Update: Learning about Twitter

I've posted before the notes for the class I teach on setting alerts, and keeping current. This is an update to include some of the newer Web2.0 tools that help with searching.

Learning more about Twitter:

• http://mashable.com/category/twitter-list
• http://mashable.com/2009/04/22/twitter-search-services/

Twitter search strategies and another on teaching Twitter in the classroom:

• http://www.twitip.com/7-%E2%80%98secret%E2%80%99-ways-to-use-twitter-search/
• http://oedb.org/blogs/ilibrarian/2009/100-tips-tools-and-resources-for-teaching-students-about-social-media/

Special thanks to Garrett Eastman at Harvard, and Joe Kraus at University of Denver.

New version of Sakai course management software in planning phase

Fondren Library, Rice University, has been actively increasing our participation in our activities in Sakai at Rice. In the Spring, we tested out a "librarian role" to mixed success.

Earlier this week, we participated in a planning meeting with Sakai developers. Along with librarians from other institutions, and programmers, the design phase is underway!

This is an exciting time for Sakai–planning, testing, and "persona"
development will lead to a complete overall of Sakai.

It will incorporate a ton of Web.0 tools, including the ability of
students to post comments on articles, and will allow faculty, while
"surfing" the literature, to bookmark an article and easily add it in to
the Sakai site without uploading the file.

Fondren Library is actively participating  in the Sakai planning process. I encourage you to be a part of the process!

One of the core design principle books being used is: About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design by by Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann and Dave Cronin. At Rice, I have added this to our Safari bookshelf.

The demo for Sakai 3 is at:
http://sakaiproject.org/portal/site/sakai-home/page/89473b2c-31dd-4261-9823-c31a79e55532

A white paper is located at:
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/confluence/display/SAKDEV/Sakai+3;jsessionid=E3DB09CD1CAA97E8BEC35A8A68BCCC12

Sources for Ozone Layer research

This week I'm working on finding datasests for research on the Ozone.

The official Website for information,
data, and images from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI)
on Aura and the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS)
instruments using Version 8 of
the TOMS processing algorithm. http://jwocky.gsfc.nasa.gov/ 

Stratospheric Ozone and Temperature Data from NOAA http://www.ozonelayer.noaa.gov/data/data.htm

The U.S. EPA, NOAA, NPS, tribal, state, and local agencies developed
the AIRNow Web site to provide the public with easy access to national
air quality information. http://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.showlocal&CityID=105

And from the state of Texas:
http://www.tceq.state.tx.us/nav/main/air_main.html

You can highlight a location and get more local information here:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/aq/sectors/conus.php

or, for Houston only:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/aq/probe_aq_data.php?city=Houston&state=TX&Submit=Get+Guidance

Thanks to Esther Crawford, Department Head for the Kelley Center for Government Information and Microforms and Kim Ricker, GIS/Data Center Head, for the links!
 

Cool summer reading list from UC Berkeley

So, apparently, UC Berkeley sends out a reading list to incoming students every year. Not much new there–but this is cool–a cool SCIENCE book list! http://reading.berkeley.edu/srl_2009.html
And not just a list, but a "why you should care" letter from important people. Very cool!
Two of my favorites on the list:

Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time
Michael Shermer
New York: H. Holt, 2002

This
well-written and entertaining book is sure to stir up discussion and
debate. Shermer gives an excellent description of what science actually
is, a topic that is sorely lacking in most science classes and
textbooks. He also delves into how and why science comes up short at
times. The bulk of the book is about human tendencies to explain
phenomena they don’t understand with belief in things such as
extraterrestrials, ghosts, super­stitions, and prejudices. Shermer is
respectful of those who subscribe to these beliefs, but presents the
reader with alternatives grounded in scientific thinking.

Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!
Richard Feynman
New York: W.W. Norton, 1985

It
takes little time with this book to realize that this Nobel-winner was
truly a genius, but just as quickly you will recognize an incredible
sense of humor and someone who enjoys life and refuses to conform. It
seems he spent half his life doing practical jokes, and there was
usually a lesson in the joke for his victims. This has everything a
freshman needs in a summer read — from a series of entertaining life
experiences, to advice on how best to succeed with the opposite sex, to
the story of how the atom bomb got built. A great read!

Poster Session, Washington DC

Kolah, Debra and Michael Fosmire. “Information Portals for Physics. Promoting Library Services for Scientific Information Workflow.” Special Libraries Association All
Sciences Poster Session in Washington, D.C. on June 16, 2009. (accepted, poster)
PDF
available here

Here are the links to information provided in the poster session at SLA 2009, in Washington D.C.:
Pageflakes Assignment: http://www.pageflakes.com/dkolah/24549111

Deciphering physics citations from the arXiv

It can be very confusing to track down a citation that looks like this:
arXiv:0809.3599v1 [astro-ph].
The arXiv is located at: http://arxiv.org/ and is a great online source of information. Paul Ginsparg  started the repository for preprints in 1991. It was originally hosted at Los Alamos National Laboratory, but is now operated by Cornell University. It was THE original open access model, and is a crucial source for physics, astronomy, mathematics. 

To find a paper in the arXiv:
If You Know the Archive and Paper Number

Archived submissions are each assigned a unique identifier of the form
yymm.nnnn (or arch-ive/yymmnnn for older submissions).
To retrieve the abstract page of a paper simply enter the identifier in
the "Search or Article-id" box in the top right of most pages.

You can also construct the URL (web address) for a paper with a
given identifier as
http://arxiv.org/abs/<identifier&gt;. For example,

http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9603067
http://arxiv.org/abs/0705.0123

From the abstract page you will be able to choose your preferred
format for downloading and viewing the paper.

If You Want to Search for it Via the Web Interface

Using the world wide web interface, you can search
for papers based on archive subject area, title, author,
or keywords in the full abstracts. You are encouraged
to try it out.

So, to find the paper at the beginning of this blog post, you would go to http://arxiv.org/abs/0809.3599v1 Viola! 

A Young Planet Search in Visible and IR Light: DN Tau, V836 Tau, and V827 Tau
Authors:
L. Prato,
M. Huerta,
C. M. Johns-Krull,
N. Mahmud,
D. T. Jaffe,
P. Hartigan