Various bits and pieces

Work has been so incredibly hectic lately that I've been neglecting my reading - have managed to skim-read a few things so am making a note here as I'll forget otherwise...

CILIP Gazette (31 Oct - 13 Nov) has a cover feature ("Digital services 'challenge' HE") which reports on a JISC survey of senior staff and the latest SCONUL stats which show "the proportion of digital journals to printed journals shifting from 25% to 75% in 8 years. Some 45% of all acquisitions expenditure now goes on electronic formats".

HSJ (16 Oct) reports that members of the Long Term Conditions Alliance will merge with a new patient representation body and expected to become part of National Voices, being developed by Chief Exec David Pink.

Strategic Content Alliance (Oct newsletter) reports on the UKRDS interim report (www.ukrds.ac.uk) - it'll be interesting to see how that's taken forward. http://sca.jiscinvolve.org/files/2008/10/sca_news_2008_october-final.pdf

Strategic Content Alliance (Sept newsletter) reports that the UK has "increased its share of published research in the world's most influential scientific journals" from a DIUS report.
http://sca.jiscinvolve.org/files/2008/09/sca_news_2008_september-final.pdf

The SCA Sept newsletter also mentions the emerging W3C POWDER protocol which allows metadata to be associated with multiple resources. "POWDER has been developed to create and use authoritative descriptions that identify online resources that meet specific criteria, such as those published under a specific licence or subject to a given code of conduct or suitable for children". http://www.w3.org/2007/powder/

e-Health Insider: "New patient e-health 2.0 sites launched"

"Two new websites have been launched featuring a collection of real life health stories and personal experiences of illness and health.

The two sites, Healthtalkonline, and Youthhealthtalk, have replaced DIPEx, a site created by Dr Ann McPherson, an Oxford GP, and Dr Andrew Herxheimer, former editor of the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin."

http://www.e-health-insider.com/news/4249/new_patient_e-health_2.0_sites_launched

Gartner - top 10 techologies for 2009

from last week's Computing:

Gartner's Top 10 Techologies for 2009:

1. virtualisation
2. cloud computing
3. servers - beyond blades
4. web-oriented architectures
5. corporate mashups
6. specialised systems
7. social software and social networking
8. unified communications
9. business intelligence
10. green IT

www.computing.co.uk

Various recent news

Information World Review reports on the following:

• Librarians set to be NHS cure: reporting on the Hill Review and the CILIP Strategy Group response, nice timing to coincide with the CKO event next week :http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-review/features/2227780/librarians-set-nhs-cure-4246209
  

• UK PubMed goes beyond journals : reporting on a pilot project to introduce new content, "The UKPMC team is hoping to have a new search interface demo ready this year. It is expecting to make access to additional content available in a year, and text mining and data facilities in two or three years". Will be good to see what comes out of NaCTeM involvement : http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-review/news/2227728/uk-pub-med-goes-beyond-journals-4254442

• 800,000 online journal articles available for UK academia : a new deal providing access to 4 journal archives from American Chemical Society, Brill Academic Publishers, Proquest and Taylor & Francis : http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-review/news/2227173/800-online-journal-articles-uk

Other news

"Bloomsbury unveils academic imprint: Bloomsbury is making a bold move into academic publishing with the launch of an "on demand" imprint that will publish titles online for free."
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/66448-bloomsbury-unveils-academic-imprint.html

"Study challenges e-book assumptions [news from the National eBooks Observatory project at JISC] According to Lorraine Estelle CEO of JISC Collections, in the first user survey, which received over 22,000 responses, 62 per cent of students reported that they read online whilst only 6 per cent said that they print to read. The survey also indicated that interactivity may not be as important to students as anticipated. 'Students say that the main attraction is that e-books within an academic setting, are more accessible than print books, meaning that users can get at them wherever they are and at whatever time they like,' explained Estelle." http://www.researchinformation.info/news/news_story.php?news_id=375

INteresting post on Laika's Medliblog on the various EBM pyramids circulating http://laikaspoetnik.wordpress.com/2008/09/26/time-to-weed-the-ebm-pyramids/

A reminder to myself to have a look at How Readers Navigate Scholarly Content

Interesting post by Frank Cervone on 5 things I've learned, based on a talk by Don Tapscott:

1. We are under the microscope
   
2. Transparency is power
   
3. The benefits of mass collaboration are boundless
   
4. Practice what you preach
   
5. Thinking forward pays off

http://www.cervone.com/complexity/2008/04/transparency.html

Wolters Kluwer Health Reaches Agreement to Acquire UpToDate : http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/wolters-kluwer-health-reaches-agreement/story.aspx?guid={22EDF61C-A289-4301-B4CD-23DA44BBFFB1}&dist=hppr

A fun blog post about getting on when you don't feel inspired : http://webworkerdaily.com/2008/07/07/you-dont-need-a-muse-how-to-get-your-work-done-when-youre-not-inspired/

Next generation wiki

Thanks to Roddy McLeod's Internet Resources Newsletter for pointing out this recent story...

"Scientific wiki solves the 'Who Wrote What' problem
End of anonymity - Next generation wiki links every word to its author

Reporting in Nature Genetics, scientist Robert Hoffmann develops the first Wiki where authorship really matters. Based on a powerful authorship tracking technology, this next generation wiki links every word to its corresponding author. This way readers can always know their sources and authors receive due credit."

http://www.mememoir.org/

http://www.wikigenes.org/

Full text of article at http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v40/n9/full/ng.f.217.html

EU and open access

The EU has launched an open access pilot to facilitate access to scientific articles from research within its 7th Framework Programme. The pilot will cover around 20% of the programme, including health.

From the press release:
Fast and reliable access to research results, especially via the Internet, can drive innovation, advance scientific discovery and support the development of a strong knowledge-based economy. The European Commission wants to ensure that the results of the research it funds under the EU's 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7) with more than € 50 billion from 2007 - 2013 are disseminated as widely and effectively as possible to guarantee maximum exploitation and impact in the world of researchers and beyond. The Commission today launched a pilot project that will give unrestricted online access to EU-funded research results, primarily research articles published in peer reviewed journals, after an embargo period of between 6 and 12 months. The pilot will cover around 20% of the FP7 programme budget in areas such as health, energy, environment, social sciences and information and communication technologies.

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/1262&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

More info at http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/index.cfm?fuseaction=public.topic&id=1680