Defining a New Content Type: The Exploratory Resource
Scholarly publishers have long thought in categories such as journals, monographs, textbooks, and reference. Reference as a category is splitting in two.
Tracking the Evolution of Reference Resources
A new study from Oxford University Press further documents the decline of reference resources, a category of scholarly material more than ready for an innovative era in its evolution.
Independence Lost — Taxpayer Funding and Information Access Take a Dark Turn
We once assumed taxpayer-funding meant information availability. The new US government is now actively hiding scientific data, imperiling our understanding of the world.
Even Sci-Hub Has Management Headaches
As Sci-Hub has grown up at the expense of publishers, it’s worth considering what its next steps might be in order to understand what new challenges it will pose.
Platform Diving — Top Journals, UX, and the Lure of Harmonization
A review of top journals in 18 fields show they are on a variety of platforms, suggesting cognitive burden for users which may be driving them to aggregated options with unified user experiences.
Failure to Deliver: Reaching Users in an Increasingly Mobile World
Judy Luther and Todd Carpenter look at the technological challenges of providing access to content in an increasingly dispersed and mobile world.
Detours and Diversions — Do Open Access Publishers Face New Barriers?
Open access (OA) publishing seeks to eliminate paywalls for users. It has largely succeeded, but new diversions and distractions built into the commercial Internet may create new barriers that will be harder to deal with.
Updating Asimov — How Do We Regain Control In the Digital Age?
Algorithms behave in ways even their creators can’t understand, yet they dominate how we share and see information. Do we need a “Three Laws for Algorithms”?
Should We Stop with the Commenting Already?
No matter what we call it, commenting on scholarly publications has a spotty record of success. Despite the mediocre results, journals, databases, and third party sites keep trying to get authors and readers to engage in this way. This post explores different models and the challenges online commenting faces.
Updated Figures on the Scale and Nature of Researchers’ Use of Scholarly Collaboration Networks
A new survey provides an updated view of how and why researchers are using scholarly collaboration networks. Charlie Rapple shares key findings.
Ask The Chefs: What Is The Most Important Data For A Publisher To Capture?
Data makes content discoverable, aids in decision-making, enriches product development, etc., but what data are most critical to success?
The Strategic Direction of Research Library Leaders: Findings from the Latest Ithaka S+R Survey
Yesterday, Ithaka S+R published findings from our triennial survey of library deans and directors at academic institutions in the United States. The report examines the strategic directions of academic libraries as well as their staffing and spending plans for the coming years. The pivot towards new research, teaching, and learning services, and towards distinctive collections, is continuing, although it is encountering some headwinds.
Publishing in a Time of Information Warfare — A Wakeup Call
The information war requires changes — new research priorities, new personal and professional boundaries, higher editorial hurdles, and a hardened infrastructure.
The Tincture of Time — Should Journals Return to Slower Publishing Practices?
Most journals have adopted rapid publication processes, but with the rise of preprint servers and new trends among readers, maybe they can return to a slower, more considered pace.
Doing the Time Warp: The Lag Between Publication and Discovery
Content usage is a commercial priority for publishers — so too should be overcoming temporal stumbling blocks and refining metadata syndication to optimize the researcher experience of engaging with our online content.