The Scholarly Kitchen
Todd A Carpenter
Is the Proposed Merger of IDPF and W3C Good for Publishers?
The IDPF and the W3C recently announced they were making plans to merge. Will this merger be good for publishers by integrating them more closely into the community that manages the web infrastructure? Or will the merger result in diminishing publisher control over one of the important distribution standards for digital texts? The past five years of experience doesn’t give reason to be reassured of the outcome. Continue reading
STM Future Trends 2020 provides publishers insights on the currents affecting them
The International Association of STM Publishers released its Future Trends for 2020 last week. The sea upon which publishers sit is choppy and full of cross currents, that could prove perilous or fortunate, depending on one’s perspective and reaction. Continue reading
Text and Data Mining Are Growing and Publishers Need to Support Their Use – An AAP-PSP Panel Report
During the AAP/PSP annual meeting last week, a panel discussion with representatives of a consortia, a publisher, and a technology provider explored the topic of text and data mining. Continue reading
Revisiting: Splitting the Difference — Does an Editorial Mutiny at a Journal Do Much Long-term Damage?
The recent editorial board defection from an Elsevier journal brings up issues raised in Todd Carpenter’s 2013 post on editorial boycotts and declarations of independence. They generate a lot of heat, but what do the data say about the actual success of the new journals compared to the journals that were overthrown. Continue reading
How Might Scholarly Communication Benefit from Net Neutrality?
Because so much of scholarly communication takes place via the internet, this week’s announcement by Federal Communications Commission Chairman, Tom Wheeler in support of Net Neutrality and regulation of the internet should be viewed as a positive thing for our community. Continue reading
Amazon Won the dot-book Top-level Internet Domain: Should Publishers Care?
Last week, Amazon won an auction for the .book Top Level Domain on the internet, paying $10 million for the new real estate. Was it worth it? And should publishers be worried about what this means for them? Continue reading
Why Are Publishers and Editors Wasting Time Formatting Citations?
The majority of time spent in editing and formatting citations in the publication process is time wasted. We now have in place nearly all the components to use persistent identifiers, linked metadata, and style sheets to improve how citations can be structured and processed. Using these tools can significantly improve the accuracy of references and reduce the time editors spend on this production function. Even when automated, we bounce between linked metadata, then to text, then to metadata again. Continue reading
Trust, Privacy, Big Data, and e-Book Readers
At the opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair this year, a pre-meeting session was held called CONTEC. This follow-up to the much beloved, but now defunct, O’Reilly Tools of Change conference brought together an interesting mix of leadership from traditional publishers, new start-ups, more traditional supply chain management, and a mix of speakers from outside … Continue reading
How Ink is Made: A Beautiful Reflection of the Analog World we still inhabit
A YouTube Video, How Ink is Made, reminds us of the art and craft that goes into creating the physical products that remain a significant fixture of the publishing world. Continue reading
HighWire Press Moves Out of Stanford and Becomes an Equity-funded “Inc.”
On Friday, Highwire Press announced that it has received a “significant equity investment to support its strategic growth from Accel-KKR” and that it would be spinning off from the Stanford University Library, which has been its home for nearly 20 years. This post explores the implications of the transition. Continue reading
When a Scholar is One Among 500, What Does it Mean to be “An Author”?
Last week, an editorial in Nature highlighted the problem of the proliferating number of authors on papers. Following a 2012 symposium at Harvard University, a small group has proposed a taxonomy of contributor roles that would add details to an author list and have tested that among a group of authors. Scholarly publishers should consider adopting this taxonomy to improve the accuracy and granularity to improve attribution and the assignment of credit. Continue reading
Name identification using the ISNI: An interview with Laura Dawson
As online systems for discovering and distributing content have grown, so too has the need for unambiguous identification of people and the parties exchanging that content. Several systems have been in development in the past couple of years, notably the Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) and the International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) system. How these two systems relate, engage each other, and serve community needs isn’t always clear. In hopes of alleviating some of the confusion, I sat down with Laura Dawson from Bowker to discuss the International Standard Name Identifier, how it relates to ORCID, and other issues surrounding identity management systems. Continue reading
On Communicating Science, Technology, Engineering, and Medicine – Alan Alda Talks About Improving Scientific Communication
Alan Alda spoke at the AAAS meeting in Chicago on the theme of communicating science to the public. We often view the communication of science, be it in one’s own scholarly journals or in mass media, as somehow distinct and meaningfully different from other communication styles. However, Alda made the point repeatedly during his presentation that this should not be the case. One can accurately convey science with stories and an engaging style that not only brings the reader along in the discovery process, but also preserves the truth and validity of the underlying discovery. Alda made the point that “Communication is not something you add on to science, it is of the essence of science.” Publishers can help to improve how science is communicated; indeed it is at the core of what publishers bring to the process of distributing science. Continue reading
Stick to Your Ribs: Altmetrics — Replacing the Impact Factor Is Not the Only Point
Revisiting Todd Carpenter’s 2012 post on the value of altmetrics. Continue reading
Merger — The Consolidation Wave Hits Two Publisher Associations
Consolidation among publishers has been a trend for more than 30 years. Mergers may be gargantuan, such as the announcement last fall of Random House and Penguin, or they may be very small. Mergers and acquisitions have taken place across all segments of our industry, from trade publishers, to society publishers, press initiatives, and even … Continue reading
iAnnotate — Whatever Happened to the Web as an Annotation System?
A meeting about annotation services and software shows how new tools may be on the horizon, and reminds us that our audiences are likely to be the heaviest users once these emerge. Continue reading
Splitting the Difference — Does an Editorial Mutiny at a Journal Do Much Long-term Damage?
Editorial boycotts and declarations of independence generate a lot of heat, but what do the data say about the actual success of the new journals compared to the journals that were overthrown. Continue reading
Is It Time for Scholarly Journal Publishers to Begin Distributing Articles Using EPUB 3?
EPUB 3 reveals many smart advances, making EPUB a more viable direction than ever. And with the changing landscape of reading devices and customer preferences, even the vaunted PDF may feel the tremors. Continue reading
Copyright Transfer As a Click-through – It’s So Easy to Sign Away Your Rights
Click-through agreements are efficient for publishers and software companies to offer, but is it right for this efficiency to cloud the rights picture? Can’t we create systems that are slightly more subtle and customized? Continue reading
As Hybrid Open Access Grows, the Scholarly Community Needs Article-level OA Metadata
With OA gaining momentum and hybrid and full OA policies becoming more common, article-level metadata and other standard approaches are necessary to facilitate discoverability. Continue reading
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The mission of the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) is "[t]o advance scholarly publishing and communication, and the professional development of its members through education, collaboration, and networking." SSP established The Scholarly Kitchen blog in February 2008 to keep SSP members and interested parties aware of new developments in publishing.
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The Scholarly Kitchen is a moderated and independent blog. Opinions on The Scholarly Kitchen are those of the authors. They are not necessarily those held by the Society for Scholarly Publishing nor by their respective employers.
