Community spaces: setting info free?
Jinfo Blog

9th November 2010

By Joanna Ptolomey

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I am a big fan of community spaces. In my experience they are often excellent places to start looking for data, people, industry news, and conversation threads. And on the odd occasion when I am starting with zero subject knowledge then they are often great places to ‘get familiar’. They can come in various guises but these days they usually come with some elements of web 2.0 and social media tools. At VIP we have reviewed some of these more turbo charged research communities spaces such as AIP UniPHY (http://www.vivavip.com/go/e24639), BiomedExperts.com (http://digbig.com/5bctra) and the Social Sciences Research Network (http://digbig.com/5bctrb). What I have discovered is that they all have a few things in common even although they cover different subject specialities. They all have benefits outside the communities they were initially designed and intended for, and in many cases they are free to join and use. The leading publisher SAGE has launched two social networking sites principally for the research and academic community. They are free to join and use – but it goes without saying that on closer inspection information professionals will also find them useful as a rich resource. Obviously it is also an excellent method for publishers to extend the life of their authors contributions and products. The first ‘Crimspace’ (http://www.crimspace.com/) covers the broad subjects of criminology and criminal justice including policing, forensics, and interpersonal and domestic violence. The second ‘Communicationspace’ (http://thecommunicationspace.com/) is again a broad and wide ranging topic covering media studies, mass communication, journalism, new media, games, and interpersonal communications. All publishers strive to ‘make the most’ from their products. That is business but is also adds a different dimension to a product or contribution – the information and expertise can be ‘set free’ in ways that others find more interesting or useful.

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