Ask the Chefs: "What's the Biggest Elephant in the Room?"
What issues aren’t we talking about enough? The Chefs discuss a surprisingly wide variety of elephants — from consumerization to emerging crises to legacy problems.
The Masters Meets Mini — Golf Worlds Collide
What if you mix mini with Masters? This clever video from the BBC shows what it might look like.
The (Post) Dating Game — Assembling the Evidence
Testing the hypothesis that editors are manipulating publication dates to increase their journal’s Impact Factor.
Will We Be Ready When That Other Type of Disruption Comes?
Disruption has at least two flavors. We’ve dealt well with one, but may be blind to the second. Are those footsteps I hear?
Does Post-Dating Publication Help Journal Impact Factors?
Publishing an article online and then post-dating its “official” publication several months later may be used to game a journal’s impact factor, a scientist claims.
Torte Reform: Elsevier Cuts Library Dessert Reception
Elsevier cancels its vaunted dessert reception for 2013 ALA Midwinter. Public relations director cites “conspicuous lack of appreciation” from librarians.
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?
A New Protest Erupts: Now, the Calendar Wants to Be Free
A sibling of the “information wants to be free” movement advocates freeing the calendar in the progressive town of Santa Cruz, CA.
Why Is Science Both More Important and Less Trusted?
Science has always been politicized, but its political involvement and use is different these days. What is happening? And what can we do about it?
The Risks of Risk Aversion
Leadership at organizations of all kinds often justifies inaction with the statement, “We’re risk averse.” But is being risk-averse itself courting a set of risks? Is there any risk-free choice?
Publishing in a Weak Peer-Review Culture — Russian Academics and Paid Publication Practices
A survey of Russian researchers shows a burgeoning paid publications environment in a weak peer-review culture, with a level of cynicism about the process which makes publication less valuable. Are there lessons to be learned?
Do Search Engines Owe Publishers? A German Proposal Raises the Question
Should search engines license content for crawling? A potential German law thinks so.
E-journal Preservation and Archiving: Whether, How, Who, Which, Where, and When?
A recent study of preservation practices for digital materials raises fundamental questions that aren’t so easy to answer.
Fleshing Out the World Dreamed Of — What If the Idealistic Recommendations Passed?
A new report for the Center of Economic Development suffers from a strong bias in its authorship. But beyond that, its implicit complaints, if addressed completely, would lead to a trainwreck in the world of scholarly communication. Is nobody thinking these things through?
"Predatory" Open Access Publishers — The Natural Extreme of an Author-Pays Model
A profile of predatory author-pays OA publishers pulls a punch or two, but reveals that all models have extremes. What we do to make these extremes truly marginal and unacceptable is a larger question.