Author Archives: Frank Norman

About Frank Norman

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

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 →

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Macaroni and Montaigne

Posted on 26 January 2011 by Frank Norman

My Facebook page is looking very macaronic these days. Forget pasta; I’m talking language here. I am not an expert on Flemish vocal music from the Renaissance period, but I sometimes listen to a CD of music by Ockeghem and … Continue reading →

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Trading places

Posted on 10 December 2010 by Frank Norman

I started blogging on Nature Network in August 2008 but this will be my last post here. I am grateful to Nature Network for helping to get me started with blogging. I started as a reader and occasional commenter here, … Continue reading →

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