One requires to register a Cell Phone number and verify it by using the Code sent via SMS. After successful registration process, one can subscribe to various SMS channels. It will keep on alerting through SMSes just like what egroups do through emails.

One can also create his own channel. Just check out the one I have created for this blog.

Librarian will fine you if you smoke in Library

2008-10-02T23:27:00.001+05:30

India has implemented "Prohibition of Smoking in Public Places Rules, 2008" from today i.e. 2nd October 2008. According to these rules, Library is included in Public Places. Anyone found smoking in Libraries would be fined by Librarians.

Web application for Data collaboration

2008-10-02T22:29:00.001+05:30

Swirrl is a web application that allows to store, share, edit and analyze information.

Catalogue of Delhi Public Library goes online with KOHA

2008-10-02T19:59:00.006+05:30

Delhi Public Library is one of best public libraries of India. It is an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Tourism and Culture and governed by Delhi Library Board. It is fully financed by the Government of India. Actually it consists of a network of Zonal Libraries, Branches and Sub-branches, R.C.Libraries, Community Libraries, Deposit Stations, Sports Libraries, Mobile Library, Braille library, etc. spread all over Delhi. Its total collection is over 14 lakh books in Hindi, English, Urdu, Punjabi & other Indian Languages.

Today, it added a new milestone in its journey. It made its Catalogue online. For this it has used an Open Source Software - Koha. Which is a full-featured Integrated Library System.

I have just done a quick search on Library's Online Catalogue.

Well done. Keep it up.

zSHARE.net

2008-09-03T15:55:00.000+05:30

zSHARE - Free Image, Video, Audio, Flash and File Hosting

.."With zSHARE you can upload files, images, videos, audio and flash for free. Simply use the upload form below and start sharing! You can also use zSHARE as your personal file storage: backup your data and protect your files"..

Why Google Chrome won't be my Browser

2008-09-03T11:19:00.000+05:30

Downloaded and installed Google Chrome. Installing was done without any problem. Just for the last step - it required to close down my Firefox which was installing it. It wanted to copy its settings. Fine, closed the Firefox, but installation pop up of Chrome was refusing to die. The "x" was inactive. Anyway killed it and started the Chrome. Entered Gmail URL, it opens up a pop-up for Proxy Authentication. Ok done, but noticed that it does not provide for saving the authentication which normally other browsers do. So every time I needed to start a session, it prompts for authentication. Very irritating!

The technology behind Google Chrome has been explained through a 38 pages cartoon booklet. This way of explaining is quite innovative. So I was quick to learn that big advantage of Chrome lies in multiprocessing. If a "Tab" gets struck, the whole Chrome need not be killed.

However, I still can not afford to shift from Firefox to Chrome. I am used to many 'add-ons' or Plug-ins available for Firefox. Hope such add-ons are also available for Chrome in near future.

Write-up on Library and Information as Career

2008-08-19T13:56:00.000+05:30

Employment News carries a write-up on Careers in Library and information Science.

Koha and Delhi Public Library

2008-08-12T16:38:00.000+05:30

Delhi Public Library is implementing Koha for its OPAC. Tried to have a look but could not enter the OPAC. It is restricted to Library Members only. Anyway, a good begining for one of the largest Public Libraries of India.

I told you! Everybody has a Librarian inside

2008-07-29T16:52:00.001+05:30

Came across an interesting way of building a "LIBRARY" from the following blog post:

[India Sudar] Library project @ Govt Girls Home « India Sudar Educational and Charitable Trust.

.."I just took the print out of all the ids of books. And, those ppl worked hard to paste them all according to the excel sheet, ordering & categorizing the books, etc. Soundar has donated a book-shelf, few of my roommates dontaed some of the books. One of our members, Arun, donated the whole amt for all the 10 chairs"..

I told you na, Everybody has a Librarian Inside! But this time it is in the context of a real library and not Folksonomy.

A private library in Indore claims having rare volumes

2008-07-29T16:16:00.001+05:30

According to a news item - Indore library has rare volumes of Hindu scriptures in Arabic, Portugeese and Farsi

"Aziz Indori's private library, located in Khajrana area of Indore, boasts of several rare volumes and publications of Hindu epics such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata in Portuguese, Urdu, Arabic and Persian languages."

Google's Wikipedia - Knol

2008-07-25T16:07:00.001+05:30

Google has released for public its Wikipedia known asKnol (a unit of knowledge).

Report on Top Indian Web sites for May 2008

2008-07-23T22:37:00.001+05:30

Top Indian Web sites for May 2008 - CIOL News Reports

According to a report on Internet usage in India, more than 28 million people in India accessed the Internet from home and work locations in May.

