2009 Sparky Awards

The third annual Sparky Awards invite contestants to submit videos of two minutes or less that imaginatively portray the benefits of the open, legal exchange of information. The contest is well suited for adoption as a class assignment as well as an opportunity to promote library services, including media services or the information commons, where students can edit video, browse media, work collaboratively, and learn about copyright and balancing features such as fair use. Colleges and universities across North America are hosting local versions of the Sparky Awards to get maximum benefit from the third-annual installment of the contest. Other institutions everywhere are promoting international entries through sparkyawards.org.

The organizers of the popular Sparky Awards, a contest that recognizes the best new short videos on the value of information sharing, have announced that Pat Aufderheide, Director of the Center for Social Media and professor at American University, and Ben Moskowitz, organizer of the Open Video Alliance and co-founder of the Berkeley Students for Free Culture chapter, will help select the winners of the 2009 international contest. These additions to the judges’ panel reflect how vital the open sharing of information is to both students and faculty, and that the Sparky Awards is a unique forum to bring together stakeholders from across campus to the discussion on access to research.

The contest is sponsored by SPARC.

Smithsonian Education Online Conference on Climate Change

The "Smithsonian Education Online Conference on Climate Change" is three-day, free, education online conference taking place September 29 through October 1, 2009.

"Climate Change" sessions will be of special interest to educators, entire classrooms of engaged students, and to the general public. Throughout the conference, participants will explore Smithsonian research and collections related to the evidence, impact, and response to climate change. Alongside Smithsonian scientists and curators, you will look at the issues surrounding climate change from the perspectives of science, history, and art.

The Internet and Civic Engagement

This is the title of a new report that just came out from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. It should be noted that the report doesn't even include Twitter or comment on how social media was used at the end of the presidential campaign in October/November of 2008. Happy reading.

American Institute of Physics UniPHY

This is a literature-based professional social networking site for physical science researchers.

The site allows physicists, engineers, and other scientists to directly connect with and explore their professional contacts and to identify researchers with the expertise needed for future collaborations.

AIP UniPHY, powered by Collexis High Definition Search, enables fast, accurate and extraordinary knowledge retrieval and discovery, and empowers individuals to search for and identify documents, researchers, trends, and new discoveries more quickly, precisely –- and thoroughly –- than ever before. AIP UniPHY provides intuitive interfaces through which researchers can network and share data –- all with the goal of advancing physics research worldwide.

This press release also has more info on the product.

50 Millionth Unique Chemical Substance is indexed

Here is the new substance. It is (5Z)-5-[(5-Fluoro-2-hydroxyphenyl)methylene]-2-(4-methyl-1-piperazinyl)-4(5H)-thiazolone.

Overview of the ACRL Scholarly Communication 101 Workshop

I went to the ACRL Scholarly Communication 101 "Road Show" Workshop way back on August 7, 2009. It was an all day affair held on the Auraria Campus here in Denver.

Presentation materials are here. For example, they began the day with "Scholarly Communication 101: Starting with the Basics".

• Introduction: Scholarly communication system
• Economics
  
• Copyright and author rights
  
• Open access and openness as a principle
  
• New models and modes of scholarly publishing

Handouts are here, such as:

• Workshop overview & outline
  
• Ten things you should know
  
• Assessing copyright management exercise
  
• Copyright MadLibs story exercise
  
• Copyright transfer agreement comparison exercise
  
• Openness exercise
  
• Final reflection activity
  
• Workshop evaluation

Videos are here.

The organizers of the event recorded audio during the day, but it is not available yet.