Author Archives: Frank Norman

About Frank Norman

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

A rearward look at rewards: celebrations and celebrities

Posted on 21 February 2012 by Frank Norman

Last autumn I had the pleasure of attending the awards ceremonies for two science writing prizes. They are similar competitions but have individual characteristics and constraints: the Max Perutz prize is sponsored by the MRC, which is a taxpayer-funded organisation … Continue reading →

Posted in Writing | Comments Off on A rearward look at rewards: celebrations and celebrities

“Facebook for scientists”

Posted on 16 February 2012 by Frank Norman

Soon after Nature Network launched in 2007 it was being touted as the “Facebook for scientists”. Other sites that had been around longer, such as FriendFeed and LabSpaces, occasionally got that moniker too (and indeed Facebook bought out FriendFeed later on).  … Continue reading →

Posted in Research tools, Social networking | Comments Off on “Facebook for scientists”

Answering searching questions

Posted on 10 February 2012 by Frank Norman

For twenty years we have had some sort of desktop access to the scientific literature. At first we only had abstracts of articles, and accessed them through fairly clunky interfaces (anyone remember BIDS?). The introduction of PubMed in 1997 improved … Continue reading →

Posted in Searching, text mining, UKPMC | Comments Off on Answering searching questions

Science policy – my favourite sites

Posted on 8 February 2012 by Frank Norman

In a comment on a recent post, Jamie Christie asked me to list my top ten sites on research policy.  I thought this would be a difficult task; the best sites will vary depending on your particular interests, and some … Continue reading →

Posted in Research management | Comments Off on Science policy – my favourite sites

Library Day in the Life – weekly round up

Posted on 8 February 2012 by Frank Norman

Last year I took part in Library Day in the Life (#libday7). For one week I wrote a daily post on Google+ about what I had done during the day, and an end-of-week round-up. I enjoyed the experience and the … Continue reading →

Posted in libday8, Libraries and librarians | Comments Off on Library Day in the Life – weekly round up

The power of music

Posted on 29 January 2012 by Frank Norman

Some pieces of music really should carry a government health warning. The first time I saw Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde live, the Liebestod scene was unforgettable. The intensity of the music mounted and mounted, receded and then mounted again … Continue reading →

Posted in Carol Lashof, CEFC, Chile, James McCarthy, Koyaanisqatsi, Music, Philip Glass | Comments Off on The power of music

Informing science and policy

Posted on 25 January 2012 by Frank Norman

Ian Gibson wrote last month in the Times Higher that we need a new generation of politically savvy scientists. He said “many in the scientific community do not see it as their business to get involved in matters of policy. In … Continue reading →

Posted in Information source, Research management, RSS, Science news, Science policy | Comments Off on Informing science and policy

Err … ology

Posted on 18 January 2012 by Frank Norman

Publication bias is the tendency to report positive results differently from negative or inconclusive results, resulting in a bias in the overall literature (see Wikipedia article and this tutorial at the Cochrane Collaboration). Afficionados of evidence-based practice and meta-analysers of research worry … Continue reading →

Posted in Journal publishing | Comments Off on Err … ology

Hawking history [6]

Posted on 9 January 2012 by Frank Norman

It was good to hear the reports of Stephen Hawking’s speech at his 70th birthday celebrations at the weekend. The Independent ran the story under the headline “I owe it all to my father” and noted that Hawking spoke movingly … Continue reading →

Posted in chemotherapy, History, MRC, Parasitology | Comments Off on Hawking history [6]

How are your tweetations? [8]

Posted on 5 January 2012 by Frank Norman

A contentious paper came out towards the end of last year in the Journal of Medical Internet Research. That is a reasonably respectable title in its niche field and the author, Gunther Eysenbach, is a respected medical informaticist and e-health … Continue reading →

Posted in Bibliometrics etc, Journal publishing | Comments Off on How are your tweetations? [8]