Another wiki coming up for medical information

2008-07-23T22:18:00.001+05:30

Medpedia would be an another wiki based collaborative project to collect and disseminate authentic information about health, medicine and the body.

midomi.com

2008-07-14T23:40:00.001+05:30

Search for Music Using Your Voice by Singing or Humming, View Music Videos, Join Fan Clubs, Share with Friends, Be Discovered and Much More For Free! - midomi.com

Librarians in Movies

2008-07-14T23:37:00.001+05:30

In most movies, librarians are typically stereotyped as people who are enforcing 'silence' in libraries.

It would be interesting to read a post in TCM’s Movie Blog that depicts librarians' roles in various movies.

..most librarians are portrayed as rather stuffy, repressed types, hellbent on enforcing the rules and naive about the real world..

Diigo

2008-07-14T23:09:00.001+05:30

Diigo - Web Highlighter and Sticky Notes, Social Bookmarking and Annotation, Social Information Network!

British Library has a Flickr Group on Ramayana

2008-07-10T16:31:00.002+05:30

A Scene from the Epic, Ramayana
Originally uploaded by Kamala Number

Libraries are choosing Flickr to post and share Photos on web. Here is an interesting example by British Library.

The British Library (see its Flickr Profile) has a group on Flickr called Ramayana. Photos / images submitted to this Flickr Group could appear in their gallery in London and on their Library's website, under the section - Ramayana: Love and Valour in India's Great Epic.

bit.ly

2008-07-09T22:34:00.001+05:30

bit.ly, - is yet another url shortening service. However it also provides API. Worth exploring.

Philosophy behind Google ranking:

2008-07-09T22:05:00.001+05:30

Google Fellow Amit Singhal shares the philosophies behind Google Ranking in their Official Google Blog. The post, Introduction to Google Ranking, lists following philosophies:

1) Best locally relevant results served globally.
2) Keep it simple.
3) No manual intervention.

Open Source Software in Education

2008-07-08T23:03:00.001+05:30

Open Source Software in Education (EDUCAUSE Quarterly) | EDUCAUSE CONNECT

..Open source and digital education and learning, separately and together, aim to reach everyone. Although both movements have gained considerable maturity, a need for greater coordination exists..

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video

2008-07-08T22:43:00.001+05:30

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video

..is a code of best practices that helps creators, online providers, copyright holders, and others interested in the making of online video interpret the copyright doctrine of fair use..

Study - Most webmasters have to remove dead links.

2008-07-07T16:06:00.001+05:30

According to a study "Delinking: An Exploratory Study" by Isola Ajiferuke published in Webology, Volume 5, Number 1, March, 2008 most web masters have to remove external links from their sites. The most common reason for removing links is obviously that the linked pages cease to exist or had become irrelevant. However sometimes the links are removed on the basis of Political/philosophical difference with owner of linked site.

..webmasters, especially those at colleges and universities in Canada and US, do delink on a regular basis, and reasons for delinking include dead links, site outdated, site is poorly designed, and site’s content is of low quality. Given that most web search engines use the number of inlinks as one of the criteria in ranking search output, a site owner/webmaster should try to minimize the risk of the site being delinked from by other sites by ensuring that the site is well designed, rich in content, up-to-date, and if the site’s (or any of its pages) address changes, users are re-routed from the old address to the new address..

Book on Open Access

2008-07-04T15:31:00.002+05:30

An e-book on Open Access has been released by ICTP-SDU. This book titled "Science Dissemination using Open Access" aims to guide the scientific community on the requirements of Open Access. It includes available low-cost solutions for open access along with selected literature on Open Access.

The book is available as PDF File. It is also available from an interesting on-line publishing platform - ISSUU.

Koha Version 3 RC1 Released

2008-06-24T23:49:00.001+05:30

Koha 3 RC1 (release candidate) has been released for version 3.0. We can expect a stable release soon.

Firefox Add-ons for Librarians and Library Users

2008-06-24T23:24:00.002+05:30

Firefox is one of my favourite software applications. It is a web browser like Internet Explorer. It is from Mozilla Application Suite, managed by the Mozilla Corporation. It uses open source Gecko layout engine and is compliant to current web standards. It is available for free for most operating systems like Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Its version 3.0 has been released recently on 17th June 2008, the day hyped as "Download Day 2008". It is a feature rich application, however I like its add-ons capability the most. There are around 2,000 add-ons (plug-ins) available to extend its functionality. Most of these add-ons are from third party developers.

Out of these 2,000 add-ons or Plug-ins, there are few which are useful for librarians and library users. You may like to see “100 Essential Firefox Add-Ons for Librarians” by Jessica Merritt. There are some more lists of add-ons by librarians. Like the one of Teri Vogel - My Favorite Firefox Extensions and he one by Jessamyn West - Pimp My Firefox. However I don’t feel all these add-ons are just for librarians alone. Most of these are good for even non-librarians. However, there are few, which are special for librarians. LibX is one such plug-in. Libraries can create their own edition of LibX to provide to access to their resource catalogues through LibX add-on. Around 422 academic and public libraries have already done so. Another interesting Plug-in is Zotero. It is an easy-to-use Firefox extension to help collection, management and cite Internet sources. There is a nice tutorial available for using LibX and Zotero in combination.

