ScienceOnline11: ScienceWeekly Podcast

I really enjoyed #scio11, also known as ScienceOnline 2011. Here is another of the neat things I learned:

• My bee buddy Kerstin Hoppenhaus introduced me to Alok Jha's Science weekly podcast. I listened to and loved an episode on my drive to the conference -- and then met Alok himself. I highly recommend his podcast.
  
• The Jan. 24 episode is about ScienceOnline, so you can hear more about the conference.
• The September 20, 2010 episode is entitled What the Brain Can and Can't Do and is a good listen for cognitive science aficionados.
  
• Alok and ScienceWeekly are both on Twitter.
  

Science weekly comes out Mondays, so listen to it today!

Takeaways from ScienceOnline 2011

I really enjoyed #scio11, also known as ScienceOnline 2011, held in North Carolina's RTP for its fifth year. ScienceOnline is an informal conference of scientists, students, educators, physicians, journalists, librarians, bloggers, programmers and others interested in the way the World Wide Web is changing the way science is communicated, taught and done.

I'm going blog some of the things I enjoyed about the conference over the next few weeks.

• I went on a pre-conference tour of UNC-TV also in RTP. It was fascinating to see all the wires and boxes. The highlight was a full-size stuffed Cookie Monster, but also interesting were seeing Roy Underhill's set for the Woodwright's Shop and a 1954 TV camera.
• Thanks to our tour guide Charlie Allen, also known as UNC-TV's chief engineer.
  

Overall, the conference reminded me how much I enjoy science. I never worked as a scientist, and now that I'm no longer a science librarian, I have strayed a bit -- but I do love science. My New Year's resolutions this year includes: incorporate more science into my life.

Favorite Songs of 2010

Here's a list of my favorite songs for this year. I added all but the Belle & Sebastian to a myspace playlist. Enjoy & support the artist whose songs you like!

Song	Band	Album
Be My Thrill	The Weepies	Be My Thrill
Telegrams to Mars	Little & Ashley	Stole My Heart EP
Somethin’ Stupid	The Secret Sisters	The Secret Sisters
The Curse	Josh Ritter	So Runs The World Away
Hormones	Tracey Thorn	Love and Its Opposite
Beauty in the World	Macy Gray	The Sellout
Better Off In Texas	Raul Malo	Sinners & Saints
Tennessee Me	The Secret Sisters	The Secret Sisters
Cornbread and Butterbeans	Carolina Chocolate Drops	Genuine Negro Jig
Nothing but the Whole Wide World	Jakob Dylan	Women And Country
Ridin’ In My Car	She & Him	Volume Two
Still Missing You	Little & Ashley	Stole My Heart EP
Long Hard Road	Sade	Soldier Of Love
Pickle	Chumbawamba	Abcdefg
I Didn’t See It Coming *	Belle and Sebastian	Write About Love
Bad Romance	Lady Gaga	The Fame Monster
Why Does The Wind?	Tracey Thorn	Love and Its Opposite
Anytime You Need Me	Michael Franti	The Sound Of Sunshine
I Want The World To Stop *	Belle and Sebastian	Write About Love
San Antonio Baby	Raul Malo	Sinners & Saints
Hey Hey Hey	Michael Franti	The Sound Of Sunshine

(* not on myspace)

And in the shameless family promotion department, please check out my niece Rachel Austin on myspace; she has quite a lovely voice!

Finding Old Tweets

Tweet much? Want to study tweets, or review tweets from a recent (or not-so-recent) conference? I've been asked for recommendations on software that will archive tweets, so I thought I'd post my replies here for posterity. Also for my future self.

All The Old Tweets Are Found: Google Launches Twitter Archive Search reports Greg Sterling on Search Engine Land. A Google search will yield archived tweets; click on "More" to the left of the results and scroll down to "Updates."

