For those who are trying to understand us science types here’s a few items that may help.

What do we think?

We might err, but science is self-correcting
Author: Lord John Krebs Principal of Jesus College, Oxford

This is piece explains why scientists question everything, and why there are not always clear-cut answers to scientific questions.  Lord Krebs expresses the feelings of many scientists on the need for government’s not to reject scientific advice just because it is inconvenient without explanation, and in return the need for scientists to be scrupulously honest in their claims.

What do we care about?

You may have heard the term citizen scientists in the context of citizens with little formal scientific training who contribute to major scientific discoveries.  This is a great definition for citizen scientists, but, I’d like you to consider something a secondary definition.

I’d like to promote the idea of the citizen scientist as “people who intertwine their work and their citizenship, doing science differently, working with different people, drawing new connections and helping to redefine what it means to be a scientist.”

To that end I recommend reading:

citizen scientists reconstructing science with civil society (PDF)
Author: Jack Stilgoe Published by: Demos
Contents: Acknowledgments– Preface – 1 Towards collective experimentation –2 Science and civil society – 3 The value of science and scientific values – 4 Doing things differently – 5 Political scientists – 6 Rediscovering scientific diversity – Notes – References.
CC: Some right reserved

How do we preserve our history?

Science is a field in which almost everything ever written stay relevant, for a given value of relevance.  Many of the greatest scientific minds are currently alive, and the British Library is in the process of creating a new archive, Oral History of British Science, dedicated to collecting and preserving 200 in-depth interviews with British scientists.  Each interview will be 10-15 hours in length, plus supplementary recordings and seminars.  There are four themes that will be explored by group “witness seminar”: The Factory of Life, Cosmologies, Made in Britain, and A Changing Planet.  Many people do not realize how driven scientific interest is by individual lives and world events.  Small things, an observation, a question, or an anomaly, often lead to the most dramatic results.  I’ve very excited about this project and look forward to seeing history through the lens of Britain’s Scientists.

What do we enjoy?

One of my favorite sites, and proof for those who still doubt that scientists are passionate, energetic, and fun people is the Symphony of Science website.  The videos are created using clips from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, owned by Druyan-Sagan Associates, Inc.  “The Symphony of Science is a musical project headed by John Boswell designed to deliver scientific knowledge and philosophy in musical form.”

Featured scientists in The Symphony of Science:

David Attenborough Jacob Bronowski Richard Dawkins Richard Feynman Jane Goodall Brian Greene Stephen Hawking Michio Kaku

Laurence Krauss PZ Meyers Bill Nye Carolyn Porco Carl Sagan Michael Shermer Jill Tarter Neil deGrasse Tyson

5 music videos available are accessible through the home page of the Symphony of Science website.

My favorite quote is “Science is the poetry of reality”.

I’ll leave you with a tip for those who need to quickly create a professional poster; check out PosterSession.com, overnight shipping is available.  Thanks to Stephen Bell for mentioning this service in a recent blog post.  (In science, a poster presentation counts as a significant professional publication.)

A year ago I was the quality control manager at an environmental testing laboratory, and I had just received my acceptance letter for Drexel’s MLIS program.  I’d always known that I wanted to earn at least one advanced degree, and my goal to begin working on one by the end of 2009 was achieved. (Take that the “you’ll never go back if you don’t do a second degree right away” line of thinking!)

Starting classes in March felt a bit like being on the spinning teacups ride at Disneyland, but I found my balance.  I started interning at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden’s research library, attended my first library conference,  became a 2009-1011 ARL Diversity Scholar.  To a little more detail you can read my post Catching Up.  In November I submitted my first job application with editorial help from Megan Perez and Missy Harvey.  I was unfamiliar with this some of this quarter’s topics of study: collection development, and foundations of information systems. So, I did what I always do when stressed, researched and read until comfort was achieved.  There was a lot of reading going on.  On November 30^th I was honored to be named the ACRL member of the week.