Firefox also has a built-in search box on the Navigation Toolbar, which has a drop-down box showing the available searches. These are created using search plug-ins. Search plug-ins are simple text files which are installed by adding them to the Mozilla Firefox searchplugins folder. Such a search plugin can be created for a library.

Librarians could experiment with thousands of available add-ons. Few months back I had advised a librarian to use an add-on for display a ticker for RSS feeds of current News.

| View | Upload your own

There are many more add-ons waiting for getting used by librarians and library users.

ImageOx

2008-06-19T17:17:00.001+05:30

Free Photo sharing & Image Hosting with ImageOX

..ImageOx provides free image sharing/hosting with a number for EXCLUSIVE features such as instant autorun CD Flash presentation, image galleries (albums), image slideshows, instant folder creation (image series), personal profiles and image management area with free user registration..

PhpMyBibli Library Automation System Installation Guide for EasyPHP

2008-06-19T13:55:00.001+05:30

Vimal Kumar V has prepared easy to follow Installation Instructions for an open source integrated library system called PhpMyBibli. This software is a product of a project that was initiated by François Lemarchand in October 2002, Director of the Public Library of Agneaux. It is now better known as PMB (PhpMyBibli) and is maintained by PMB Services (a French Company).

PMB has most of the functional modules essential for a library management system including Circulation; Cataloguing; Reports; Selective Dissemination of Information Service; Administration and Acquisition. It has friendly web interfaces for librarian and users and supports UNIMARC and Z39.50 standards. Some other features include - Barcode Generator; Multi Language Support and Import and export of bibliographic records in different formats.

Quick installation of PMB using EasyPHP is possible in Windows XP as shown by Mr. Vimal.

Some other Open Source Softwares for libraries are Koha, OpenBiblio, PhpMyLibrary and NewGenLib. One can also frequently check OSS4Lib. It is a useful resource for Open Source systems for libraries.

A scientist's view on making impact through Open Access Journals

2008-06-19T10:43:00.001+05:30

Dr Jeetender Chugh in his blog JC says has a suggestion on how to increase Impact Factors for Indian Journals

"..Govt should make a rule, which should be applicable to all the universities and institutes across India, that we, the researchers of India should publish all the work in Indian Journals only. The journals may be peer-reviewed internationally. The journals may be available online free of cost, and free copies may be sent to major universities worldwide.."

Dr Chugh is emphasising on two things - Govt. directive on scholarly publishing and free availability of Indian scholarly publications. It has been proved number of times that unrestricted online availability of of scholarly articles results in better impact (Online or Invisible? by Steve Lawrence; NEC Research Institute). Thus if Indian research is published through open access journals, it would make better impact on further research world wide. However it appears impractical to force authors to publish only in Indian Journals. However Govt. could mandate that publications arising from public funded research be archived in some Open Access archives within a specific time after their publication. A policy similar to NIH Public Access could be explored for such a mandate.

The NIH Public Access Policy ensures that the public has access to the published results of NIH funded research. It requires scientists to submit journal final peer-reviewed manuscripts that arise from NIH funds to the digital archive PubMed Central (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/). The Policy requires that these articles be accessible to the public on PubMed Central to help advance science and improve human health.

Learn about Library 2.0 - List of 100 Webinars and Tutorials

2008-06-17T22:30:00.001+05:30

Jessica Merritt has listed 100 Free Library 2.0 Webinars and Tutorials on College@Home. A good compilation for understanding library 2.0 concept and its uses.

Self-corrective nature of scientific knowledge

2008-06-17T14:14:00.001+05:30

Open access and the self-correction of knowledge (SPARC), From the SPARC Open Access Newsletter, June 2, 2008. By Peter Suber.

..Science is fallible, but clearly that’s not what makes it special. Science is special because it’s self-correcting. It isn’t self-correcting because individual scientists acknowledge their mistakes, accept correction, and change their minds. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. Science is self-correcting because scientists eventually correct the errors of other scientists, and find the evidence to persuade their colleagues to accept the correction, even if the new professional consensus takes more than a generation. In fact, it’s precisely because individuals find it difficult to correct themselves, or precisely because they benefit from the perspectives of others, that we should employ means of correction that harness public scrutiny and open access..

Access to Learning Award

2008-06-17T14:08:00.001+05:30

Access to Learning Award by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recognizes innovative efforts of public libraries or similar organizations outside the United States to connect people to information through free access to computers and the Internet.

Applications for 2009 Award are being invited by the foundation by Oct. 31, 2008.

e-polymers Journal

2008-06-16T12:43:00.001+05:30

e-polymers is a peer-reviewed Open Access journal under the auspices of the European Polymer Federation (EPF).

