Author Archives: Frank Norman

About Frank Norman

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

Library Day in the Life 2013 – Tuesday

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Frank Norman

Here goes with my second Day in the Life post this week (see Monday’s post for some background). I had planned to get in super-early this morning, but a disturbed night thanks to the thunderstorms put paid to that. I arrived … Continue reading →

Posted in Libraries and librarians | Tagged | 6 Comments

Library Day in the Life 2013 – Monday

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Frank Norman

Sadly the Library Day in the Life project has ended. It provided a chance twice a year for librarians round the world to explain what they did each working day for a week.  I took part twice, in 2011 and … Continue reading →

Posted in Libraries and librarians | Tagged | 2 Comments

The building takes shape

Posted on July 9, 2013 by Frank Norman

My Institute will vanish in a couple of years’ time and will be reborn as part of a brand-new Institute: the Crick. One of the advantages of working in an Institute that is going through these difficult times is the chance … Continue reading →

Posted in Crick, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

An 80th annivirusary

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Frank Norman

For most of us, appearances on TV are still unusual enough to generate some excitement.  Even just a slight chance of a televisual encounter can get the pulse racing. Last December I became briefly excited on hearing that the BBC were … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, History, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

MDPI – another OA publisher

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Frank Norman

I recently was alerted to the existence of an Open Access (OA) publisher that I had not heard of before:  MDPI. Their name stands for “Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute” and they are based in Switzerland. They publish more than 70 journals … Continue reading →

Posted in Journal publishing | 6 Comments

Last night I dreamt I went to Mendeley again

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Frank Norman

Two weeks ago I was down in Bournemouth at the UKSG conference – a great gathering of library and publishing people.  As usual I took my running kit along and unusually I actually used them instead of just thinking about … Continue reading →

Posted in Bibliographic management | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Ferreting (2)

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Frank Norman

Following on from my previous post, my last bit of ferreting around last month was in support of the Strictly Science exhibition, organised by colleagues at the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre. This high-profile exhibition is open (free) until 14 April, … Continue reading →

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Ferreting (1)

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Frank Norman

After commenting on my last post that I am only called on three or four times a year to ferret out interesting old documents, here I am again with more tales of history. It seems to be a boom year … Continue reading →

Posted in History | 1 Comment

High altitude boots

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Frank Norman

I received an email today with the subject line “High altitude boots”. For a moment I thought it was going to be an advert for extreme high-heeled shoes, but it turned out to be a request for a copy of … Continue reading →

Posted in History | Tagged , | 9 Comments

Moves to extend NIH open access mandate

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Frank Norman

We all love to be different – it seems to be a feature of much human activity that we cherish little foibles that set us apart. This is certainly true in the scholarly communications arena, though more recently journals have … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Access, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Moves to extend NIH open access mandate