Controversial Math Journal Relauches: New Editors, Focus on Rigorous Review
Publisher relaunches journal with new editorial board and scope, and a renewed focus on rigorous review.
Let’s Make Open Access Work
Let’s put aside all the controversy about open access publishing and come up with an OA plan that will work.
If You Can’t Stand the Heat: Open Dialog and Open Access
The Scholarly Kitchen is a venue for open dialog. Yet a few open access advocates consistently try to intimidate people in order to squelch discussion.
Rewriting the History of the Open Access Debate
A new review of the literature about open access’ effects on article citations attempts to rewrite the debate.
The Big Web Site Build: Are We Approaching the End of an Era?
With Google, Twitter, Facebook, and email doing most of the work, why are we building big, expensive, multifaceted sites? Are we being strategic? Or are we in a rut?
An Interview with Kent Anderson at WritersCast
Interview with Kent Anderson on various issues concerning scholarly publishing and the life of the writer.
Do Free E-Books Drive Print Sales? Other Forces Seem More Powerful Than “Free”
A study making the rounds about free e-books and their effect on sales has major flaws, both micro and macro.
A Renowned Literary Author Self-Publishes
Is this a watershed moment for independent publishing?
Science Blogging as a Public Outreach Tool — Unfulfilled Potential or Unrealistic Expectation?
A recent study points out that science blogs are failing to provide much in the way of community outreach and education to the non-scientist public. Is this really a failure, or is it an unrealistic expectation?
Facebook Patents the News Feed — The “One-Click” Button of Social Media Now Has An Owner
In a moment as important to social networking as Amazon’s one-click patent was for e-commerce, Facebook gets a patent on the news feed. But many questions remain, especially about prior art and what is a “news feed.”
The Internet’s Extended Cultural Memory — Is It Sapping Our Creativity?
One of the great benefits of the Internet is how it has extended our cultural memory. But has this also stolen our freedom of thought, our ability to create original works of art?
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?
Platform Wars Come to the Book Business
Technological platform wars have taken control of the book business, and publishers are now collateral damage in the fight.
“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.
Star Wars vs. Star Trek — Or, the Story of What Happened to the Crawl in Space
The yellow letters from 1977 imperil some teens. Can NCC-1701 rescue them from this menace and prove which franchise is best?