PDF File support now available in Google Docs

2008-06-15T09:32:00.002+05:30

Google Docs now has added support for PDF Files. I you select
Upload a File option, you will notice the following towards the bottom right hand position:

"PDF Files (up to 10 MB from your computer, 2 MB from the web)"

The uploaded PDF file is shown as image. You can print it or share it. So, editing is not available yet.

Comment on Open Access 2.0

2008-06-13T11:50:00.001+05:30

Left following comment on T. Scott's post on Open Access 2.0

The "2.0" qualifier is more often used in the context where readers themselves create content in a collaborative manner on the interactive web media. I was looking for this angle in Joe Esposito's article. However, I was bit disappointed as this aspect was missing. There is no 1.0 in Open Access. In fact, Open Access itself is "Access 2.0". This movement is all about scholars making their own scholarly literature accessible to their scholarly peers.

Bibliographic Ontology Specification

2008-06-13T00:17:00.001+05:30

Bibliographic Ontology Specification provides main concepts and properties for describing citations and bibliographic references on the Semantic Web.

Another way to embed RSS Feeds in your web page or blog

2008-06-12T17:16:00.001+05:30

Digital Inspiration has an interesting tutorial to aggregate feeds from various sources. The technique uses Google Docs' Spreadsheet. It uses the spreadsheet formulas - "ImportFeed "and "Hyperlink" to display feed items and hyperlink these to original URLs. This spreadsheet is then published and html code is generated. The code can be embedded in a web page or blog.

English - Hindi Dictionary for Java enabled Mobile Phones

2008-06-10T11:46:00.001+05:30

English - Hindi Dictionary is a freely downloadable J2ME application. It can be installed on a Java enabled mobile phone. May be helpful for visitors to India and as well for those who would like to learn English.

Google AJAX Feed API

2008-06-09T17:09:00.001+05:30

Google AJAX Feed API - Dynamic Feed Control Wizard - allows to embed a Dynamic Feed Control on web page.

Netvibes is giving away its technology

2008-06-07T21:05:00.001+05:30

Netvibes that enables meshups of widgets, RSS Feeds, emails, instant messengers etc. at one place is now giving away its technology from Netvibes.org site.

Blogs in Plain English

2008-06-07T19:38:00.001+05:30

What to know what a Blog is? This is one of the best resources to explain it.

Brain Rules for Presenters

2008-06-05T15:23:00.001+05:30

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ThoughtMesh

2008-06-03T16:20:00.001+05:30

.."ThoughtMesh is an unusual model for publishing and discovering scholarly papers online. It gives readers a tag-based navigation system that uses keywords to connect excerpts of essays published on different Web sites"..

Attitude towards profession of participants of an online discussion forum of Library and Information Science Professionals

2008-06-03T15:57:00.004+05:30

Introduction:

Online discussion forums are one of earliest form of online communication among people with common interests. Many of these forums are meant for people associated with a profession. LIS-Forum (LIS-Forum, 2008) is such an email based discussion forum (list-serv) for Library and Information Science (LIS) Professionals. It has been there since 1995 (Rajashekar, 2002) and now has more than 4100 subscribers. This online forum is the most popular and oldest in India. It has wide spread subscription base among Library and Information Professionals from India. It also has decent subscribers from outside India. It would be matter of interest to know what these subscribers think of LIS profession. Why did they enter into this profession? Was it a pure chance, lack of alternatives or deliberate choice? What is their attitude towards the core philosophy of the profession? A brief survey was done on the subscribers in the month of April 2008 to get some insight on these issues. However, the basic objective of this survey was to demonstrate a feature of Google Docs’ online spreadsheet (Google Docs, 2008) that can be exploited to conduct online surveys.

Methodology:

An online questionnaire was created using Google Docs’ online spreadsheet (Singh, Conduct Research and Surveys Online: Design, Send and Get Results Directly in Spreadsheet Using Google Docs, 2008). Google Docs has a feature to create an online form and link back it to a spreadsheet on its server. The data entered through forms gets entered directly into this linked spreadsheet. The questionnaire can be sent directly through email to target survey participants. Most email clients and web based emails services can directly display the form in email of the recipients. The recipient can fill in the values and click on submit button. In case the form is not displayed properly, a link to the online form is always there for the recipient to visit and respond.

A very simple survey questionnaire (Singh, LIS Motivation Survey, 2008) was created. The objective was to collect only minimal but relevant information. No personal details were collected. Only four questions were asked. Three were close-ended questions where the respondents had to just click on options. The last question was open-ended asking comments from respondents. These questions were asked:

Your Age Group?
Your Occupation?
Why you choose LIS Profession?
Any comments?

