P212121

The next step in science journals is online. In recent Nature news article, “the American Chemical Society (ACS) is taking steps towards turning most of its academic journals into online-only publications.”

I along with others have been expecting that science journals would move to an online format. I have been following the comments of other blogs that have discussed various aspects of the issue. The comments have been quite fascinating such as those from Farewell to Hard Copies at the blog In the Pipeline. A number of comments, from that post as well as the correspondence to Nature indicates that not everyone is going to happy with the change.

My guess is that the reasons mentioned are not going to convince the ACS to change its mind (assuming the rumor is true). If you are uncomfortable with the idea of having scientific journals online then here are some tools to hopefully make the experience less stressful.

1) How to find scientific articles
If you are simply using Google scholar or PubMed then you are missing out.
-I have already written about hubmed.org
These FireFox plugins are worth looking at Eccellio Science and i-cite

2) Taking Notes
Mac: Skim PDF Reader and Note-taker for OS X
Windows: Adobe Acrobat Full Version (not just the reader)
Another choice: PDFpen you could use the demo until it runs out.

2) Highlighting
Firefox add on: Wired-Marker (for Firefox 3.5 click here)
Highlight text then drag to a folder to display your desired color (tutorial can be found here)

3) How to quickly and easily track multiple websites
RSS feed reader

4) Difficulty reading a Computer Monitor
Firefox add on: NoSquint (version for Firefox 3.5 here)
This add on is helpful because it allows you to hold down the ‘ctrl’ key and then use the mouse to scroll and adjust image and text size.

5) Quickly viewing PDF files
Mac Users: Firefox PDF Plugin for Mac OS X
Window Users: PDF Download

6) Serendipitous discovery
I use Google Alert for certain key words that may relate to your research. For example, crystallography or phosphotransferase.
-If your word appears in any news stories then you will be sent an email with an excerpt and link to the article

Finally, I would like to acknowledge a great post over at Bitesize Bio that discussed the Firefox add-ons mentioned.

If you are a mac user then the program Papers may be worth checking out.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.

Problem: You are trying to track multiple web pages at the same time by bookmarking them. This is inconvenient for the following reasons:

1) The site may not have updated since the last time you checked, causing you to waste time by viewing information that you have already seen.
2) If a site updates quite often then you can miss out on information, if you do not check the site enough.

Solution: Get a RSS reader

1) Go to Google Reader (there are others, but this works fine)
2) Click on ‘Create an account’ (unless you already have an account with Google then just sign in) then fill out and read all pertinent information
3) Next click on ‘Add a subscription’ located in the upper left

4) Type in www.P212121.com
5) Now you can enter all other worthy websites!