Here are the results from last year's Science Online conference, hashtagged #scio10. You'll see a few recent tweets, but then you'll see a flurry of tweets from Feb. 2010 to the present (apparently the service started in Feb.) You can click on a calendar image to see tweets from a particular month or date.

(click to see Feb 2010 tweets about #scio10.)

I also tried another conference I attended, #asist21010, & was pleased to see pre-, mid-, and post-conference tweets. For something a bit more topical, check out #ItGetsBetter. Greg's Search Engine Land post goes into more detail, so I'll link to it again.

The Archivist Desktop By Mix Online (and Microsoft). Only available for Windows. They say: "The Archivist is a Windows application that helps you archive tweets for later data-mining and analysis. Start a search with The Archivist and get as many results as it can. The, leave The Archivist running and it will poll Twitter for that search."

Chris Pirillo tweeted about this in September: Archive the Tweets That are Important to You. There is a web version as well for non PC users.

Back in August, 2009, Read Write Web listed 10 Ways to Archive Your Tweets.

Of these, Twinbox looks really handy, as it downloads certain Twitter feeds directly to your Outlook mail client. Again, however, this is only for PeeCee folks.

If you are interested in assessing social media campaigns, you might also want to check out my list of resource to help you Assess Social Media Campaigns.

Tweet on!

Concussions

Not surprisingly, the spate of concussions on Sunday, Oct. 17 yielded a lot of discussion among newspapers, magazines, and the blogosphere on the safety of the game of football as it's currently played in the National Football League. Here are some of the items that caught my eye and are worth another look:

• The November 1, 2010 issue of Sports Illustrated has CONCUSSIONS on the cover, complete with a stunning cover photo of Steelers linebacker James Harrison's hit on Browns wide receiver Mohamed Massaquoi. Inside are several articles, including a conversation with Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis on concussions and modified play and a discussion of how players might better protect themselves from concussions (via tensing their necks).
• I most enjoyed David Epstein's article Unexpected Findings: The Damage Done, which chronicles research at Purdue detailing the cumulative effect of minor hits to the head throughout a game and season.
• Peter King's cover article includes a great description of Boston University's Ann McKee (associate professor of neurology & pathology; diagnoser of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, in football players, in former NFL players) getting ready for a football-ful Sunday.
• The articles are good, but the entire package is so well-done (and the photographs so striking) that I recommend buying the print issue, or reading it at your library.
• The New York Times has been giving this a tremendous amount of coverage, of course. I particularly enjoyed William C. Rhoden's October 19 column Thirty-Yard Penalties Would Help Lower N.F.L. Violence and Michael Sokolove's Oct. 23 "Week in Review" essay Should You Watch Football? (yes).
• Finally, Tweeter and blogger @concussionblog counts the hits at The Concussion Blog. It's a grim, but useful accounting of who got hit when, and not just in the NFL. Dustin Fink includes rugby, soccer, MLB, and more in his counting. He also does a nice job linking to current coverage of concussions around the country.

For More Information

• The Purdue Study:
• Talavage TM, Nauman E, Breedlove EL, et al. Functionally-Detected Cognitive Impairment in High School Football Players Without Clinically-Diagnosed Concussion. Journal of Neurotrauma. October 2010. [Epub ahead of print]

My Summer Vacation

It's definitely summer here in North Carolina: we've had 36 days with temperatures at or above 90º in June or July (in 1952, we had 45 such days in June or July, says the News & Observer), and things are hot & sticky down south!

It's not quite vacation-time in an academic library, and my big project is to redesign the Park Library's web site. More on that later; check out the current site if you like.

The only blog writing I've done is to participate in Bora Zivkovic’s ScienceOnline interviews at his personal blog A Blog Around The Clock. This was part of Bora's occasional interviews with some of the participants of the ScienceOnline2010 conference that was held in the Research Triangle Park, NC back in January; they are all interesting! Mine was recently posted, so feel free to pop on over to Bora's blog if you want to know more about my relationship with science and libraries.