The questionnaire was mailed to LIS-Forum. The LIS-Forum moderator approved the email containing the survey on 21^st April 2008. The responses started pouring in from 11:01 A.M. First day saw most of the responses. On third day, the responses tampered to just three responses. However, responses kept pouring in even later. The last response that was included in the study is the 57^th response received on 3^rd May 2008.

Analysis:

Age Groups:

The responses were grouped age-wise. Most responses (42%) were from respondents in the age group of 25 -30 years. This was followed (30%) by those in the age group of 31-35. Thus this relatively young age group of 25 to 35 years combined together formed 72% of responses.

Age Groups	Total
Above 60	1
Between 25 - 30	24
Between 31 - 35	17
Between 36 - 40	2
Between 41 - 45	4
Between 46 - 50	3
Between 51- 55	3
Between 56 - 60	1
Under 25	2
Grand Total	57

Occupations:

Most respondents (65%) were employed in LIS domain. Apart from these 10% were employed in LIS domain as well research students. While 7% more were doing correspondence courses to improve their qualifications while in service. Thus 82% of the respondents were employed in LIS domain. Only one (2%) respondent was working in non-LIS domain.

Respondents’ Occupations	Total
Employed but LIS Student of Distant / Correspondence Course	4
Employed in LIS Domain	37
Employed in non-LIS Domain	1
Research Only	2
Research Only, Employed but LIS Student of Distant / Correspondence Course	1
Research, but Employed	6
Research, but Employed, Employed in LIS Domain	2
Retired	1
Student – MLIS	1
Student - MLIS, Employed in LIS Domain	1
Student - MLIS, Research, but Employed	1
Grand Total	57

Reason for Joining Library and Information Science (LIS) Profession:

Interestingly, almost half (46%) of the persons said they loved the philosophy of LIS profession. Twenty percent of the people said that they joined the profession because jobs were / are easily available. About same number (23%) of people said that they did not care to know much it before joining.

Reason for choosing LIS Profession	Total
I had to do something, What is your problem?	2
I loved the philosophy of the profession	26
I was employed in another field, studied LIS during job and now I am well off.	1
Jobs are / were easily available in LIS	11
Just joined it without caring what it is all about	13
Nothing better was available to me	1
Wanted to spend some more time at university	2

Grand Total	56

Breaking down responses by two major age groups (25-30 and 31-35) revealed an interesting fact. In 25-30 age group, 9 out of 24 (37.5%) respondents said that they did not care what the profession was all about while joining it. However, in the age group of 31-35, only 1 out of 16 (6.25%) said so. This gives an indication that people tend to love core philosophy of the profession with passage of time.

Respondents’ General Comments:

There was an open ended question asking comments of the respondents. Most of the people wanted to know the results of this survey. Some were with very positive comments towards the profession. At the same time, few were very critical about joining the profession. One person even thought to the extent that juniors are being exploited by their senior professionals.

Limitation of study:

The questionnaire had a very poor response. It would be risky to draw major conclusions from this study. This study can only reflect the views of active LIS-Forum subscribers who opted to respond.

Conclusion:

Though the response rate was poor, but still the study does tell about the attitude of active participants of the LIS-Forum who decided to respond promptly. Majority of the responses came within 48 hours. The methodology of the survey, that is using Google Docs, hence has been tested. This methodology works and thus can be used for online surveys. This study also showed that relatively young people from the age group of 25 to 35 years are active on online forum for LIS professionals. This active population either has positive attitude towards the philosophy of profession or consider LIS as a career. Moreover, their commitment and love towards the professional philosophy increases with time. Further studies on this issue are required. The spreadsheet containing the survey responses is being shared as open data to help future similar studies (LIS motivation survey: spreadsheet with survey responses, 2008). To maintain privacy, the comments field has been deleted from this spreadsheet.

References

Google Docs. (2008). Retrieved June 3, 2008, from http://docs.google.com/

LIS motivation survey: spreadsheet with survey responses. (2008, June 3). Retrieved June 3, 2008, from http://snipr.com/2bvu5

LIS-Forum. (2008). Retrieved June 3, 2008, from LIS-Forum: Discussion Forum for Library and Information Professionals in India: http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum

Rajashekar, T. (2002, Oct 1). LIS-Forum: A brief history. Retrieved June 1, 2008, from http://snipr.com/lishistory

Singh, S. (2008, April 25). Conduct Research and Surveys Online: Design, Send and Get Results Directly in Spreadsheet Using Google Docs. Retrieved June 1, 2008, from http://snipr.com/gdsurvey

Singh, S. (2008, April 19). LIS Motivation Survey. Retrieved June 1, 2008, from http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=p4GBbR26ZPytvtls2v-qhBw

What can Bloggers do for Open Access?

