Connotea
There’s an interesting new web application from Nature publishing group called Connotea. It’s a free online citation/reference manager for scientists and physicians, and it seems to work very well indeed. It involves using a bookmarklet (i.e. a bit of JavaScript) to detect articles and add them to your library. Check it out; it’s pretty neat and well-made. There are videos explaining how it works. In a way, it feels like it’s trying to be a del.icio.us for the scientific world (del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site, where people can tag website bookmarks and browse other people’s bookmarks). It’s a cool experiment.
One of the things I like about Nature versus Science is how much Nature seems to be trying to embrace the new medium of the internet. Whereas Science is working to bash innovative publishing, Nature seems to be trying to explore the possibilities the internet has to offer. Maybe that’s because Nature is based in the UK, where a lot of experimentation has been done on internet media, particularly by the BBC, which has chosen to open its archives to the UK (i.e. taxpaying) public. As one of the heavy hitters of the scientific publishing world, Nature seems to be doing a great job in being open to new ideas, at least as far as a huge corporation with over 70 titles under its umbrella.
