Gladwell Tackles College Rankings: The Perils of Comprehensive Heterogeneous Systems
Why do smart people continue to seek simple rank-order listings of inherently complex phenomena?
Crowdsourcing, Reference Works, and Peer-Review: Some Surprising Connections
A new study suggests that reference works can be created cheaply and effectively through only mildly organized collaborations. Have we been missing a critical contribution of peer-review? Does it suggest that post-publication won’t review won’t be very effective?
Online Access and Citations — A Spurious Relationship, Economists Say
A study by two respected economists suggests it may be time to admit that we made a mistake attributing a citation advantage to open access articles.
The Bigger Deal: One Scenario for How the Library Funding Crisis Will Play Out
Maligned though it often is, the Big Deal for journals is likely to get bigger, marginalizing the offerings of smaller publishers.
"It Sounded Stupid When I Said It" — The Today Show Encounters the Internet ala 1994
How do you pronounce “@”? How do you read out an email address? These were tough questions in 1994, as this video reveals.
Will Reference Books and Journals Survive? A Debate
A debate at PSP reveals much, especially after it ends.
SOAP Survey Requires Clean Interpretation of Data
Full of experimental biases and important omissions, what can be learned from the Study of Open Access Publishing (SOAP) survey of scientists?
Aftermarketing: What Publishers Now Must Do After the Sale
A report on book circulation at the Cornell library invites speculation as to how book publishers will have to continue to market their books even after they are sold: aftermarketing.