2008-05-29T23:56:00.009+05:30

Last Saturday I participated in a Bar Camp in Delhi. This was organized by IBNMS [1] and was named as Blog Camp Delhi [2]. I learned that the philosophy of such Bar Camps [3] is that everyone has to contribute in some way or the other. So, I decided to give a presentation on Open Access [4]. I knew I will be talking to entirely wrong audience. As the theme was on blogging, obviously the people can be expected to be more interested in the art of blogging and monetising their blogs. Most would be young and might not have tasted the frustration of obtaining scholarly articles [5]. But, I had no other way to contribute. I went ahead with my decision to give a presentation on my favorite topic i.e. Open Access.

I finally took a session on it - Open Access: What it is and why it is required for scholarly community?

While working on my presentation, I was always thinking on how to make it relevant to expected participants of blog camp. Without any lose of time, I thought of Peter Suber [6]. After all, he has been blogging on Open Access for years now. We are getting all the latest news on Open Access from his Open Access News blog [7]. But then, he is an Open Access advocate. Blogging is just a media for his advocacy of open Access. Many other like him are advocates first and bloggers afterwards. However, my job was to tell an audience that might not even know what scholarly literature is.

How to tell them that there is a community that does things just for the sake of science and advancement of knowledge? This Community of academicians, scientists and scholars has different value system. Here, the reputations of community members largely depend upon papers they publish and references they get to these papers. So, they need to publish papers to remain relevant in the community. This helps them to get promotions and other career advancements. Scholarly papers are often based on original research done in systematic manner over a period of time. Research is never done in vacuum but is always based on existing knowledge. New research aims to extend the baseline of existing knowledge in a specific domain. This requires searching and ‘consumption’ of relevant scholarly papers related to their research. Once the research is completed, the results are included in manuscripts for getting published as articles in scholarly journals. Before an article can be published in a journal, it has to undergo a process called peer-review [8]. In this process, the manuscript submitted by authors is referred to two or three scholars working in similar area. Editorial board consisting of eminent scholars takes final decision to accept or reject paper based on comments of reviewers. It can also send back manuscripts to authors for modification and resubmission. So, it is the members of same scholarly community that are playing the roles of consumers (researchers and scholars) of previously published papers, producers (as authors) as well as quality controllers (as peer-reviewers and editorial board members). All these players are contributing to science and knowledge without seeking immediate monetary benefits. However academic publishing business is more often guided by commercial interests. Publishers insist on exclusive transfer of copyrights of authors in their favour. While authors of books, non-scholarly and popular literature negotiate in terms of royalties, scholarly authors give away their rights without caring much about monetary benefits. Thus, years of hard work is given away for free by scholars so that their papers can be published. The same is then sold back to the same community at a very high subscription rates.

Scholars, academicians and scientists need to access knowledge locked up in high cost journals for conducting new research. It is same knowledge which they themselves had created. It means, only those researchers and scholars can access this locked up knowledge whose employers and institutes can afford to purchase this knowledge. This creates inequalities of access to knowledge. That results in inequalities in efficiency of producing new knowledge. Poor and developing nation are most hit as they can not spend much on purchasing scholarly journals in foreign currencies to the level of developed countries.

Thanks to Internet, things are changing now. Research can be reported much quickly. Authors can submit their manuscripts online. Manuscript management and online publishing has become much easier especially with manuscript management systems like Open Journal System [9]. All processes, from assignment of peer-reviewers to bringing out a new issue can be done online. Which means journal publishing now is much cheaper and prompt. Number of online journals have come up in last decade. Even the traditional journals now have online versions. Wait, that does not necessarily means that what all is available online can be accessed for free. However many journals do provide free access to their full content. Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) [10] lists about 3390 open access journals. Out of which around 100 are from India [11]. These Open Access journals do whatever the traditional scholarly journals do for publishing peer-reviewed articles. Only difference is that they provide online access to anybody and everybody for free. Open Access journals are free to readers but obviously not free to produce. There are various business models for producing open access journals. Most professional societies have their official journals. These are distributed to society members. The parent society takes care of publication costs. Many such society journals have online version. These are normally accessible for free. In India, most online society journals come under this category. Then there are public funded organisations engaged in research and its promotion. These also publish research journals and make their online versions free. The best citied journal from India, Indian Journal of Medical Research [12], falls under this category. Somewhat controversial but successful model is being adopted by Open Access Publishers like PLoS [13] and BioMed Central [14]. Here once the article gets selected for publication after peer-review process, the author needs to pay a fee [15][16]. Popularity of such publishers with such a author-pays model sometime confuse people to belief that open access is all about author-pays and free-to-reader model of publishing. No, Open Access publishing of scholarly literature can be done through number of business models. The model adopted by publishers like PLoS and BioMed is just one of models.

