What Is SocArXiv?

A new “papers service” for social science content was recently launched and is capitalizing on concerns over the sale of a long time preprint server by a commercial publisher. While the timing might be right, the set up looks a little hasty.

Elsevier Acquires SSRN

Today, Elsevier is announcing that it has acquired SSRN, the preprint and publishing community that focuses on social sciences and law. Among other things, the SSRN acquisition is another step in Elsevier’s path towards data and analytics. In a number of ways, Mendeley is the linchpin for this acquisition. More generally, this acquisition plainly indicates Elsevier’s interest in the open access repository space. Finally, universities, their libraries, and other publishers, should have on their minds some of the policy and governance issues around the data that Elsevier is accumulating and the uses to which they may be put.

Theory of the E-book

There is an unstated theory of the e-book, which assumes that a book consists only of its text and can be manipulated without regard to the nature and circumstances of its creation. This is only one theory of many, but it is now the prevailing one.