Open Source for Scholarly Publishing: An Inventory and Analysis

Today, the MIT Press is issuing a new research report, Mind the Gap: A Landscape Analysis of Open Source Publishing Tools and Platforms. It provides an inventory of some 52 ongoing open source publishing initiatives and a thoughtful analysis of the open source community in publishing — tracking its development without shying away from its struggles.

Invest in Open Infrastructure: An Interview with Dan Whaley

Several of the foremost enterprises in open source recently joined forces with a group of universities that direct funding to support open source, to call for greater resources to be invested in support. This Invest in Open Infrastructure initiative, though nascent, may be the best hope to date of some kind of common collective action in support of open infrastructure. Today, we interview one of its leaders, Dan Whaley.

Isn’t Leakage Good for Libraries?

Leakage has strengthened libraries’ negotiating position with respect to content providers. The emerging syndication model syndication offers libraries the opportunity to provide dramatically improve the research experience for their users — with a number of risks as well, including the prospect of substantially reducing their leverage at the negotiating table.

More Scholarly Communications Consolidation as Institutional Repository Provider DuraSpace Merges into Lyrasis

Green open access, and in particular the role of institutional repositories in serving up preprints and other journal article artifacts, is going through some substantial transitions. Yesterday, news broke that DuraSpace and Lyrasis are merging. An important development for institutional repositories and related library systems, this is also yet another example of organizational consolidation among membership organizations in the library community in particular. Roger Schonfeld analyzes the merger.

Elsevier Chairman YS Chi: An Interview

Today’s post features an interview of Elsevier’s chairman Youngsuk (“YS”) Chi, conducted by ITHAKA president Kevin Guthrie during the opening session of ITHAKA’s Next Wave conference. It features discussion and perspective not only about Elsevier itself and its strategic direction, but also about broader changes in scholarly communication and approaches to organizational leadership.

Learning Lessons from DPLA

A not-for-profit library collaborative, the Digital Public Library of America, laid off six members of its small team and is announcing a strategic pivot. What are some of the broader lessons that we can learn about innovation and collaboration in the scholarly communications sector?