Robbins Library Notes

Good morning, readers!

I came across this editorial from the Christian Science Monitor yesterday: “Kindle e-reader: A Trojan horse for free thought,” by Emily Walshe.

I’m sympathetic to Walshe’s criticisms and insights, and uneasy with Amazon’s decision to not use an open platform. I think she’s right to point out that Kindle users are not buying texts per se, but access to texts, and there are some huge issues that need to be thought out before we all rush to purchase e-book readers and get rid of physical texts.

What do you think, readers?

Update 3/20/2009: Some responses to Walshe’s editorial.

Good morning, readers, and happy Monday to you!

I’m curious to know what you, my readers, think about Twitter, and how it might be used.  I do have a Twitter account, though I rarely tweet there.  To be honest, I’m really not sure what it’s for, and am wondering if you might have any ideas.  Do you think that it would be helpful for me in assisting you with philosophical research?

Here’s one view on Twitter, from comedian Ricky Gervais, arguing that it’s somewhat pointless, given blogging and podcasting.  Opposing views are here, from Jeff Jarvis and from Jay Rosen.

What do you think, readers?  Is Twitter useless?  Or does it have its purpose(s)?  I’m curious to know…

Amazon releases free Kindle app for iPhone

Good morning, readers!  Happy Monday, and March, to you!

Last week, I received an e-mail from Victor Henning, one of the co-founders of a new research paper management tool called Mendeley.

In his e-mail to me, Henning writes:

Mendeley is a combination of free desktop software (available for Windows, Mac and Linux) and website for managing and sharing research papers, as well as for discovering research trends and like-minded academics. You can have a look at the features here: http://www.mendeley.com/tour.

After looking at this, and some reviews from others, what Mendeley is good for is organizing the mass of PDF and Word papers that you’ve accumulated in the course of your research, and sharing them with others.  As another reviewer writes:

A relatively new program, still in beta, Mendeley works with Macs, PCs, & the Linux operating system. It lets you manage your papers online, discover research trends, connect with other researchers in your field, and coming soon, learn about the readership of your own publications: how many readers you have, what disciplines they’re in, & where they’re from.

You can insert citations & create bibliographies in your Word documents using Mendeley, although it is a much less sophisticated system than EndNote, for example. But you can export the information that you collect through Mendeley into other citation management programs, if you wish.

You can also add a public profile & follow other researchers profile updates (think LinkedIn or Facebook.)

In other words, Mendeley is a helpful tool to use in conjunction with citation management programs like Zotero and EndNote.  And, you can follow (and be followed by) other researchers if you create a public profile.  Here’s a great way to network, collaborate, and share research.

Do check Mendeley out.  I have signed up for a free account myself, and am planning on experimenting with it in the next few weeks.

Good morning, readers, and happy Friday!

I’m going to continue to look at Amazon’s Kindle today, with an article I found in “American Libraries Direct”: Why Kindle Should Be An Open Book: Unless Amazon embraces open standards, the Kindle’s lead will become a very short story.

Tim O’Reilly looks at why Amazon’s decision to use a proprietary, closed architecture may hurt the early success of the Kindle in the long run.

Good morning, readers! Happy Monday to you!

A reader commenting on my post about Soople last year let me know about another search engine, Onlyjust.net. This is a very cool search engine that puts all of Google’s functionality, including some of its hidden functionality, in one place. Definitely take this out for a spin, if you are a heavy Google user.

Good morning, readers, and happy Friday to you!

I found this wonderful post yesterday, via “American Libraries Direct” — “Giz Explains: Why There Isn’t a Perfect E-Book Reader.”  It’s a great look at the current state of e-book readers and their technology, and avoids a lot of the polemics and hype around e-book readers that’s been floating around lately with the launch of the Kindle 2.

Good morning, readers! Welcome back!

Via Bookforum.com: some interesting commentary on Robert Darnton’s piece on Google about which I recently posted.

I’m also curious to know what people think about Amazon’s second-generation Kindle e-book reader. I agree that e-books will change and re-shape the way we read — not necessarily a bad thing — but I’m still not sold on the idea that they will supplant paper books entirely.

What do you think?

Good morning, readers!

Via Garrett Eastman’s Library News & Notes: “100 Powerful Web Tools to Organize Your Thoughts and Ideas,” By Alisa Miller.

Here’s Miller’s introduction:

Whether you are a busy executive, a single parent, a freelancer working from home, a student, or a combination of these, you have probably found yourself needing help when it comes to organizing all your thoughts and ideas that occur throughout your busy day. Now you can turn to these tools found on the Internet that will help you with tasks such as note-taking, bookmarking websites, highlighting important text during online research, creating mind maps, tracking time, keeping up with appointments, collaborating with others, managing projects, and much more.

Enjoy!

Why the death of the hard-copy book and the inevitable triumph of e-books are both greatly exaggerated.