Re: Olivia Judson

["Jim Law" <jamesblaw@gmail.com>]

Judson's article is a good intro to some of the problems of 
personal information management. It doesn't even touch on some of 
larger scientific information problems such as collaboration, 
peer-review, dissemination, attribution, and evaluation. I work 
on an EU-funded research project that is trying to address a 
number of these issues, so I hardly think scientists could be 
called content. So, I'm curious about your perspective here. 
Could you expand on what it is that students take for granted, 
but scientists lack?

Jim Law
Liquid Publications Project <http://project.liquidpub.org/>

On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 5:31 AM, Joseph J. Esposito 
<espositoj@gmail.com>wrote:

> Olivia Judson has an interesting New York Times blog post, 
> which can be found here:
>
> http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/defeating-bedlam/?ref=opinion
>
> The topic is software tools to help scientists fight through 
> the "bedlam" of information.  She reviews two products: 
> Zotero and Papers.  People familiar with Judson's work will 
> find here her admirably clear writing and talent for 
> instruction.
>
> Still and all I could not help but wonder how it is that the 
> scientific community could be content to work with software 
> that is at least a half step, maybe a full step or more, behind 
> what students take for granted. Desktop applications?  PDFs? 
> No, I don't think so.  Compare this piece to Dana Goodyear's 
> infinitely more sophisticated article in the Dec. 22 issue of 
> "The New Yorker" on so-called cell phone novels.
>
> Joe Esposito