Three quarters down, two to go!  Next quarter I’ll be studying Resources in Social Science, Instructional Role Information Specialist, and Academic Library Service.  Drexel’s quarter begins January 4^th, 2010 and I’ll be at ALA Midwinter January 14^th-19^th.  If anyone is interested in meeting up I have time the 17^th after about 4pm until I leave on the 19^th.  Several of my instructors kindly provided me with the readings from the beginning of the quarter so I can get ahead before things get crazy, thank you.

A year ago I was a chemist, today I am librarian, a young librarian, but a librarian nonetheless.  Everything I’ve learned about writing, dealing with the public, organization, being in charge, and performing research, is built upon my experiences as a student at a liberal arts institution, a laboratory instructor, a chemist, a quality control manager, a library school student, and as a volunteer intern at a research library, have shaped who I am today.  I’ve been fortunate to find several librarians who are both willing, and capable, mentors. I have several people I can contact with questions, or for help proof reading.  I have people who will not only tell me what not to do, but why.  Much of my transformation from chemist to librarian is due to these individuals, and any success I achieve is due in large part to their generous advice and encouragement.

In the future I plan to pursue my interests in promoting literacy, science, and preservation.  So the question is, what will I be doing in 10 years?  My goal is to study and become fluent in Japanese, teach literacy and library science classes, continue studying preservation, cataloging, science (broad term), and e-resources, and do original research on the user group(s) who frequent my library.

My questions for anyone reading are:

How have you changed in the last year?  How would you like to change in the future?

May you all have a peaceful and relaxing rest of the year, catch you in 2010!

A large part of literacy instruction is explaining the resources available, one of the ongoing debates in the scientific community, and the library community, about how scientists should and will be communicating and sharing information in the future.


Literacy Instruction Readings, Reference, Tips, & Tutorials:

Office for Literacy and Outreach Services Toolkits (ALA)

http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/olos/toolkits.cfm

10 Tips for Teaching Technology to Teachers by Liz B. Davis

http://edtechpower.blogspot.com/2009/09/10-tips-for-teaching-technology-to.html

Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large Vol. 9 No. 12

http://citesandinsights.info/v9i12a.htm

Developing Research & Communication Skills Guidelines for Information Literacy in the Curriculum – Middle States Commission on Higher Education

http://www.msche.org/publications/Developing-Skills080111151714.pdf

ILI-L, the Information Literacy Instruction Discussion List (hosted by ALA)

http://lists.ala.org/wws/info/ili-l

IL Resources & Tools by Lisa Metzer

http://www.mindomo.com/view.htm?m=b93aa8ef223445ff8919191fbc3ed23c

Information literacy in the disciplines (ACRL wiki)

http://wikis.ala.org/acrl/index.php?title=Information_literacy_in_the_disciplines

LION: Library Information Literacy Online Network – Downloadable & Embeddable Guides

http://liontv.blip.tv/

Project Information Literacy

http://projectinfolit.org/

Turning Topics Into Searches by Iris

http://pegasuslibrarian.com/2009/11/turning-topics-into-searches.html

UCLA Library Research Guides – Teach Information Literacy & Critical Thinking!

http://guides.library.ucla.edu/teachingtips


Advice:

The Top Ten Things a new Sci/Tech Librarian Should Know: Developing Core Competencies (STS Issues in Sci/Tech Library Management Discussion Group ALA Annual Meeting, Toronto June 22, 2003) Victoria S. Mitchell


Looking Toward the Future:

Citizen Scientists Reconnecting Science with Civil Society (pdf)by Jack Stilgoe ~ If you only look at one link I have listed I highly encourage you to read the first part of this pamphlet, starting on page 13 of the pdf file.

Libraries and e-science by Lorcan Dempsey

Training to Climb an Everest of Digital Data by Ashlee Vance

What Should Social Software for Science Look Like? By Cameron Neylon

Science Readings and Resources:

Annual Reviews – Subscription Based Resource

http://www.annualreviews.org

Bibliography of Scientific and Industrial Reports Prepared for the web by Robert L. Bolin

http://www.unl.edu/Bolin_resources/bsir-xml/

BioMed Central The Open Access Publisher – Free Access, registration required.  This site hosts journals on a variety of topics, mainly medical, including journals on ecology, plant biology and zoology.

