BLOG # 7
My auto-bibliography was published in February 2011. It cites my 781 publications in 91 different sources (journals, books, magazines, newspapers, and newsletters).
Windsor, Donald A. Publications of Donald A. Windsor. A Comprehensive Auto-Bibliography 1959 - 2010. Norwich, NY: Auto-published. 2011 February. 96 pages.
In my professional career as an information scientist, I noticed that comprehensive bibliographies have properties that resemble those found in taxonomic classifications and, to some extent, in the partition of integers. So now I am using my auto-bibliography to study those properties.
I am currently using various probability models, driven by Monte-Carlo generators, to see if I can simulate my auto-bibliography. One of the questions I am asking is, how random was my life?
As a side issue, my auto-bibliography becomes a dandy way to test the effectiveness of online search engines, such as Google. When I Google myself, I get hits, but nowhere near as many as cited in my auto-bibliography. More troubling is that some of my most important publications do not appear on Google search results. Plus, many hits are for authors with the same surnames, as well as numerous duplicates. All of which confound the situation.
My approach is based on analytical chemistry. Here is an illustrative example. An assay for copper can be tested or standardized by spiking copper-less samples with known amounts of copper. The assay should detect those amounts. If it does not, something is wrong.
My auto-bibliography is the complete list of my publications. Ideal search engines should detect all, or almost all, of them. They do not, so something is wrong. Many researchers think that all they have to do to search the literature is run a Google search. They are woefully misguided.
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