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 February 2, 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 →

Posted in Writing | 5 Comments

Ethical retrieval

Posted on February 1, 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 →

Posted in Ethics, Searching | 5 Comments

Peering at review

Posted on January 28, 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 | 8 Comments

Macaroni and Montaigne

Posted on January 26, 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 →

Posted in Social networking | 12 Comments

Some interesting reading

Posted on January 9, 2011 by Frank Norman

This is a shameless plug for the annual volume of essays that my Institute puts out: the Mill Hill Essays. My justification is that a) they are interesting b) they are free to read on the web and we give … Continue reading →

Posted in Reading recommendations | 4 Comments

The importance of the ephemeral

Posted on January 8, 2011 by Frank Norman

I was given a new digital radio for Christmas, and now have radios installed in every room of my flat, meaning I can listen to my beloved Radio 4 wherever I am. This morning I was interested to hear John … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogology, Froth | 8 Comments

Nature’s new position statement on open access

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Frank Norman

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) have just issued a new position statement on open access. It aims to give a useful of the company’s current activities in open access, and it sets out their policies and viewpoints with respect to open … Continue reading →

Posted in Journal publishing, Open Access | 6 Comments

Philosophy and biology

Posted on January 5, 2011 by Frank Norman

When I was first an undergraduate, studying chemistry many moons ago, I still had some  pretension to being an intellectual.  That quickly evaporated as I discovered this intellectual stuff was, you know, HARD! But in my first year of study … Continue reading →

Posted in Reading recommendations | 8 Comments

The end of academic libraries

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Frank Norman

This is my first real day back at work after Xmas and New Year, and my jury service.  I abjectly failed to get writing over the festive break so I am cheating and just directing your attention to a short … Continue reading →

Posted in Future of Libraries | 2 Comments

Google

Posted on December 22, 2010 by Frank Norman

The first Internet search engine I used, back in about 1990, was Archie. This was an index of content hosted across the internet on ftp servers; mostly software but there were documents and databases too.  Archie didn’t feel much like … Continue reading →

Posted in Searching | 11 Comments