Comments on: The future of academic exposure? http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2007/10/10/the-future-of-academic-exposure/ How do people use products, systems and environments? How can designers influence interaction? How can we design for sustainable behaviour? Sat, 22 Nov 2008 21:06:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v= By: Jarrett http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2007/10/10/the-future-of-academic-exposure/#comment-105623 Jarrett Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:22:13 +0000 http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2007/10/10/the-future-of-academic-exposure/#comment-105623 I think we're going to see more and more libraries purchasing more and more online journals. This would in part resolve the open access issue. I myself, after graduating, miss access to JStor and LexisNexis and all the rest I had thru Sarah Lawrence's wonderful library, but the library I work for now, Baltimore County Public Library in Maryland, purchases subscriptions to a vast array of databases, and this ameliorates the problem somewhat. Anyone with a library card (which is free) can access these sites. Check your public library if you're not in school, they probably have database access. . . and if they don't, rub elbows with someone from a local college and get their password to their school's academic library. Instead of lobbying with the Athens or JStor people to provide open access to their journals (they're just in it to make a buck, obviously) you might have more luck lobbying your local public library to get them to purchase access to these journals. It could work. Think about it. ~Jarrett I think we’re going to see more and more libraries purchasing more and more online journals. This would in part resolve the open access issue. I myself, after graduating, miss access to JStor and LexisNexis and all the rest I had thru Sarah Lawrence’s wonderful library, but the library I work for now, Baltimore County Public Library in Maryland, purchases subscriptions to a vast array of databases, and this ameliorates the problem somewhat. Anyone with a library card (which is free) can access these sites. Check your public library if you’re not in school, they probably have database access. . . and if they don’t, rub elbows with someone from a local college and get their password to their school’s academic library. Instead of lobbying with the Athens or JStor people to provide open access to their journals (they’re just in it to make a buck, obviously) you might have more luck lobbying your local public library to get them to purchase access to these journals. It could work. Think about it.

~Jarrett

]]> By: Christopher Mims http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2007/10/10/the-future-of-academic-exposure/#comment-104806 Christopher Mims Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:32:16 +0000 http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2007/10/10/the-future-of-academic-exposure/#comment-104806 I like the notion of things like ScienceBlogs being a hub for disseminating research, but in practice ScienceBlogs is a bit more mainstream than that. It still serves a vital role -- and I suspect that many of its readers are experts anyway -- but having no formal mission other than the personal gratification of its writers and the enrichment of Seed Media Group, it's a bit like herding cats. What all fields other than physics still lack is something like ArXiv. Maybe that will be one of the PLoS journals. Or mabye someone neeeds to set up a research-focused blog network. Hmmm. I like the notion of things like ScienceBlogs being a hub for disseminating research, but in practice ScienceBlogs is a bit more mainstream than that. It still serves a vital role — and I suspect that many of its readers are experts anyway — but having no formal mission other than the personal gratification of its writers and the enrichment of Seed Media Group, it’s a bit like herding cats.

What all fields other than physics still lack is something like ArXiv. Maybe that will be one of the PLoS journals. Or mabye someone neeeds to set up a research-focused blog network. Hmmm.

]]> By: None of 3 http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2007/10/10/the-future-of-academic-exposure/#comment-104401 None of 3 Thu, 11 Oct 2007 15:18:41 +0000 http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2007/10/10/the-future-of-academic-exposure/#comment-104401 You've also gotta love the stupid euphemisms they use: "Athens was initially deployed in the higher education sector in 1996 and has firmly established itself as the de facto standard for secure access management to web-based services for the UK education and health sectors." Heh. "Secure access management" when what they mean is "gratuitously blocking access by the vast majority of the world, even though granting them access would cost next to nothing" :P There's really no excuse for ANY scientific research to be hidden away behind paywalls or only findable in dusty tomes. The former is pure greed and the latter is pure Luddism. It should all be put on Web pages; Google can (and will) then do the heavy lifting of indexing it all. And then any researcher who does a few salient Google searches should find everything relevant in a literature search. It's high time literature searches, and simply learning in general, was done like nigh everything else these days, by starting with Google. :P You’ve also gotta love the stupid euphemisms they use:

“Athens was initially deployed in the higher education sector in 1996 and has firmly established itself as the de facto standard for secure access management to web-based services for the UK education and health sectors.”

Heh. “Secure access management” when what they mean is “gratuitously blocking access by the vast majority of the world, even though granting them access would cost next to nothing” :P

There’s really no excuse for ANY scientific research to be hidden away behind paywalls or only findable in dusty tomes. The former is pure greed and the latter is pure Luddism. It should all be put on Web pages; Google can (and will) then do the heavy lifting of indexing it all. And then any researcher who does a few salient Google searches should find everything relevant in a literature search. It’s high time literature searches, and simply learning in general, was done like nigh everything else these days, by starting with Google. :P

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