![]() One of my most-used tools, something that I rely on to do my work almost every day, will most likely be bought by this very large company. My methods courses did not prepare me for this. The Cost of Knowledge campaign has amassed over thirteen thousand signatories in a little over a year. They even sued The Vandals for their parody of the Variety magazine logo. They are despicable enough to warrant a dedicated, popular campaign calling on academics to boycott their journals. They have lobbied against open-access publishing via the Research Works Act, and have sued their own customers on ambiguous legal grounds. From 2000 to 2005 Elseveir published six periodicals that looked like peer reviewed medical journals but were actually nothing more than paid advertisements for pharmaceutical companies. But Elsevier does not always respect the trust that many have bestowed upon them. In other words, if it is written in The Lancet then it is the forefront of modern medicine. ![]() To own The Lancet is to own a voice of scientific authority. A private organization that maintains such important tools must also shoulder a great deal of responsibility. You may have never heard of the company, but you know their “products”: The Lancet, Grey’s Gray’s Anatomy (The reference book, not the TV show), and ScienceDirect are all Elsevier properties. They are a publishing house and they make money by controlling the distribution of the knowledge that I and fellow academics produce. They’re not dumping millions of gallons of oil into coastal ecosystems, nor are they a massive mercenary army that kills for top dollar. Then, late last week, I got some really bad news on Twitter from those of us that use it: Good, bad, what do you think? – TechCrunch: Mendeley Will Be Sold To Elsevier Įlsevier isn’t the worst company in the world. Citing papers was almost an afterthought. I had an impeccably organized PDF library and I was happy. For me, Mendeley was a well-designed piece of software that did exactly what I needed it to do, without memory leaks or an obtuse user interface. It had a burgeoning social function as well, which was interesting, but the userbase was still too small to be useful. It renamed and organized all of my PDFs just the way I wanted them. Like any piece of software that runs on OS X and contains a database, Mendeley described its interface as “iTunes-like.” And while the interface was pretty polished, that wasn’t what sold me. That’s when I fell into the waiting arms of Mendeley. I had dozens of papers to write and no citation software. When I got to grad school, I realized by old standby, ProQuest’s Refworks wasn’t available and my old copy of Endnote x1 ran too slow on my new computer. So there I was, my first year of graduate school and jonesing heavily for some citation management. Citation management software however, gets me close enough. I find little joy in putting together reference lists and bibliographies, mainly because they can never reach the metaphysical perfection I demand. I use Spotify for no other reason that I don’t want to dedicate the necessary time to organize an MP3 library the way I know it needs to be organized. (Although, if you find yourself empathizing with me right now, I suggest you try TuneUp.) My tendency for digitally augmented organization has also made me a bit of a connoisseur of citation management software. My personal library is organized the same way Occupy Wall Street organized theirs, with a lifetime subscription to LibraryThing. ![]() Material and digital objects need to stand in reserve for me, so that I may function on a daily basis. I’m a forgetful and absent-minded character and need to externalize my memory, so I typically augment my organizational skills with digital tools. ![]() I don’t call it life hacking or You+, its just the way I live. I really love putting things in order: Around my house you’ll find tiny and neat stacks of paper, alphabetized sub-folders, PDFs renamed via algorithm, and spices arranged to optimize usage patterns. This and more #OverlyHonestMethods can be found here. ![]()
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