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Two important new developments in access to public funded research, the FASTR Act that requires copies of articles done under NIH research to be deposited into PubMed, and a White House directive for federal agencies to develop public access policies for research and digital data.

"A wide range of academic research across the country, from sophisticated biomedical experiments at the National Institutes of Health to undergraduate political science essays, was being interrupted Wednesday as the federal government shutdown continued for a second day -- with no clear path to a resolution. In addition to forcing the closure of government buildings where research is conducted -- such as the Library of Congress and presidential libraries -- the shutdown was also cutting off access to myriad electronic resources on which many researchers depend."

A little out of date, but an examination of how the recent partial government shut down affected research, both in physical libraries and online research.

An interesting article about the rise of "altmetrics" or alternative metrics for some researchers to show the use and relevance of their work. While it doesn't hurt, some questions are raised such as how many people visiting a website or tweeting a pictures really grasp and use the research and also gives an edge to researchers who's work may be newsworthy as opposed to relevant but difficult for the layperson to understand.

An article that covers some open access and peer reviewed projects such as the Public Library of Science (www.plos.org) and ultimately makes the conclusion that research should be free because no part of the process should cost very much, and some of the hold up is academia not considering open access journals "prestigious" enough to merit tenure. I would agree in principle, especially if commercial publishers are removed from the equation. However, a lot of applied science and research relies on funding that may involve copyrighted or trademarked material, so some research will always be restricted.

An article about Diederik Stapels, a formerly well known behavioral scientist who was outed for for falsifying much of his data and research, even though it pass peer review. What is more interesting is his justification--that a lot of it was because he wasn't finding clear conclusions in his research so he made them appear.

Scholr.ly looks like a very interesting tool. They describe it as "Making Academic Search Social". Here is a description of the search engine: "Undergraduate physicists and comparative literature postdocs have very different search needs. We're building an academic search engine that takes these individual differences into account. The more we know about what you do, the better we can tailor our results to fit your needs. Sometimes, though, it's good to look at a problem from another perspective. Maybe you're doing research in an area you aren't familiar with and want an insider's view. Maybe you're doing interdisciplinary work, or want to better understand your colleague's work. To address these cases, Scholr.ly offers you the opportunity to search as another author- literally. You can search as your professor, a famous linguist, or the highly cited scholar in the department next door- and get the same results they would." It's a very interesting idea...

Yoshitaka Fujii is accused of faking 172 out of 249 published papers. Many of his papers were considered "low impact," noticed and published but not heavily cited, and therefore not closely looked at. However, Fujii appeared to be highly productive and and as a result was able to get new jobs, research funding, and and public speaking fees. This is a concern for libraries and the validity of research as now it's easier than ever to self publish papers to online journals, and I have some questions how the retractions are handled--would the databases the articles are in simply delete them, or note they are officially retracted to anyone who did cite them?

"A new report from the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project finds that 12% of readers of ebooks borrowed an ebook from their libraries in the past year, and a majority of respondents (62%) don't know if their local library provides ebooks. "

Interesting (but pretty depressing) article: "But the research is now making it clear that the Internet is not "just" another delivery system. It is creating a whole new mental environment, a digital state of nature where the human mind becomes a spinning instrument panel, and few people will survive unscathed."

An interesting about scientists deliberately holding back information on a new Botulism toxin, which still raises issues on censorship--other researchers who may have a valid need for this research won't have all of it, and where is the line drawn between dangerous information and only potentially so?

This one is just for fun on Friday, but makes a lot of good points.

A somewhat lighthearted response to all the excitement about the "discovery" of the Leale report, a report made to the Surgeon General by the first doctor to treat Abraham Lincoln after he was shot at Ford's Theater.   It's very interesting that, even though it was in the collection, where it should be, no one thought to use it in research until now.  

Reading a novel triggers lasting changes in the brain Saturday 28 December 2013 - 12am PST Neurology / Neuroscience add your opinion email MNT FeaturedAcademic Journal Add your rating Current ratings for: Reading a novel triggers lasting changes in the brain Public / Patient: 4.3 (12 votes) 1 2 3 4 5 Health Professionals: 5 (3 votes) 1 2 3 4 5 Lovers of literature can rejoice: a new study combines the humanities and neuroscience to take a look at what effects reading a novel can have on the brain. Researchers say exploring a book can not only change your perspective, but also it can change your mind - at least for a few days.

Reading a novel triggers lasting changes in the brain Saturday 28 December 2013 - 12am PST Neurology / Neuroscience add your opinion email MNT FeaturedAcademic Journal Add your rating Current ratings for: Reading a novel triggers lasting changes in the brain Public / Patient: 4.3 (12 votes) 1 2 3 4 5 Health Professionals: 5 (3 votes) 1 2 3 4 5 Lovers of literature can rejoice: a new study combines the humanities and neuroscience to take a look at what effects reading a novel can have on the brain. Researchers say exploring a book can not only change your perspective, but also it can change your mind - at least for a few days.

Researchers found a nearly linear relationship between time of sharing of the resource and the percentage lost, with a slightly less linear relationship between time of sharing and archiving coverage of the resource. From this model we conclude that after the first year of publishing, nearly 11% of shared resources will be lost and after that we will continue to lose 0.02% per day.

An article that addresses a problem which has come up before, namely "junk" books made from electronic files, in this case physical copies as opposed to eBooks, but with the same problems. Material in the text is missing, as well as the publisher and print date, edition, the notation about original language or any information about the author. Such information, separated from the original work, means that the context and in some cases documentation for the book are lost, which could harm research and preservation in the long run.

A video that explains some concepts about open access; some concepts are a little too idealized, some research involving material that is patented or financed by commercial interests may not be free. However, some other points, such as the extreme cost of journals, or that patrons may not know if materials are suitable until they've already paid for them is spot on.

A set of recommendations from BOAI (Budapest Open Access Initiative) for open access to research, including self archiving and open access journals.

An interesting topic but not one that necessarily reflects what people are thinking. First is the purpose of highlighting--often for research as in a paper or in self help books, and second is how many people make highlights in the first place. Still, it is an interesting insight into what readers find notable.

An article about the outrage when Elsevier bought a social media research platform called Mendeley, and the parallels to when Amazon bought GoodReads. Points are made, that open social media is best, but at a certain point the data produced is valuable enough that corporate interests will step in.