Epistemographer

As I said in my last post, I’ve spent most of the past year working on tools of various kinds. Today, I’m pleased to say, the private beta of one went live. Zotero is a next generation research tool that…well, just go read the quick start guide for the details. I’ve been a co-director on the project with Dan Cohen but the lion’s share of the credit falls to the development team of David Norton, Simon Kornblith and Dan Stillman, about whom epics will someday be written (very geeky epics about XUL and data architecture, but heroic epics nonetheless).

And I know, I know, it’s just plain mean to link to the site without letting you actually try the software, but the public beta’s just around the corner; I’ll let you know as soon as it’s up and ready for (quasi) public consumption…

It’s been a good 5 months since my last even vaguely-substantial post and more than a year since I’ve posted deeply and regularly, and I’ve been mulling over the reasons why. Have no fear – this is emphatically not one of those “I’m sorry for not posting” posts (after having written a few of those over the years, I swore I’d never do so again). I’m not apologetic about my absence, just curious as to its root causes. As someone who’s very vocal about the utility and importance of scholarly blogs, I figure it’s worth thinking a little deeply about why I’ve stayed away from my own for so long.