Back to the website drawing board ... I will post about the new site when it goes live in early August.

Twitter & the Library of Congress

You may have seen that the Library of Congress will be archiving Tweets for the future. Here are my tweets on the topic, which should provide a brief summary of some useful articles:

How Tweet It Is!: Library of Congress Acquires, Saves Entire Twitter Archive, blog post @ blogs.LoC.gov, April 14, 2010.

Retweet of UNC SILS PhD student @fstutzman: "Good American Prospect interview w/ Library of Congress (LoC) re: Twitter: Deal is signed, done, LoC doesn't know about opt out. Ugh." The Library of Congress Is Now Following You on Twitter. Phoebe Connelly, April 16, 2010.

Retweet of UNC SILS / JoMC professor @smalljones: "Archivist of the United States makes case for (LoC) saving tweets." AOTUS: Collector in Chief » Tweets: What We Might Learn From Mundane Details. David Ferraro, April 16, 2010.

The Library and Twitter: An FAQ « Library of Congress Blog, Matt Raymond, April 28, 2010.

Retweet of Duke's "Digital strategist and plate-spinner" @paoloman: Digital Domain - A Sea of History - Twitter at the Library of Congress, New York Times, April 30, 2010.

Facebook & Theory of Mind, or Why I'm No Longer Updating Facebook

Facebook is a place where you can communicate with your friends, family members, co-workers, ex-flames, maybe even your boss if you choose to friend her. Theory of mind is our "...intuitive understanding of [our] own and other people's minds or mental states, including beliefs and thoughts." (from A Dictionary of Psychology, edited by Andrew M. Colman. Oxford University Press 2009); it explains how we know what other people know.

What does this have to do with Facebook? In the old days, before Facebook's recent privacy changes, if Conchita posted something on Darius' wall, here's who could read it:

• Darius could read it, because Conchita posted it on Darius' wall
• Conchita could read it, because Conchita posted it on Darius' wall
• Their mutual friends Albert and Brigadoon could read it, because

1. they were alerted when one friend wrote on another friend's wall
2. Albert and Brigadoon have access to Darius' wall because they are friends with him.

The above is still true. Here's what used to be true that is no longer true:

• Conchita's friend Ephesus, who doesn't know Darius from Adama, previously could not see that she posted on Darius' wall. Additionally, Conchita's, family, co-workers, and other Facebook-defined friends who were not friends with Darius did not know about and therefore could not read that post. We all had a pretty clear notion of who would have access to that, and some measure of privacy WITHIN OUR FACEBOOK CONTACTS.
• Now, Ephesus and all of Conchita's other Facebook "friends" know when she writes on ALL OF HER FRIEND'S walls, regardless of whether they know Conchita's friends or not. They also know when she comments on a photograph or a note or anything shared by ANY OF HER FRIENDS. If Conchita's not careful, they can even READ all of Conchita's comments to all of her friends.

As far as I can tell, there is no changing this setting. It is possible to hide some, most, or all of yourself from the World Wide Web, and from people who don't know you from Adama, but it is not possible to hide who you interact with on Facebook to the rest of your, and their, Facebook contacts.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation concurs: "These new 'privacy' changes are clearly intended to push Facebook users to publicly share even more information than before. Even worse, the changes will actually reduce the amount of control that users have over some of their personal data." Further, a story in this week's Inside Higher Ed reports that "A small change to the settings for Gadsden’s [an East Stroudsburg University sociology professor] online profile allowed the 'friends' of Gadsden’s own 'friends' to read her updates, and in so doing created a controversy that the professor now feels could damage her career and her chances at tenure."

This major change to Facebook's privacy policy has rattled me; and although I'd long ago stopped posting anything personal, it has silenced my Facebook updates.

