Joshua Chalifour @jc@scholar.social

Argh, typo in my URL... fixed here: http://www.concordia.ca/cunews/main/stories/2018/10/17/october-22-to-28-is-open-access-week.html?c=/news/stories

Prepping for #OpenAccessWeek. I've been organzing w/ our Office of Research, a Q&A session about how Concordia supports researchers with OA (follows a free screening that we're offering of the Paywall film). More in this news article here http://www.concordia.ca/cunews/main/stories/2018/10/17/cctober-22-to-28-is-open-access-week.html?c=/news/stories

What's the appeal of markdown? I feel like I'm missing something. Every few years I try using a note-taking app or something that relies on it and I've never really figured out why I'd want to use it over, for example, HTML or a WYSIWYG editor. If I want to format some basic text and don't want to mark it up with code, then I like a simplistic WYSIWYG editor. If want to format some text using code, then it seems like Markdown is barely easier than HTML. What am I missing?

Inspiring start to the 2018 Digital Library Federation Forum #dlfforum w/ a talk by Anasuya Sengupta about decolonizing the Internet, good thinking on the perspectives producing & access knowledge. I'm hearing lots of interesting digital scholarship work, & nice to see the Concordia Library with so many other new DLF members welcomed.

If you're in Montreal today and interested in oral history and digital storytelling, drop by the Concordia Webster Library. There are a lot of free exhibits, presentations, and events as part of the Oral History Association’s annual conference. http://www.concordia.ca/cuevents/artsci/2018/10/10/conference-kickoff-oral-history-in-our-challenging-times.html

Really enjoyed the Scholarly Communications UnBoxed Activities (SCUBA) at #Force2018 this morning. Led to some good conversations/thinking about possibilities of tools vs. offering services because of tools. Also ways to remove burdens from OA IR depositing. If you're interested, this is a way of getting people together in your institution to develop ways of addressing scholarly communications needs/services. Developed by the UPenn Library https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jlDN7gleI6Ic2tpWu0XxCyfre3geqscz

Interesting dissection of Plan S (European #OA publishing initiative) on Martin Paul Eve's blog
https://www.martineve.com/2018/10/03/on-the-practical-implementation-of-plan-s/

Agh!! USMCA/NAFTA and now the CAQ all in one day--it's too much!

Canadian MPs to contact in protest of the new #NAFTA / #USMCA "intellectual property" restrictions. I wrote to them & my local MP. Look them all up here: http://www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members

Ministers: Chrystia Freeland - Chrystia.Freeland@parl.gc.ca (Foreign Affairs) / Pablo Rodriguez - Pablo.Rodriguez@parl.gc.ca (Heritage & Multiculturalism) / Kirsty Duncan - kirsty.duncan@parl.gc.ca (Science & Sport) / Navdeep Bains - Navdeep.Bains@parl.gc.ca (Innovation, Science & Economic Development)

In agreeing to this new #NAFTA or #USMCA, Canada allows the US to impose its wrong-headed "intellectual property" restrictions. After multiple copyright consultations in Canada & other agreements revealing we don't support these, this shouldn't be acceptable! http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2018/10/from-copyright-term-to-super-bowl-commercials-breaking-down-the-digital-nafta-deal/ Look at this alarming section on "intellectual property" https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/united-states-mexico-canada-agreement/united-states-mexico

I've been thinking about this CBC news article on having "a right to be forgotten" for information in the public sphere (e.g. search engine results). That implies dangerous things for memory institutions (archives, libraries, museums, etc.). I don't see how erasing history is a good idea. I do see how people need some kind of control over companies keeping private info about them but that's a different situation to information in the public sphere. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/privacy-freedom-expression-charter-1.4843451

#librarians #bibliothécaires save the date! The Concordia Library Research Forum will be on Friday, 26 April 2019 at the Loyola Jesuit Hall & Conference Centre, in Montreal, Quebec! https://library.concordia.ca/about/staff/forum
A call for proposals is coming in Dec. 2018! #libraries #bibliotheques

I just realized that last month (August) marked 20 years since I first launched a web site. I'm not sure what to make of that yet.

I got a book chapter proposal accepted the other day and I'm just thinking of my strategy to do the work now. I'm considering Nanowrimoing it to get a draft done. That's not really the point of Nanowrimo but I don't know that there's any harm.