Shirky at NFAIS: How Abundance Breaks Everything
“Abundance breaks more things than scarcity does. Society knows how to react to scarcity.” Clay Shirky speaks at the opening session of NFAIS.
Books As Software — O’Reilly Makes It Happen
O’Reilly launches the “live book,” a way to extend the useful life of a book by turning hardware into software.
Old PhDs and the Matthew Effect — Is the Attention Economy of Scholarship Making Science Too Staid?
Older PhDs, longer postdoc stints, the rich getting richer, and other factors are creating a “founder effect” and consolidating power at the upper end of scholarship. Is it a Ponzi scheme? Can grassroot efforts change things?
“You Are Not a Gadget” — Why Open Culture and Technocentric Philosophies Are Ruining Our Lives
Jason Lanier’s manifesto about the open culture exposes its lack of ingenuity, its commercial depredations, its amoral world view, and its elitist predilections. It’s worth reading in full.
E-books Get a Leg Up from CrossRef
CrossRef moves into the reference works area for e-books, with a linking approach and pricing that might just work.
Lessons from a Neighboring Industry — Demand Media’s Disruptive Impact on Journalism
Demand Media has created a journalism and custom content platform that disrupting neighboring publishing models. Can we learn something from their approach?
Are Google and Microsoft Squaring Off Over Public Domain Works?
Why Google apparently gives government documents more protections than 19th century texts is just one of the puzzles in their usage guidelines.
New Chef: Welcome Alix Vance to the Scholarly Kitchen
We welcome Alix Vance, SSP Board Member and president of Paratext, as the newest chef in the Scholarly Kitchen.
Blogging Now a Refuge for the Old
Geezers blog. Why? Because they have something to say and are willing to say it.
An Oxford-style Debate at PSP 2010: A Chicago-style Hot Dog and Copyright Law
An Oxford-style debate about the role of copyright law was held at the 2010 PSP. It involved interactive polling and a lively discussion.
Who Controls Publisher Prices? Amazon Fires the First Shot, Then Forges a Bitter Truce
This weekend Amazon pulled all of MacMillan’s books, both electronic and paper, from their store due to a dispute over eBook pricing policies. Is this the first battle in the war for control of the publishing industry?
Amazon’s Latest Moves: Is Bezos Conceding the e-Reader Space to Apple?
Is Amazon giving up on the Kindle? Maybe, maybe not. But it’s certainly being pressured in an area of publishing that has heated up quickly and almost counter-intuitively.
Is It Still Disruption When You’ve Done It Yourself?
The fact that scientific publishing hasn’t been disrupted may be a sign of a problem, not an advantage. A future choice may be disruption or irrelevance. Which will we choose?
How Not to Negotiate for Digital Rights
Jonathan Galassi misses the boat when he tries to argue with authors on moral grounds. Appeal to their pocketbooks.
The End of Kirkus Reviews: Gloom, Doom, and Sunshine
Kirkus Reviews is doomed. But for all the losses of old ways of discovering books, new ones keep cropping up. The future is bright for book publishing.