Peter Jasco trashes Google Scholar

Peter Jasco has published a critical review of Google Scholar. He criticizes the citedness scores, the lack of information about the scope, and the mixing of different types of publications.

Gale - Free Resources - Reference Reviews - Peter's Digital Reference Shelf - June: "There are certainly many journals of many publishers covered to keep casual users, high-school and undergrad students, TV talking heads and shallow journalists happy, but for scholarly research the breadth of coverage is not sufficient, the implementation is sloppy and the software options are inferior."

New Scientist 11 steps to a better brain - Features

I need all the help I can get.
New Scientist 11 steps to a better brain - Features

Advice to future business leaders: study philosophy?

Articles like this one promoting a liberal arts education for those who want to succeed in business appear every now and then. Do liberal arts courses really develop the habits of mind needed by CEOs and other leaders, or do people who become CEOs have these habits, inclinations, and values already and therefore are more likely to be interested in and take liberal arts courses? Sounds like a job for freakonomics.

CareerJournal | Senior Executives -- Salary Data and Hiring Trends: "'I advise students all the time, 'You've got to have something you can do for a company now. That's what gets you in the door. But if you want to succeed long term, you've got to have a broader range of skills and problem-solving abilities,'' says Robert Kelley, an adjunct management professor at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

'Companies are going to start to look at the fundamental value set of an individual and their basic education. Did they study philosophy and culture and history rather than just accounting, finance and engineering? Fast-forward 20 or 30 years, we're going to find [business leaders] who maybe majored in philosophy rather than business.'"

Silence in the Stacks

Scott McLemee looks for good, meaty academic librarian blogs with a kind of public intellectual feel and can't find any. He has a point. His proposed solution is an academic librarian group blog. Interesting idea, anyone interested?. Public librarians seem to have gotten out ahead of academic librarians on blogging.


Inside Higher Ed :: Silence in the Stacks: "What seems to be lacking, however, are blogs by academic librarians about the issues specific to their work AS academic librarians. As I tried to indicate in the piece, such a discussion might well have implications of interest to a larger public."

The Hot College in New Jersey These Days - New York Times

The Hot College in New Jersey These Days - New York Times: "THE brick Georgian-style buildings are surrounded by a sea of neatly manicured lawns. Inside, the small classes are filled with some of the best students New Jersey's high schools have to offer. The college has won a top ranking for northern schools from U.S. News & World Report, and Barron's has rated it 'most competitive.'"