Author Archives: Frank Norman

About Frank Norman

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

Moving towards movement, by Jove

Posted on 23 March 2011 by Frank Norman

Sometimes you look round and realise that the world has changed. It has been changing little by little so gradually that you didn’t notice but then you realise “Aha! The much predicted and talked-about convergence of TV and computing has … Continue reading →

Posted in Journal publishing, video | Comments Off on Moving towards movement, by Jove

Wikipedia is quite engaging

Posted on 22 March 2011 by Frank Norman

Wikipedia and its role in science keeps cropping up on my radar recently. Matt Jukes pointed out last week, in a talk to a group of Science Communications people, that a decent article in Wikipedia about a science topic would … Continue reading →

Posted in Communicating Science, Scientific literature | Comments Off on Wikipedia is quite engaging

Walter Morley Fletcher

Posted on 21 March 2011 by Frank Norman

The lecture hall in my Institute dates back to the 1930s. It has a simple design with excellent acoustics, typical of its era. It is called the Fletcher Memorial Hall, which begs the question – who he? Just outside the … Continue reading →

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Peer review inquiry – written evidence

Posted on 21 March 2011 by Frank Norman

I wrote a couple of months back about the background to the Science & Technology Select Committee’s inquiry into peer review. The Select Committee has published all the written evidence submitted to its inquiry. The publication of written evidence provides … Continue reading →

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Copy – right or wrong?

Posted on 9 March 2011 by Frank Norman

Copying is entwined with technology, and ideas about copyright have changed as technology changes. In the days of stone tablets I don’t think many people worried about copyright. The invention of pen and ink (see this lovely brief history of … Continue reading →

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Is this the killer application for researchers?

Posted on 9 March 2011 by Frank Norman

Colwiz stands for ‘collective wisdom’ (terrible name!). It advertises itself as ‘research management, collaboration and productivity in one place for free’ and has just been launched by a group of scientists at Oxford University. They say it will help you … Continue reading →

Posted in Research tools | Comments Off on Is this the killer application for researchers?

Monaco film festival award

Posted on 28 February 2011 by Frank Norman

I was surprised to see some familiar faces on the front cover of my local freesheet newspaper recently. This paper, The Archer, is not a typical freesheet, but a community-produced monthly newspaper which has a good deal of local content, … Continue reading →

Posted in art, Film | Comments Off on Monaco film festival award

Seven sins of science writing

Posted on 2 February 2011 by Frank Norman

I was never trained as an editor, but a few years ago I found myself as joint editor of our Institute’s annual volume of essays on science, aimed at a lay(-ish) audience. For the first few years I worked on … Continue reading →

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Ethical retrieval

Posted on 1 February 2011 by Frank Norman

It may surprise you to know that librarians have codes of professional ethics. The main  UK membership organisation for librarians,  CILIP, requires its members to follow its ethical code; the American Library Association have something similar.  Subject classification and indexing … Continue reading →

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Peering at review

Posted on 28 January 2011 by Frank Norman

The House of Commons Select Committee on Science & Technology have announced that they will conduct an inquiry into peer review. They list eight points starting with: the strengths and weaknesses of peer review as a quality control mechanism for … Continue reading →

Posted in Journal publishing, Open Access | Comments Off on Peering at review