onsdag 2 maj 2012

Articles I've read lately

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As I wrote a few weeks ago, we have a "30-day-club" at my department. We promise each other something having to do with a new habit and then try it out for one month. At the beginning of the following month, we meet up to see if we have lived up to our pledges and then make new promises. It is optional whether to continue or to shelf a just-tried-out habit.

My April habit was "to read an average of 10 pages of academic articles every weekday and preferably at work rather than home". I've been pretty successful except with the "at work" part of the promise. (I really should get a comfortable reading chair for my room - I've already made space for it!) Out of the 18 texts I compiled last month, I have read 17! I just transferred the last text (just 4 pages - but very dense) to the May pile - since I will promise the very same thing for May (220 new pages to read). I feel really good about having read all that stuff since we're talking about making time to read really interesting stuff that I "skimmed off" different piles with varying topics.

It also feels great to have read all those articles. I'm good with my book-reading habits, but articles have tended to be side-lined and not read (they have piled up for months and months - or even years!). In line with Klang's thoughts about "Information diets", it feels like I have tried on a whole new information diet that is good for my mind - just like a more healthy diet can be good for your body.

The only thing I notice as the month drew to an end is that it is quite some work to fulfill the second and admittedly minor part of the promise - to search for and then import all the references to the articles into Mendelay, to compile the list below, to select new texts for May and especially, to go through the articles I have just read and look for stuff (references to other texts) that I want to read. Just managing the information about what I just have read, what I will read (search on the web, download or order from our library) is a not-so-small job in itself... It's by all means quite pleasurable to follow-up and do this work, but I think it took perhaps half a day or even the better part of a working day to do it when really I had other things that should have been done...


Anyway, I have promised to get back with the references to the April articles that I have read. Many of these texts are available online. Some are purebred bona fide academic articles and others are of "mixed origin". Bone fide academic articles can easily be found through Google scholar and I have added links to most of the "mixed origin" texts below. Here are my 18 April texts with a short comment on each of them:



  • Aleklett, K., Höök, M., Jakobsson, K., Lardelli, M., Snowden, S., & Söderbergh, B. (2010). The peak of the oil age-analyzing the world oil production reference scenario in world energy outlook 2008. Energy Policy, 38(3), 1398-1414. Elsevier. */ Scrutinizing the OECD/IEA 2008 energy forecast and dissing it - the official figures just don't add up and we thus don't have enough energy to grow the global economy in a 10-20 year perspective.
  • Balls, Jonathan (2010). Transition towns: Local networking for global sustainability? Undergraduate thesis, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge. */ Has been recommended by the founder of the TT movement. Was ok, found a couple of references I will follow up on. Most closely relates to this blog post
  • DiSalvo, C., Sengers, P., & Brynjarsdóttir, H. (2010a). Mapping the landscape of sustainable HCI. Proceedings of the 28th international conference on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 1975-1984). ACM. */ HCI has taken a turn towards sustainability during the last 5 years. Part of a package of articles on the subject. Most closely relates to this blog post.
  • DiSalvo, C., Sengers, P., & Brynjarsdóttir, H. (2010b). Navigating the terrain of sustainable HCI. interactions, 17(4), 22-25. ACM. */ HCI has taken a turn towards sustainability during the last 5 years. Part of a package of articles on the subject. Most closely relates to this blog post.
  • Diani, M. (2000). Social movement networks virtual and real. Information, Communication & Society, 3(3), 386-401. Taylor & Francis. */ Part of me reading up on social movements (and their use of information technologies). Most closely relates to this blog post.
  • Gibson-Graham, J. K. (2008). Diverse economies: performative practices forother worlds’. Progress in Human Geography, 32(5), 613-632. SAGE Publications. */ I heard her talk half a year ago. I wanted to know more about an extremely interesting model of hers, but although the model appears in an appendix, this was unfortunately not the paper I looked for. Most closely relates to this blog post.
  • Goodman, E. (2009). Three environmental discourses in human-computer interaction. Proceedings of the 27th international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 2535-2544). ACM. */ HCI has taken a turn towards sustainability during the last 5 years. Part of a package of articles on the subject. Most closely relates to this blog post.
  • Khan, A., Bartram, L., Blevis, E., DiSalvo, C., Froehlich, J., & Kurtenbach, G. (2011). CHI 2011 sustainability community invited panel: challenges ahead. PART 2-----------Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 73-76). ACM. */ HCI has taken a turn towards sustainability during the last 5 years. Part of a package of articles on the subject. Most closely relates to this blog post.
  • Leckie, Cameron (2010). Lasers or longbows? A paradox of military technology. Australian Defence Force Journal, no.182, pp.44-56. */ Extremely interesting and provocative about the future effects of peak oil on industry in general and military capacity in particular. Military capacity = complexity = vulnerability when society "downshifts" in (maintaining and financing) industrial capability/complexity. Most closely relates to this blog post.
  • Leckie, Cameron (2010). The abandonment of technology. Blogpost at The Oil Drum. */ A short text where Leckie goes even further. Highly recommended. Most closely relates to this blog post.
  • Nathan, L. P. (2008). Ecovillages, values, and interactive technology: balancing sustainability with daily life in 21st century America. CHI’08 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 3723-3728). ACM. */ HCI has taken a turn towards sustainability during the last 5 years. I'd like to read more about Nathan's work as she has gotten down and dirty at an ecovillage, studying their information practices. Most closely relates to this blog post.
  • PARADISIO reference document: A forward-looking analysis to identify new innovation paths for the future Internet (2011). European Commission research project white paper (50 pages - won my "longest April paper award"). */ Been on the mailing list and it was time to read up on what PARADISO actually was about. Clarifying to some degree. Most closely relates to this blog post.
  • Pierce, J., Brynjarsdottir, H., Sengers, P., & Strengers, Y. (2011). Everyday practice and sustainable HCI: understanding and learning from cultures of (un) sustainability. Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 9-12). ACM. */ HCI has taken a turn towards sustainability during the last 5 years. Part of a package of articles on the subject. Most closely relates to this blog post.
  • Raghavan, B., & Ma, J. (2011). Networking in the long emergency. Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Green Networking. */ Extremely interesting text about the effects of peak oil/peak economy on computing, networkning and the Internet. Most closely relates to this blog post.
  • Roberts, Stephen (2009 or 2010(?)). Ready for apocalypse: Survivalism and stigma in online communities. Undergraduate or  Master's thesis in anthropology. */ One of the very few texts available about survivalists. Most closely relates to this blog post.
  • Smith, A. (2011). The transition town network: a review of current evolutions and renaissance. Social Movement Studies, 10(01), 99-105. Taylor & Francis. */ Written by an (academic) insider, describes some tensions within the TT movement. Most closely relates to this blog post.
  • Tholander, Jakob (2011). Ecofriends - Social interaktion och visualisering av vardagens miljöeffkter. Research proposal (2 pages - won my "shortest April paper award"). */ Good to keep up with what (potential) colleagues are up to. Don't know where I got hold of the text.
  • Williams, E. (2011). Environmental effects of information and communications technologies. Nature, 479(7373), 354-358. Nature Publishing Group. */ The one yet-unread article from April. Most closely relates to this blog post.

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