Open Lab 2011

Each year the folks at Open Lab create an anthology of the best science writing on blogs. Here’s a little background about the project from the ‘What is Open Laboratory’ page,

The Open Laboratory is the annual anthology of the best writing on science blogs. Yes, this is an actual, physical book, printed on paper.The aim of the book is twofold: first, to showcase the quality of science blogging to the audience that does not read blogs and perhaps has a negative opinion of blogs due to the anti-blog propaganda in the mainstream media, and second, to build and strengthen the science blogging community.

The idea for the compilation came from a discussion between Anton Zuiker and a representative of the online book publisher Lulu.com. They were trying to find a fun and useful way for the company to sponsor the first ScienceOnline conference (then called Triangle Science Blogging Conference). As it was late December 2006 there were only about four weeks left until the conference, so they thought there was not sufficient time to collect and publish such a book and have it ready in time for the meeting.

The sixth edition, for which the entries are being compiled now, will be published by a real publisher –  Scientific American Books, an imprint of Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. [emphasis mine] Thus, some of the dates and deadline will have to change, but the result will be a professionally produced book which will also get proper marketing and will thus hopefully sell more copies than it is possible to sell via Lulu.com. This year’s editor is Jennifer Ouellette.

One brief comment, I appreciate that there’s a difference between Lulu.com and Scientific American Books as publishers in terms of their business models but I would suggest that both are ‘real’ publishers. I suspect this slip of the tongue was borne of habit and long experience with what we now call ‘traditional’ media.

A call for submissions is now open,

The submission form for the 2011 edition of Open Lab is open. Any blog post written since December 1, 2010 is eligible for submission.

We accept essays, stories, poetry, cartoons/comics, and original art.

Here’s the submission form page.

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