When on-demand systems for bookselling, such as patron-driven acquisitions, are set up, they create an unexpected problem: How do you know the book will still be available when you finally get around to ordering it? The bookstore of last resort is a preservation-based commercial venture to ensure that books are always available.
Can we learn a lesson from a prior clash of RWA and FRPAA years ago?
Scarcity limited the amount of material, hence the amount of editing necessary to make sense of what we had. Now, with more information than ever, the value of editing should be increasing. Perhaps we’re just not as aware of it as we should be.
As patron-driven acquisitions (PDA) becomes more widespread, the question arises as to the role of faculty in developing these plans.
A new education initiative seeks to shift students away from academia. Is this the shape of things to come?
Economic pressures are driving change. The Chefs weigh in on the options, and clearly believe that while times are challenging, the best course is to keep moving ahead.
Authors sound off about e-books, revealing both a misunderstanding of publishing but also of how their interests and capitalist interests align.
The Elsevier boycott puts a target on one company, but for no clear reason when you look harder at the facts, and the demands aren’t clear. Just what kind of boycott is this?
The boycott of Elsevier may have unintended consequences for smaller not-for-profits, scientists in smaller domains, and accessibility overall. And examples of solutions don’t look like solutions once you understand them a bit better.
Apple’s move into the education market may be just a bare-knuckled move designed to sell more iPads. Does Apple truly support the education market? Or is it hoping the education market will support Apple?
A recent ALA panel on discovery prompts some musings about the direction that local search will take and the likelihood that one vendor will control access to almost all library collections.
Chart of the Day: How Science Stacks Up in the US Budget — from an Atlantic article entitled, “The Innovation Nation vs. the Warfare-Welfare State“:
Google once represented the spirit of Internet optimism distilled into a successful company. Now, with more cynical plays and shuttering experiments, what does Google’s new approach tell us about the Internet of tomorrow?
Old intersections of libraries and book publishers don’t work in the e-book era, and the rapid adoption of e-readers has shown that new bargains are inevitable. Whether libraries and publishers belong together in that future isn’t clear.
Academic publishers that are seeking to enhance their consumer-facing Web sites should follow these four steps and be sure to anchor the site in the company’s strategy.