worth checking out nature this week...

[ Source:www.nature.com ]

google's new browser - Chrome - really worth looking at!

[ Source:www.google.com ]

monkiri - a great new tool

[ Source:www.monkiri.com ]

linkouts

2collab ... is a new type of research tool launched in 2007- a collaboration platform designed specifically for researchers in the science, technical and medical communities. intended for use by professional researchers in academic, government and corporate institutions, 2collab provides three types of features: (1) online bookmarking and reference management; (2) groups - for sharing with existing networks, or building new ones; (3) networking - find, evaluate and initiate contact with new people
[they also carried out a very interesting social media survey back in mid-June]

NPG, in their ultimate wisdom, have recently launched a manscript deposition service and previous to that an english language editing service... the former enables authors to meet the open access or public access policies of all of the participating funders, making it simple and free for researchers to comply and the latter is pretty much what it says on the tin - with gold and silver options, which are 'comprehensive' and 'thorough' respectively...

CrossRef have launched CrossCheck with iThenticate in order to verify the originality of works submitted for publication...

Charlesworth have developed AutoProof to be integrated with Aries Preprint Manager. it allows publishers to create page proofs from their own desk top within ten minutes (!)

NISO and ALPSP have released a report on journal article versions, which describes the various versions that appear - and especially what the 'version of record' is...

and, finally, a great post from the scholarly kitchen asking 'are we watching the wrong things'?

starting back at it...

so... it's been a lo-o-ong time since i posted anything here, and it think i should probably not go all the way back to mid-march and detail every post in google reader i've 'starred' since then. instead i'm going to start back at around mid-june, as it serves me well [see the next list-post]...

the reason for starting back up? well, for one, it's a good discipline and helps focus my mind on what's important in this line of work; for two, i was listening to a stephen fry podcast this morning (if you haven't you should...) and what he was talking about - Oscar Wilde and the beauty of nature versus the mess we make of things - coincided with a butterfly flitting about the packed commuter train i was squeezed into at the time. this stirred me into thinking that any web contribution could be a good one - as there's just a chance it might strike a chord at the right time somewhere to someone...