There is one more route to open access. Here, the authors or other right holders retain [17] and exercise their right to self-achieve their papers in publically accessible digital repositories. These could be repositories run by their institutions (Institutional Repositories) or Subject Repositories allowing self-archiving without considering institutional affiliation of the authors. Number of universities, academic institutions and research funding agencies are making Open Access via such repositories mandatory [18]. Recently in U.S., NIH voluntary Public Access Policy has been made mandatory through an Act [19]. University faculties are becoming aware of benefits of archiving for open access, for example on 6th May 2008, Harvard Law faculty voted for 'open access' to their scholarly articles [20] through digital repositories. Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) had 1065 registered repositories with it as on 21st May 2008 worldwide [21].

I don’t know how much people in blogging or the wider domain of New Media know about this strange model of academic publishing. However bloggers, once made aware of it , can help open access movement [22] in number of ways. One way is to blog on Open Access itself. There are few already there and well established like the one by Peter Suber [7]. Some others which I know are OA Librarian [23]; The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics [24] and I will also mention the one from student community – Open Students: students for open access to research [25]. Second way is to blog about various open access resources. Every day, number of resources including journals, repositories, open courseware etc are launched and announced. These could be evaluated, annotated and listed under well planned categories (or tags) in a blog. Links of such tags or categories automatically collate resources into listings of related posts. It could be very similar to ‘Digital Scholarship’ [26]. Third way has to do more with subject experts. Scientists and Scholars can blog on how to promote open access within their own subject domain. Open Access Anthropology: Promoting Open Access in Anthropology [27] is beautiful example. Very similar concept has been highlighted in a presentation - Blogging Archaeology: creating an Open Access source for knowledge [28]. Fourth way is to blog about Peer-Reviewed Research. All such blog posts can be aggregated at one place [29]. There could be many more ways to promote Open Access through blogging.

Open Access: What it is and why it is required for scholarly community?

2008-05-26T10:55:00.001+05:30

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Guides for OA journal publishers

2008-05-21T09:49:00.002+05:30

Guides for OA journal publishers - OAD

Guidelines, primers, recommendations, and best practices for publishers of open-access journals

My first encounter with Google Health

2008-05-20T13:49:00.005+05:30

Google Health is now a reality. On visiting it, I landed on an agreement page. Apart from other usual terms and conditions, I had to agree to authorize Google to share my health information in my profile. However, it appears that I can choose with whom it could be shared.

This could even contain sensitive information relating to the following:

* HIV or AIDS
* Mental illness or any mental health condition
* Alcohol or substance abuse
* Sexually transmitted diseases
* Pregnancy
* Abortion or other family planning
* Genetic tests or genetic diseases

This authorization also covers any record that a doctor or other health care provider may supply to Google Health. The good thing is that I can withdraw this authorization by deleting my profile or using options available in Google Health.

Health profile could be created by entering information relating to Drug interactions, Age, sex, height, Medical Conditions, Medications, Allergies, Procedures, Test results, Immunizations etc. Health profile can be populated from very user-friendly search tool or from alphabetic listings. Diseases can be added from alphabetical list. The items in the list are with “reference” links. The “reference” here means special pages with brief but excellent description of the disease. These contain information on symptoms, treatment, prognosis, tests, prevention, complications, when to consult a doctor etc. These pages are supplemented with what Google is best at. These are search results from Google Scholar, related groups and search trends. These pages are illustrated with diagrams and pictures.

One can even import medical records from independent service providers offering personal health services. It has the following in the listing. Very likely, this is going to expand in future.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Cleveland Clinic MyChart
Longs Drug Stores
Medco
MinuteClinic from CVS Caremark
Quest Diagnostics
RxAmerica
Walgreens Pharmacy

One can also explore health services for medical records. The following are listed at present:

Cleveland Clinic MyConsult
ePillBox.info
Heart Attack Risk Calculator
HxTI VaccineView
iHealth, powered by Medem
Lifestar
LIVESTRONG.COM Health Center
MediConnect Global
MyCareTeam MCT-Diabetes
MyDailyApple

One can also find a doctor and add to medical contacts. It also has tools to alert and send you notices like drug interactions depending upon information in the profile.

My overall impression is that it could become very useful tool for keeping better personal medical histories and records. As expected, presently it can be fully exploited by people residing in U.S. Hopefully more and more service providers from other countries would be associating with Google Health.

A Video on Open Access

2008-05-15T10:07:00.001+05:30

Open Access to Scholarly Publications (Updated May 10, 2008) from Sean Kass on Vimeo.

Yet another URL Shortening Service

2008-05-12T13:51:00.001+05:30

Came across yet another URL Shortening Service - Xrl.in - Really Tiny Links. It also provides "Bookmarklet" link to shortened the URL of the current page in your browser. For this, you can also download an extension for your Firefox. It promises to come with a facility to manage your shortened links.

Snipr still remains my favorite service for shortening long URLs. It let you to select your own suffix text (if available) and title to the URL being shortened.

Google Reader evolving into a Social Networking Site?

