July 15, 2006

Summer blogging break

It's that time again, a time for rest and relaxation. I don't expect to post again until mid-August, at which point I will be beginning my sabbatical. I'm not sure if or how my sabbatical will affect posting frequency or topic choice, but I guess we'll find out together.

Thanks to all who voted in my reading poll, it's been fun. I probably should have picked slightly less obscure novels, and may I'll have a somewhat more mainstream selection if I try this next year. The winners are:


  • Old Man's War by John Scalzi
  • River of Gods by Ian McDonald
  • Passage by Connie Willis
  • Homeward Bound by Harry Turtledove

I'll be reporting on my impressions of my reading material on the other blog. Have a good summer everyone!

July 14, 2006

Here & There

Lots to report, some of which I would normally want to do full post about. But since this is the last day around here for a while...

POLL: What I'm going to read on my summer vacation

Reminder: Last day to vote!

I always like to plan my summer reading well in advance, to have my beach books ready to go when the summer blogging break hits. This year I thought I'd have a little fun with it and give you, my readers out there in the biblioblogosphere, a chance to determine my summer reading. I've chosen 10 books that are on my long list and you can vote for them. I'll take the top 3 or 4 (depending on page counts) away with me on vacation, starting July 15th. The voting will end on July 14th. I'll be reporting on my reading experiences on the other blog.



What novel should I read during my summer vacation?
Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy
Darkness that Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker
Homeward Bound by Harry Turtledove
My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due
Old Man's War by John Scalzi
Passage by Connie Willis
River of Gods by Ian McDonald
Romanitas by Sophia McDougall
Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub
Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com




Some additional information on the long list books:
Update #1: Blogpoll.com was too flakey so I've switched to Pollhost.com.
Update #2: Changed pub date to July 9, to serve as reminder, will remind again on July 14th.

July 13, 2006

ACM SIGCSE Bulletin

From the last couple of issues, lots of good stuff:

Volume 38, issue 3



Volume 38, Issue 2

July 6, 2006

Top Science Blogs

Nature has an article giving the top blogs by working scientists, the top 5 profiled here and the top 50 listed here. The top 5 science blogs by non-scientist writers are also here. It's not surprise that 22 of the 50 are hosted on the ScienceBlogs site. They used Technorati rankings as the measure, which isn't perfect, but still a good way to get an interesting snapshot of the science blogosphere based on popularity and broad linkability of the sites. It's also interesting that at least two of the blogs are quite new -- The Scientific Activist and Good Math, Bad Math.

The top 5:


A bunch of commentary from some of the ScienceBloggers:
It's great to have a list of blogs I've never heard of before to explore!

July 5, 2006

University Presses, Again

Scott McLemee follows up his previous article on university presses with another today, Public Access, in which he recaps the talk he gave, "Publicity in the Digital Age," at the recent conference of the Association of American University Presses. In it he makes a very powerful case that university presses should take advantage of the online world, particularly bloggers, to promote their offerings more.

For one thing, the emerging situation requires doing some research to find out if a given blog or Web publication is likely to take an interest in the book. And the research involved might not be a one-time thing. Having a more or less standard list of journals to send review copies in any given field was appropriate at one point. But somewhat more flexibility is necessary now.

At the very least, it is worthwhile to spend some time learning to use blog search engines — and also to get a feel for how various sites link up to one another. Google Blog Search is particularly helpful for making an initial survey of which blogs might be relevant to a specific topic. Technorati indicates how many links a given blog has received from other sites. It also lets you examine and follow those links — perhaps the quickest way to learn how the conversational terrain is structured.
Hey, you university presses out there, you can thrive and prosper in the new digital age, but you'll have to accept inevitable change, both in the nature of your audience and how you should best reach them. Read McLemee's article and get a few pointers. (Oh, and if you want to send me tons of cool books to read and review, hey, I'm here! Just email me at jdupuis AT yorku DOT ca!)

Tangled Bank #56

Brian Gray at e3 Information Overload is hosting the latest Tangled Bank carnival. Way to go, Brian! Are there any other cases out there of library blogs hosting no-library carnivals?

I would be remiss in not mentioning the latest Carnival of the Infosciences at Grumpator. The next is for July 10 and is at InfoTangle.