Information Research

Goodbye Free Conversant

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:34:09 GMT

I've been posting to both this Weblog and my new location at http://info-research.blogspot.com for some weeks now and, with the New Year coming up, in future I'll be posting only to the new one. So - if you want to continue to read the Weblog, please use the link to 'Subscribe in a reader' at the new Weblog.

I use Google Reader as my RSS reader and I'm happy with it: however, if you are a 'chatter' you might be interest in what Jack Scholfield has to say about a development there.

Whether you sign up or not - have a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 23:57:18 GMT

I really should have said this before the previous message, but...
Never mind - better late than never: a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to one and all - especially if you are a regular reader of Information Research!
...and don't get me started on the collapse of tradition that results in people saying 'Happy Christmas' :-)

Farewell Browster, hello Cool Iris

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 23:54:32 GMT

I had been using the Browster add-in for Firefox for some time, but was experiencing a problem, so went looking for an update. That's when I discovered that it had died. However, something better turned up, Cool Iris - another link previewer, which works in much the same way as Browster, but which I find to be more user-friendly. With Browster, the preview pane often popped up when you didn't want it to do so, and that rarely happens with Cool Iris. So, if you are looking for something of the kind, Cool Iris will do the job for you.

The "SCImago Influence Measure"

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 04:00:00 GMT

I mentioned the new SCImago journal ranking site a little while back and thought I would explore it a little further. In doing so, I find that the "Cites per doc" measure, which is given for one, two, three and four year periods might be called the 'SCImago Influence Measure' or 'SIM', since it is more or less equivalent to the Web of Knowledge Impact Factor. I prefer 'influence' to 'impact', since the latter is rather macho and percussive, while the former is much more subtle and, I think, more appropriate, since what we are talking about is the influence that a journal has within its field.

The four-year SIM is particularly interesting, I think, since it allows for a much longer period of time within which the documents have a possibility of being cited. Using the SCImago database to download the data also gives the opportunity for producing some interesting comparisons. The graph below shows the four-year SIM for a long-established journal, the Journal of Documentation, compared with three, now established, open access journals - Information Research, the Journal of Digital Information and the Journal of Electronic Publishing. It is striking that on this measure all three OA journals are now approaching the same level of 'influence' as the older journal. JEP has had some problems in maintaining publication, hence the dip in 2006, but with its future now established (I believe), I imagine that the growth in its influence will resume.

Open access and Esposito - again

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 01:07:06 GMT

Joseph Esposito, whose article in The Scientist raised some OA hackles last month is at it again - and has been roundly answered by Alma Swan. Read them both for a comparison of ill-thought-out comment vs. sound rebuttal.

Get a life at Google!

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 21:47:37 GMT

At the Official Google Blog, Aseem Sood, Product Manager, Google Toolbar Team, writes:

I've started to notice something peculiar about the Toolbar team, and that's this: we literally can't seem to stop carrying the Toolbar around with us. When we moved to a new space in our Mountain View campus, we brought along a hallway-sized printout of it. For Halloween, eighteen of us dressed up as the different parts of the Toolbar itself.

Oh, how sad! :-( No pumpkin lantern, no trick or treat, just dressing up as Toolbar elements! I think this is the saddest thing I've read this week.

The state of public libraries

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 19:42:32 GMT

Reading an old issue of the The Guardian Review I came across a piece by Alasdair Gray on the writing of his novel Lanark (started 1953, published 1981 - you can't say he rushed it!) - fortunately still available on the Website. It the piece he remarks:

The notion of Lanark and Thaw's stories being parts of the same book came from The English Epic and its Background by EMW Tillyard, published in 1954, discovered in Denniston public library. It astonishes me to think there was a time when the non-fiction shelves of libraries in working-class Glasgow districts had recently published books of advanced criticism!

Ah, yes - I remember those days. Sadly, the British public library has been in decline since Margaret Thatcher's romantic involvement with the market (continued by T. Blair and G. Brown) and the decline of any feeling in government for responsibility for the 'public sphere'. Once upon a time librarians from the Nordic countries used to visit Britain to see examples of the best in public library systems and services - all the traffic would have to be in the other direction today.

New search engine

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 14:23:13 GMT

Aficionados of search engines might be interested in Carrot. This uses multiple search engines and then clusters the results by Topics, Sources and Sites. This is a demo site, but it seems to have possibilities.