Author Archives: Frank Norman

About Frank Norman

I am a retired librarian. I spent 40 years working in biomedical research libraries.

A choral coda

Posted on 10 April 2023 by Frank Norman

I have been singing with Crouch End Festival Chorus (CEFC) since late 1994 but I have now retired from the choir. The Rachmaninov Vespers on 31 March was my last concert with CEFC as a member. It will be quite … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Biographical, Music | Comments Off on A choral coda

Library day in the life, Spring 2022 (part 2)

Posted on 22 April 2022 by Frank Norman

This post is an account of what I did at work for four days in Mar/Apr 2022. The idea is to give an impression of the range of tasks I engage in during my work as librarian at the Francis … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Libraries and librarians, Library day in the life | Comments Off on Library day in the life, Spring 2022 (part 2)

Library day in the life, Spring 2022 (part 1)

Posted on 22 April 2022 by Frank Norman

This post is an account of what I did at work for four days in Feb 2022. The idea is to give an impression of the range of tasks I engage in during my work as librarian at the Francis … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Libraries and librarians, Library day in the life | Comments Off on Library day in the life, Spring 2022 (part 1)

FAIR data in practice

Posted on 26 January 2022 by Frank Norman

Introducing the next Open Research London event, which will be about FAIR data.  It’s easy to agree that making research data FAIR is A Good Thing. Of course research data should be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. But is it … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Research data | Comments Off on FAIR data in practice

Publishing incrementally – micropublications

Posted on 3 September 2021 by Frank Norman

Looking back and looking forward I recently received a reminder that it was my 13th anniversary of joining Twitter. I signed up to Twitter as a result of attending the Science Blogging conference in London in 2008 where I heard … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Journal publishing, micropublications, Open Research London, Open Science, Scientific literature | Comments Off on Publishing incrementally – micropublications

Page charges and OA policies

Posted on 11 June 2021 by Frank Norman

Much of my time in the past 12 months has been committed to preparing for compliance with the Coalition S / Wellcome open access policies. Because we have core funding from Wellcome this means that all research papers submitted on … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Access | Comments Off on Page charges and OA policies

Preprints and science news

Posted on 4 February 2019 by Frank Norman

I’ve written before about preprints and science news. That blogpost was occasioned by the open letter last summer from Fiona Fox at the Science Media Centre on the subject, and the follow-up comment piece by Tom Sheldon in Nature. Mine … Continue reading →

Posted in Communicating Science, embargoes, Preprints | Comments Off on Preprints and science news

Diversithon – some recipes

Posted on 10 December 2018 by Frank Norman

Recipe 1 It’s a simple recipe. Gather together some people who want to change the world. Put some inspirational speakers in front of them to get people fired up about diversity in science. Provide cakes and biscuits. Teach some basic … Continue reading →

Posted in Communicating Science, wikipedia | Comments Off on Diversithon – some recipes

Tracking less tangible research outputs

Posted on 18 November 2018 by Frank Norman

When I spot a problem then I start wondering what the solution is. It might be a bottleneck in some workflow, or a process that requires excessive effort to achieve a small effect. So I feel that there must be … Continue reading →

Posted in Metadata, Research management | Comments Off on Tracking less tangible research outputs

Scientific archives workshop 2018

Posted on 5 November 2018 by Frank Norman

I attended the Second Workshop on Scientific Archives held at the Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington, D.C. on the 13 & 14 August 2018. The first Workshop on Scientific Archives was held at EMBL in 2016, and was organised entirely by Anne-Flore … Continue reading →

Posted in Archives, C-CAST, Research data | Comments Off on Scientific archives workshop 2018

Library day in the life 2018

Posted on 25 September 2018 by Frank Norman

This post is an account of what I did at work each day from Monday 17 September 2018 through to Friday 21 September 2018. The idea is to give an impression of the range of tasks I engage in. I’ve … Continue reading →

Posted in Libraries and librarians, Library day in the life | Comments Off on Library day in the life 2018

Open access deposits to Europe PubMed Central – building skills

Posted on 19 September 2018 by Frank Norman

Blogpost by Kate Beeby and Frank Norman. Our funders’ open access policies mandate deposit of all primary research articles into Europe PubMed Central (ePMC). We opt for the Gold (immediate Open Access) route when we can, but if the publisher … Continue reading →

Posted in epmc, Libraries and librarians, Open Access, skills | Comments Off on Open access deposits to Europe PubMed Central – building skills

To fail is to learn

Posted on 29 August 2018 by Frank Norman

After leaving school I worked in a library for a year and was in the music and drama section for six months. Towards the end of that time I was trusted enough that they let me prepare some orders for … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, management | Comments Off on To fail is to learn

What is open science?

Posted on 23 August 2018 by Frank Norman

The question Wikipedia suggests that open science began in the 17th century, with the start of the academic journal. Some say that open science started in 1957 with the establishment of the World Data Center system, for International Geophysical Year. … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Access, Open Science, Research data | Comments Off on What is open science?

Cat Zero – book review

Posted on 20 August 2018 by Frank Norman

This lablit novel is set in a research institute in north London. The story is centred on a virology research lab and its work. An old lady dies. A cat dies. More cats die – could it be suspicious? Artie … Continue reading →

Posted in book review, Books, Lablit | Comments Off on Cat Zero – book review