This weekly Nautilus column highlights some of the online discussion at Nature Network in the preceding week that is of relevance to scientists as authors.
The Nature Network week column is archived here.
John Wilbanks writes about the future of knowledge: “We are seeing the transformation of knowledge from something that is primarily conveyed in paper formats into something else: a computable graph, in which the knowledge is written in formats that computers can understand and interconnect, based on the same technologies that underlie the internet and web. Paper technology simply contains expressions of ideas, but the very technology of paper makes integration of ideas very difficult, if not impossible.”
Librarian Frank Norman dissects a recent editorial in The Lancet. There are several confusing lines of argument in the editorial, such as “the [library] user has no mind, only a search box; no thought, only keywords”. Frank suggests that the writer is meaning to compare “the “good old days” when a library user would come along and spend 30 mins or more explaining what they needed and why and the librarian would spend a couple of hours delving into paper and online sources to ferret out something useful. There could be a few iterations of this depending on the users’ evaluation of the initial results. Now we don’t even see the user – they can just use whatever search box is their preference and we never know how well or poorly they do it, or how well or poorly their needs are satisfied.”
In the context of increased recognition of blogs by US political conventions, Anna Kushnir writes: “scientific conferences still remain largely closed to bloggers and the public. There are many reasons for this, including the presentation of sensitive and unpublished data as well as the high registration costs for most conferences. However, would there be an audience for blogger coverage of scientific conferences, if the opportunity was presented? Is that something that the scientific and general communities would benefit from? If so, why is it not happening?” A discussion follows on the practicalities and philosophy of “liveblogging” scientific conferences (with linked examples). Tomorrow (Saturday 30 August) is Nature Network’s Science Blogging 2008 conference. If you can’t attend the conference (registration is full), and/or are interested in observing liveblogging at first hand, see this dedicated FriendFeed group for up-to-the-second updates.
A recent Nature editorial called for the protection of regional and minority languages in France and elsewhere. A cautionary response on Nature’s Correspondence page, claiming that schools in a third of Spain teach only in minority languages, is itself prompting many replies, some which are being aired at the Nature Network opinion forum asking for readers’ views on the role and effects of minority languages in science education, and about related science education policies.