OpenLaboratory 2008

The organizers behind the Open Laboratory anthology project are back again for a third consecutive year. The goal is to collect some of the best science and science-related blog posts from a one-year interval into a print anthology. Those of you who enjoyed reading prior editions of Open Laboratory or Female Science Professor’s collected works (Academeology; available here) will need little argument as to why you might want to be selected for inclusion of a print anthology of blog posts. If you are unfamiliar with such efforts, a description of the creation of the 2006 and 2007 editions of Open Laboratory are worth a read.

Ringleader in chief Coturnix has a listing of the nominated posts as of 9/28/08. I see a suspicious lack of nominations of the excellent blog work of juniorprof, drdrA, Isis, damngoodtechnician, Professor in Training, Professor Chaos, Dr. Jekyll & Mrs. Hyde, Odyssey and many other top notch folks who discuss science career topics. This led me to think that perhaps many of our readers (who I know read blogs in this topic domain) were unaware of Open Laboratory.
Think of the reasons to submit your favorite posts from blogs you enjoy. Even the nomination process will draw attention to the post since Coturnix is good about periodically listing the nominations and following the final print production with a link to the ones that were nominated but didn’t make the cut. The posts that actually make it into the anthology will draw attention outside of the usual audience as well. I purchased the 2007 anthology on a self-indulgent whim (a comment of mine was a motivating factor for Janet Stemwedel’s winning entry) and found myself reading the other winning entries. Entries that I didn’t even find myself clicking on when reading over the list of winning entries posted by Coturnix. Something about the reading environment when you have a book in your hand perhaps? There is the academic credit thing, familiar to all of you. Sure, we are still hashing out if/how blogging will ever become a legitimate part of the academic record, if those who blog pseudonymously will ever take credit for their efforts, etc. But even just as a pseud, don’t you think your favorite bloggers (even apart from our dueling narcissists) would get a charge from being nominated or even honored by being selected? (Did I mention it was a peer-reviewed selection?)
I suspect that the topic areas that populate my blogroll will be of interest to this years’ guest editor, Jennifer Rohn:

As someone interested in the culture of lab life as much as the knowledge that emerges from it, I’d like to make a special editorial call for posts that transmit what it’s like to be a scientist in today’s world.

Click the icon above or in the sidebar to travel to the nomination page.