An Interview with Bob Weinschenk, CEO of SIPX
SIPX aims to simplify digital rights management for end users – faculty and students – while at the same time making life easier for the publishers and purchasers of the content
Having Relations with the Library: A Guide for University Presses
Libraries and university presses are often asked to collaborate with one another; in some instances presses are put into library organizations. It is not clear why. The functions of publishers and libraries are very different, making true partnerships difficult to achieve.
Game of Papers: eLife, BMC, PLoS and EMBO Announce New Peer Review Consortium
eLife, BioMed Central (BMC), the Public Library of Science (PLoS), and the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) will be forming a new peer review consortium based around the concept of what eLife calls “portable peer review.”
Interview With Mike Rossner: On Scientific Integrity, Making Research Data Publicly Available and Routes to Open Access
An interview with MIke Rossner, former Director of Rockefeller University Press.
What Happens When the Marginal Cost of Content is No Longer Zero?
The marginal cost of content may not always be zero as changes in telecommunications strategy and practices affect the cost of bandwidth for producers. Publishing services based on free content may be challenged by this.
On the Likelihood of Academia "Taking Back" Scholarly Publishing
The question addressed here is not whether we in the academy should “take back publishing” from the commercial scholarly publishers, but rather what the options for doing so might be, and whether any of those options seems feasible at the moment.
Disrupting the Faculty: The Changing Face of the College Textbook Business
The college textbook business is being disrupted, but not by outsiders. The publishers themselves are restructuring the industry. One consequence of this may be diminished prerogatives for instructors in their choice of classroom texts.
The Rise and Fall of PLOS ONE's Impact Factor (2012 = 3.730)
Are we witnessing the decline of the open access megajournal and a return to a discipline-based model of publishing?
Putting Freemium Marketing into Context
This is a slide presentation on freemium marketing, which was delivered at the 2013 SSP conference. The key argument is that freemium marketing is a form of product sampling, which must be integrated into the overall marketing plan.
Stay Close to Your Customers
Lessons learned from Mike Walsh’s keynote speech at the Special Libraries Association Meeting.
CHORUS Confusions
Here is how CHORUS works, in its simplest form.
Open Access – Keeping It Real
Like rock and roll, Open Access is here to stay but, as with rock and roll, it doesn’t always live up to its own hype.
Are University Presses Better off Now than They Were Four Years Ago?
The university press world is operating under circumstances that are somewhat tighter than they were even a few years ago. While most presses now publish ebooks, ebooks in themselves do not provide a strategic path to growth.
Scholarly Kitchen Podcast: Making Sense of MOOCs
An interview with the University of Utah librarian and Scholarly Kitchen Chef Rick Anderson about the potential impact of Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs).
Observations from the SSP Annual Meeting — Dogma, Domination vs. Disruption, and Working to Scale
As Day 1 of the SSP Annual Meeting draws to a close, a few ideas seemed worth sharing.