2008-05-06T12:44:00.004+05:30

Just wondering whether Google Reader is gradually evolving into a Social Networking Site? It has now improved its Sharing options. It has become easier to share your favorite sites with your friends. It provides for a “Note in Reader” link that can be dragged and dropped in your browser’s bookmarks bar. Once that is done, you are ready to share your favorite sites or the sites you just discovered. Select a relevant portion of the site you wish to share through Google Reader and click on “Note in Reader”. (Well text selection is optional, but it is also better to be focused). A window will open up with title of the site being shared with selected text already filled. Now just put your annotation (yet another optional step) about the site (your friends might like to know as why you are sharing?) and click “Post Item”. You have now shared an item through Google Reader. You can email the links of shared items to your friends, share through your blog (ready to add clip in Blogger available) or copy and paste relevant HTML snippet in your site.

Will Google Reader continue to add such features and evolve into a Social Networking Site? It can add profiles, favorite contacts, communities, pictures and all that stuff. With all these usual social networking stuff powered with shared knowledge (sites), Google Reader could become “Google Wisdom” for a participating virtual community.

Open Access Directory (OAD)

2008-05-06T10:12:00.001+05:30

A new wiki - Open Access Directory (OAD) - has been rolled out. It would serve as a compendium of simple factual lists about open access (OA) to science and scholarship.

Page2RSS - Create RSS feed for any web page

2008-05-05T16:50:00.001+05:30

Page2RSS is one of the services available for monitoring non-RSS enabled web sites. Such services monitor requested sites. Once a change is noticed, a RSS feed is generated and delivered to subscribers.

Hindi included in Google Translate

2008-05-02T10:51:00.001+05:30

Google Translate has now included Hindi in its list of languages. So now you can translate 'English to Hindi' or 'Hindi to English'. See also few useful tools available with Google Translate. You can read English sites in Hindi or Make your own site avalable in Hindi or English. The translated text for Hindi would be in Devnagri.

But don't start celebrating yet! Translated text does not follow the grammar or syntax of Hindi. For example "My name is Sukhdev Singh" would be translated as "मेरा नाम है सुखदेव सिंह", when it should be "मेरा नाम सुखदेव सिंह है". You can suggest Google the right translation by clicking on "Suggest a better translation". It may improve translation quality in future by learning from suggestions.

List of Free Tools for Learning

2008-05-01T13:19:00.001+05:30

Nice post listing free tools and sites that can be used for learning:

ZaidLearn: A Free Learning Tool for Every Learning Problem?

"..every learning problem (or issue) we have today, there is probably a free tool or site out there that enables us to solve it.."

Open Science Directory

2008-04-30T23:42:00.001+05:30

Open Science Directory has been developed by EBSCO and the Hasselt University Library. About 13000 scientific journals are listed in this directory. It contains open access journals and journals in the special programs like Hinari, Agora,
OARE etc. Some other
programs like INASP-PERI and eJDS will also be added in the near future.

Test Speed of your Broadband Internet Connection

2008-04-29T13:16:00.001+05:30

Looking for a way to test speed of your Internet Broadband connection. Try Speedtest.net. It will tell both uploading and downloading speed of your connection.

Blacklight - an open source OPAC

2008-04-29T11:58:00.001+05:30

Blacklight is an open source OPAC. Libraries can use it to allow people to search and browse their collections online.

Trooker for Searching Online Videos

2008-04-29T10:21:00.001+05:30

Trooker is a useful search engine for finding out videos from various online services like the kind YouTube. [Found via]

Blog on use of social networking sites for Libraries

2008-04-29T09:49:00.001+05:30

Friends:Social Networking Sites for Engaged Library Services - is a blog on use of social networking sites for any and all types of library-related programs or services.

Predictive Input System for English and Indian Languagues

2008-04-29T09:27:00.001+05:30

Found a wonderful site lipik.in [via]. It is a service that helps you to save your typing time. It would be especially useful if you are trying to write in Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil or Kannada. It is an online predictive input system that anticipates your intention and tries to complete the words for you as you type. It shows you a on-screen keyboard with a suggestions panel.

If you are a registered user, it learns your writing style and suggests you better. You can store your documents online as well as search Internet from words in your documents.

yBook - a freeware ebook reader

2008-04-28T22:03:00.001+05:30

yBook - a freeware ebook reader software provides provides a 'paper book' experience on the computer screen: like it shows two pages side-by-side instead of just one page in the middle of the screen.

Social Networking open source resources

2008-04-28T13:36:00.001+05:30

Max Kiesler- Strategic Designer - blog has a list of 40 open source resources to get you started building your own social bookmarking, networking, filesharing or search application.

Article on Open Access Science

2008-04-28T12:24:00.001+05:30

An article in Scientific American Magazine - "Science 2.0 -- Is Open Access Science the Future?" - is wondering whether elements that are behind the web 2.0. would also apply to Science?