Looking Forward to "The Best of the Scholarly Kitchen: The Second Course!"
The Chefs are closing out this year’s SSP Annual Meeting. We hope to see you there!
Intellectual Access — It Takes More Than Accessibility
Another petition is brewing, but perhaps we should aim higher than accessibility and upwards to true intellectual access. To do this, it takes a lot of work, care, and thought. It is not a simple matter at all.
Welcome Our Newest Chef, Judy Luther
Our newest Chef, Judy Luther, brings a wealth of experience and great energy to the Kitchen.
The Open Access Price Wars Have Begun
A new open access publishing service, Peerj, has been started by Peter Binfield, formerly the publisher of PLoS ONE. This augurs a price war among author-pays OA services.
Follow-up on BioMed Central's Sponsored Publication Fees — Granting Funders a View Into Editorial Reports
While BioMed Central’s responses are a mixed bag, a new finding surfaces. And this one might just beat all.
Where There's Smoke — Is Sponsorship of Open Access Author Fees a New Type of Conflict of Interest?
Is there a new form of conflict of interest in the world: BioMed Central’s corporate sponsorship of author fees?
Editorial Rejection — Increasingly Important, Yet Often Overlooked or Dismissed
When we talk about peer-review, we often gloss over the important role of editorial review, which precedes external peer-review — in some cases, eliminating a majority of papers while raising an important type of quality.
Skeuomorphic Publishing: How to Fit a Square Peg Into a Round Hole
Digital publishing continues to borrow its shape from its predecessors in print. Truly creative individuals are necessary to work with new media on their own terms.
Review: "How Economics Shapes Science," by Paula Stephan
A new book on the economics shaping science is a treasure trove of facts arranged sensibly and put wonderfully into context. In addition, it’s an example of how to design a print book.
The (Post) Dating Game — Assembling the Evidence
Testing the hypothesis that editors are manipulating publication dates to increase their journal’s Impact Factor.
E-books in the Academy — A Story of Limitations and Affordances
The current crop of ebooks simply don’t do many of the things that scholars require, leading scholars to urge libraries to continue to collect print books. Perhaps a new kind of service is required to get more scholars to migrate to all-digital solutions.
Tea Party-led Super PAC Coalition Seeks to Limit US Research to US Taxpayers
A surprising new coalition of Tea Party and US-first activists begin an effort to limit US taxpayer-funded research to US taxpayers. Will it succeed?
The 2012 Tools of Change Keynote — LeVar Burton Uses the Two Most Important Words
LeVar Burton’s keynote from Tools of Change is amusing, interesting, and inspiring.
The Article — Not Quite Dead Yet
UKSG Coverage – The Future of Scholarly Journals: slow evolution, rapid transformation – or redundancy? @CameronNeylon and @Michael_Mabe debate at #UKSGlive
The Problems With Calling Comments "Post-Publication Peer-Review"
There’s much more to making “post-publication peer-review” work, much less a valid form of peer-review. Rebranding comments and letters isn’t sufficient. Maybe it’s time to recognize over-reach.