Catch-up

During a month of flu and it's aftermath, I've read, but not blogged. Here's some of what I missed:

--An excellent essay on the future of the scholarly monograph by Colin Steele, Emeritus Fellow (Librarian), Australian National University, forwarded by Sandy Thatcher

--LJ Academic Newswire Newsmaker Interview: Student Open Access Activist Gavin Baker

--The NYTimes article on Twine, the data organizer. We'll see. I've tried CiteULike, and have used it inconsistently for the last 18 months or so. I have Zotero loaded at home and work, but until I'm able to use the two "as one" as promised, I don't see it working for the way I work. I have a third type downloaded at work, but it took so long to be "approved" for the BETA version, I lost enthusiasm and never installed it. I know, the three I've named aren't exactly the same types of programs, but realistically serve much the same function (similar to this blog, as a matter of fact).

--This posting to Academic Commons: A Day of Scholarly Communication: A NERCOMP SIG Event .

--And, yesterday, one of the many reports that Harvard is leading the way on open access.

Now back to learning a little JavaScript for my day job.

RE: "Death of the Corporation"

The Bits blog at the NYT sees the increase of consumer-generated content and the willingness of companies to incorporate "amateur" content into their marketing as the harbinger of the "Death of the individual corporation." I can't agree. Companies might need to be increasingly flexible in their marketing and sales strategies in order to sell their media (content), software, and hardware, but I don't think this empowers the individual. Rather, their conglomerations just continue to feed in to the accumulation of wealth, and of taste, into the hands of a few. In order to get control into citizens hands, people will have to have control of their media without corporations acting as the gatekeepers. I'm not sure that's possible.

Google ads

I occasionally look at NoGodBlog.com, a blog about the separation of church and state from an atheist point of view. Check out the ads by Google™ today on their site:

Who was Jesus Christ?

Messiah, the son of God? A lunatic? Or liar? Read eyewitness accounts

www.jesuscentral.com/Christianity

Churches In Champaign

Local Christian church services Friendly, Loving, Hands-on Church

www.NewHorizonChurch-Profile.or

Are You Born Atheist ?

Being Atheist May Be In Your Genes Test If You Have The God Gene

Mary.com

Religion Quiz

Which religion is the best for you? Find out with the religion test.

QuizRocket.com/religion-test

Expelled – Ben Stein

Why is Big Science suppressing the evidence of Intelligent Design?

www.Expelledthemovie.com

Appropriate? Not so much. And this is why I don’t think Google is God. Or that they are really that good at advertising.

Google wants to Knol everything

Google has announced through a blog: (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/),
that it is prepared to begin creating and testing "Knol," their step into the wiki arena. The differences between Google's wiki and, say, Wikipedia, is that Google plans to ask organizations that already grant authority through peer-review process (such as the University of Illinois Press (http://www.press.uillinois.edu)), to have their author/authorities write Knols in their areas of expertise. As they did with Gmail, Google will eventually release the Knol for public participation. Unlike collectively-owned and compiled wikis, it appears that Knol's authors will maintain control over their content.

This is an area that I had hoped large professional organizations would step into after listening to a presentation by Karen Williams at the University of Minnesota libraries this summer at AAUP (see http://www.lib.umn.edu/about/mellon/docs.phtml for a description of her project). It makes sense for subject-focused associations to create Web 2.0+ spaces for their memberships, since networking is supposed to be their mission. It would be equally logical for University Libraries to create spaces for their users. There are even professional organizations and consortia in place that could pool their resources to make these spaces large enough to be useful for all stakeholders.

Instead, Big Brother Google's idea seems to combine the ease of Wikipedia with the authority of MedLine Plus, government, university, museum, or other "authoritative" websites. However, instead of training students and citizens to discover who has or should have authority on any given subject, Google will use some of their friendly algorithms to decide that for us. Authors can also decide to participate in a Google advertising program to make money from their works.

Do I expect that the University of Illinois Press will participate as an invited publisher? I can't see why we wouldn't. In fact, getting in on the ground floor of projects like this is imperative for our continued existence over the next five, ten, and twenty years. I think we also need to have ongoing conversations with our friends in libraries and professional associations about this project and its goals, as well as its implications for the future of pedagogy and authority.