MedLIS

explore-blog:

The little-known art of beloved physicist Richard Feynman, born on May 11, 1918.

(Source: )

infoneer-pulse:

The U.S. Department of Justice has decided not to file an amicus curiae brief in a high-profile copyright case involving Georgia State University and several publishers.

The case in question, Cambridge U. Press et al. v. Mark P. Becker et al., was brought against the university by Cambridge, Oxford University Press, and SAGE Publishers. It accuses Georgia State of committing widespread copyright violations by making some of the publishers’ content available on electronic reserve without licensing it.

» via The Chronicle of Higher Education (Subscription may be required for some content)

infoneer-pulse:

For drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, the 17-page article in the New England Journal of Medicine represented a coup.

The 2006 report described a trial that compared three diabetes drugs and concluded that Avandia, the company’s new drug, performed best.

“We now have clear evidence from a large international study that the initial use of [Avandia] is more effective than standard therapies,” a senior vice president of GlaxoSmithKline, Lawson Macartney, said in a news release.

What only careful readers of the article would have gleaned is the extent of the financial connections between the drugmaker and the research. The trial had been funded by GlaxoSmithKline, and each of the 11 authors had received money from the company. Four were employees and held company stock. The other seven were academic experts who had received grants or consultant fees from the firm.

» via Washington Post

So now let’s enforce 2007 mandate to deposit all clinical trial results, including negative, in ClinicalTrials.gov for all to access.

nypl:

“If free and equal access to information is one of the hallmarks of a great society then our libraries are not just libraries but grand sanctuaries of freedom.”

— New York City Councilman Vincent Gentile

gjmueller:

Principals Drop Ball on Teacher Retention, Study Says

Policymakers, administrators, and advocacy groups have correctly diagnosed a major problem plaguing the teaching profession—high rates of teacher attrition—but have missed the mark in their prescriptions for fixing it, concludes a new report released this morning by the New York City-based TNTP, formerly The New Teacher Project.

In essence, it contends, most school leaders fail to identify and encourage the very best teachers to stay in schools. In part, it says, that’s because of the K-12 field’s tendency to uncouple decisions about retention from discussions of teacher quality.

infoneer-pulse:

Library Patrons’ Want E-Books Over Every Other Downloadable Media

Library patrons, it turns out, are just like everybody else when it comes to e-books: increasingly, they want them.

According to the new Patron Profiles report from Library Journal and Bowker, 28% of library patrons want to download e-books at their local libraries. That number increases when it comes to library patrons who also read e-books: nearly two-thirds of those want e-books available at their local libraries.

E-books were more in demand among library patrons than music and video.

» via Digital Book World

curiositycounts:

An archive of book cover designs and designers? Be still my beating heart.

Who Invented Email? Just Ask…Noam Chomsky
By Caleb Garling, wired.com

Who invent­ed email? That’s a ques­tion sure to spark some debate. And where there’s debate, the appear­ance of Noam Chom­sky should come as no sur­prise.

This week, Chom­sky — the pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus of lin­guis­tics and phi­los­o­phy at MIT…

History of “Email” system as we know it. Chomsky backs Ayyadurai.

Found a little fawn curled up at base of a sculpture of St. Francis in our backyard tonight.