For More Info

• Facebook's New Privacy Changes: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Electronic Frontier Foundation, December 9th, 2009.
• Privacy Policy, Facebook, December 9, 2009.
• Perez, Sarah. The 3 Facebook Settings Every User Should Check Now, New York Times, January 20, 2010.
• News: Not So Private Professors, Inside Higher Ed, March 2, 2010.

What Can You Ask a Librarian?

A recent Library Hacks blog post at Duke's Perkins Library, Ever wonder what you can ask a reference librarian? prompted me to publicize some of the questions we've been asked at the Park Library. (I first posted this on the JoMC Park Library blog but thought it would be fun over here too)

Recent questions include (along with answers, where feasible):

Basic Questions, students asked for ...

• Communication Yearbook by call number. (check the catalog)
• Dissertations by former JoMC students (online! from 1997-present in ProQuest Dissertations & Theses full-text *)
• Related: looking for a MA thesis by a former JoMC student (list is online)
• How to request books from another library (Carolina BLU rocks!).
• Printing, printing, printing! Lots of questions about printing. We currently don't have the "free" ITS printers anywhere in Carroll Hall, and we answer lots of questions about that.

More Complex Questions, where folks asked for ...

• Alcohol advertisements from the late 1960s to present (Duke's Ad*Access is a great start, as are some of the other resources on this page)
• Editorial cartoons (this research page can help)
• An article from the Los Angeles Times from 1984 (we have the LA Times from 1881-1986 *& the most recent 6 months in LexisNexis *)
• Tough one: readership of southern, American newspapers in the mid-1800s. We found some material in books and other old-fashioned sources.
• Industry surveys of the motorcycle industry (I love these market research resources!)
• Articles from North Carolina newspapers about an event that took place in southeastern NC in the mid-80s to mid-90s. The papers the patron needed weren't on microfilm ... helped her find the appropriate microfilm source and identify specific dates via the Charlotte Observer (available from 1985-present in America's Newspapers *)

Many of these links will work regardless of your institutional affiliation. The links followed by an * are available to the UNC community only.

The library staff and I are happy to answer questions about doing research in journalism & mass communication. You can reach me by email (swbrown @ unc . edu), by phone at 919.843.8300, IM to JoMCParkLib, and now you can even text Qs to us at 919-200-0713.

Ask us anything!

Caprica, Media, and Crisis Communication

I am a huge Battlestar Galactica fan, and I've been intrigued by the spinoff/prequel Caprica. This week's Caprica touched many of my interests beyond the sci fi philosophy that I like (one character asked another this week "Can you be free if you’re not real?") and the soap opera that I find addictive.

The first episode of Caprica included a massive terrorist bombing, and one of the terrorists may or may not be one of the main characters (who died in the bombing, but whose avatar lives on). The character's father, Daniel Graystone, is a corporate mogul (think Bill Gates or Steve Jobs). The episode features a lot of media reaction to the bombing and the daughter's possible involvement: many stories have appeared in the daily newspaper, the Caprican (which has its own page on the syfy web site), and a Jay Leno-like commentator spoke derisively about the characters' involvement in the bombing.

The media outcry turned so hostile that the company's stock began to tumble, and Graystone's assistant suggested some public relations assistance in the form of a crisis communicator. The side elements of media and communications added to my enjoyment of the show.

If you've watched Caprica, or you're interested in the media aspects, check out the Capricology entries on the ReligionDispatches blog. Some great academic minds are writing weekly posts about various media and religion aspects of Caprica. They include

• Diane Winston, the Knight Chair in Media and Religion at the University of Southern California.
• Salman Hameed, astronomer and Assistant Professor of Integrated Science & Humanities at Hampshire College.
• Anthea Butler, Associate Professor of religion at the University of Pennsylvania.
• Henry Jenkins, Provost's Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California.

Their thoughtful Capricology discussions enhance my enjoyment of Caprica, and this week's entry, Capricology: Week 3: Apotheosis, Anyone? cover many of the media aspects I've highlighted here.