What if the Earth Suddenly Stopped Spinning?
XKCD’s Randall Munroe has launched a video series around his “What If?” books and today answers the question, what if the earth stopped spinning?
Guest Post – Wikipedia’s Citations Are Influencing Scholars and Publishers
Rachel Helps, the Wikipedian-in-residence at the BYU libraries discusses the intersection of scholarly journals and Wikipedia.
Guest Post – Quantifying the Impact of the OSTP Policy
The new US policy on access to research publications suggests an acceleration in the shift toward open access. Christos Petrou examines what that would look like in different fields and for different journals.
Scientific Journeys: A Physicist Explores the Culture, History and Personalities of Science – A Book Review
Robert Harington reviews Fred Dylla’s book, Scientific Journeys: A Physicist Explores the Culture, History and Personalities of Science, a collection of prose pieces that portray the author’s approach to a world of science and the science of the world.
Innovating the Science of Science: A report of the ICSSI meeting
A new conference explores ways research can turn the scientific method onto improving its own results.
Pluralism vs. Monoculture in Scholarly Communication, Part 2
Calls for a monoculture of scholarly communication keep multiplying. But wouldn’t a continued diversity of models be healthier?
AAAS Plan S Compliance Policy: Staying Committed to Subscriptions
AAAS continues its commitment to the subscription model to praise from cOAlition S. Are there lessons for other publishers?
Stage Two Disruption in Scholarly Communications
Popular opinion to the contrary, scholarly publishing has not been disrupted. But only superior management can navigate the many challenges ahead.
Decline and Fall of the Editor
Many of the finest scholarly publications can boast of exemplary editorial programs, but the advent of Gold Open Access, especially when mandated by funding agencies, may make this kind of editorial activity a thing of the past.
The Measure of All Things: Some Notes on CiteScore
Elsevier’s new CiteScore service is a carefully thought-out element in the company’s competitive strategy, but it reinforces the widespread error that bibliometrics can be use as proxies for the quality of a publication.
Why Knowledge for The Pure Sake of Knowing is Good Enough to Justify Scientific Research
Duke University’s Sheila Patek makes an elegant argument in favor of funding basic research.
Sensationalism or Legitimate Worries? Examining the Cottage Industry of Journal Criticism and Science Alarmism
We’re in a thicket of stories proclaiming “science is broken” and that stealing articles isn’t stealing because, publishers. This cottage industry of journal bashing and science trashing has reached a crescendo. What drives it? And what more important stories are being missed in the maelstrom?
An Interview with Jeffrey Beall
An interview with librarian and open access skeptic Jeffrey Beall. He discusses his work, the criteria for declaring an organization a “predatory publisher,” and how he would fix the scholarly communications system.
Autotuning Science
The latest clip from Symphony of Science sets famous astronomers to music.
ORCID Out of the Box
Charlie Rapple reports back from ISMTE, which does not stand for the International Society of Making Toys Educational