BIRN Biomedical Informatics Research Network

http://www.birncommunity.org/

BookBoon.com – Online Ad Financed Textbooks in Business, Math, and Science

Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives

http://www.clir.org/hiddencollections/index.html

Deep Dyve Online Rental Service Announcement

http://www.deepdyve.com/corp/about/press/20091027

Directory of Open Access Journals

http://www.doaj.org

Government Information Sources for Science and Technology – ACRL wiki

http://wikis.ala.org/acrl/index.php/Government_Information_Sources_for_Science_and_Technology

Gray literature: Resources for locating unpublished research by Brian S. Mathews C&RL News, March 2004 Vol 65., No. 3

Green Foostep – An assessment tool for reducing carbon emissions from building construction projects by the Rocky Mountain Institute ~ I’ve seen several reference questions about carbon emissions recently; it’s also been suggested as a planning resource for creating new library buildings.

INFOMINE Scholarly Internet Resource Collections

http://infomine.ucr.edu

LibGuides by Springshare – Paid Service

http://www.springshare.com/libguides/

LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe)

http://www.lockss.org/lockss/Home

Mendeley Research Networks

http://www.mendeley.com/

NLM Gateway – Search multiple NLM resources in one search.

Orphan Data

http://orphandata.org/

Rethinking Science & Technology for the 21^st Century by Alan Maynard

http://2020science.org/rethinking-science-technology-for-the-21st-century/

RSABG Library: Research Sources in Botany by Harvey R. Brenneise and Gary D. Wallace ~ This was created to support an annual graduate level research class in the field of Botany.

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography by Charles W. Bailey, Jr.

“The Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography (SEPB) presents selected English-language articles, books, and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet.”

Science: So what? – So what? By Alan Maynard

http://2020science.org/2009/11/27/science-so-what-so-what/

SPARC Guide: Income Models for Supporting Open Access

http://www.arl.org/sparc/publisher/incomemodels/

Top 10 Sci-Tech Books 2009 by Donna Seaman for Booklist Online

http://www.booklistonline.com/default.aspx?page=show_product&pid=3885134

Trailblazing Three and a half centuries of Royal Society publishing ~ 60 articles selected from over 60,000 published by the Royal Society (UK) between 1665 and 2010.

Translation resources on the Web: A guide to accurate, free sites by Rebecca A Martin and Sarah Mc-Hone-Chase C& RL News, June 2009 Vol 70, No. 6 ~ Due to the Internet access to scholarly information from foreign countries is increasing the need for translation, while I would not recommend using these resources to try and translate an entire article they may be use in translating abstracts, or enough of an article to determine whether or not it is worth having fully translated.

The UCverse

http://ucverse.universityofcalifornia.edu/

WolframAlpha ~ “Wolfram|Alpha’s long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything”


Blogs:

2020Science by Alan Maynard ~ Anything Alan writes is worth reading and, while he is involved with policy, he accurately represents a large portion of the scientific community’s thoughts.  He is also very good about citing sources and explaining in detail why he disagrees with alternate points of view, enabling the reader to make a more informed decision on whether or not they agree with him.

RSS Feed – http://feeds.feedburner.com/2020science

Confessions of a Science Librarian by John Dupuis

RSS Feed – http://scienceblogs.com/channel/rss.php

CS Librarian News by Missy Harvey ~ Missy is the Computer Science Librarian at Carnegie Mellon University.  The focus of her blog is to distribute information in the areas of computer science, electrical & computer engineering, and robotics.

RSS Feed – http://cslibrarian.net/feed

Discussion for best practices and links to Escience Portal, Supporting biomedical librarians everywhere…

RSS Feed – http://escienceportal.wordpress.com/feed/

Science Blogs – Scroll down the page and you can choose your news feed topic.  The definition of Science being used encompasses politics, and the arts, as well as the hard sciences and education.  Be warned it is easy to be overwhelmed by their subject specific news feeds, it may be better to choose a few frequent posters to follow than all people posting on a given subject.

Science in the open, An openwetware blog on the challenges of open and connected Science by Cameron Neylon

RSS Feed – http://feeds.feedburner.com/scienceintheopen


Just For Fun:

Drive for geothermal power heats up on US campuses by Dinesh Ramde