The Scholarly Kitchen
Education
Guest Post: Research4Life’s Richard Gedye — How Publishers are Quietly (Too Quietly?) Supporting UNESCO’s Universal Access To Information Day
Research4Life’s Richard Gedye discusses publisher contributions to UNESCO’s International Day for Universal Access to Information. Continue reading
Book Review — The Traps of Big Data Revealed in “Weapons of Math Destruction” by Cathy O’Neil
The new book, “Weapons of Math Destruction,” calls out many worrying trends in the application of big data, with particularly salient entries on higher education rankings, for-profit universities, the justice system, insurance, and employment. Continue reading
The Early Career Professionals are All Right: Discussing the Findings of the 2016 SSP Early Career Professional Survey
Ever wondered what early-career publishing professionals are worried about, wishing for, and planning to do–and how you can encourage them to keep doing those things within your organization? The Society for Scholarly Publishing wondered, too, and deployed a subcommittee of professionals (early-career and otherwise) to find out. Here are some of their findings, presented by Early Career Subcommittee co-chairs Emma Brink and Matt Cooper (both of Wiley). Continue reading
Curation Nation: Thoughts on the Future of Textbooks
Is there a role for a curated, remixing approach to developing next generation textbooks. Robert Harington investigates the role of curated open textbooks in teaching today’s students, looking at some of the available tools, the way in which instructors utilize such tools, and issues around fair use of content. Continue reading
The Discrete Charm of Geometry – A Review
Amidst the politics of open access, the financial pressure on research libraries, and the sense that ubiquity trumps quality, it is worth remembering that nothing can squash the fervor of academic endeavor. Video is increasingly deployed in the publishing of academic research. Robert Harington explores the importance of using different types of media to provide insight into cultural and historical aspects of a field through a review of a new movie by Ekaterina Eremenko – The Discrete Charm of Geometry. Continue reading
Will Citation Distributions Reduce Impact Factor Abuses?
Publishing a histogram of a journal’s citation distribution won’t alleviate Impact Factor abuse. At best, it will be ignored. At worse, it will generate confusion. Continue reading
Summertime and Graduate Teaching (Still) Isn’t Easy
Upstream from the work of scholarly publishers, it’s the middle of the deceptively paced academic summer when scholars I know are often focused on conferences, research trips, and writing. Summer isn’t as frantic as the academic year, when every other email from August to June begins with “I know it’s a busy time of year.” … Continue reading
Guest Post, Darrell Gunter: Accessibility Is The New Innovation
Darrell Gunter discusses the great opportunities available in making all forms of content accessible to everyone. Continue reading
Textbooks in Academic Libraries: The Publisher’s Case
This post presents a case for why publishers would want to participate in a program to sell textbooks to academic libraries. The plan would include a means for publishers to retain their profitability, albeit on a lower sales volume, by taking advantage of digital technology and by “repairing” some broken elements in the current marketplace, e.g., the market for used and pirated books. Continue reading
Academic Libraries and the Textbook Taboo: Time to Get Over It?
Has the time come for academic libraries to start thinking seriously about providing textbooks to their student patrons? A few are already doing so–why not more? Continue reading
Copyright, Expectations, and Economics — Can Taylor Swift Help Us Find Our Backbone?
Expectations of free content are entrenched, but artists, authors, and publishers are all hurting because of it. The basic problem? It’s leading to a lack of trust in the future. Continue reading
Two-step Authentication: Finally Coming to a University Near You
Many of the popular tools that we use everyday require two-step authentication. It seems odd that universities, who store data much more valuable than cat videos, recipes, and selfies, are slow to require it. That may change shortly.
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Book Review: “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari
An excellent book about humankind in general holds important fundamental insights for scholarly publishers, editors, and researchers. Continue reading
Ask The Fellows: What Did You Learn At This Year’s SSP Annual Meeting?
We’ve heard from the Chefs about their take on the Annual Meeting, but what were the take-home messages for our early career and student Fellowship Award winners? Come see what the Fellows’ fresh perspective led them to say when asked: What Did You Learn At This Year’s SSP Annual Meeting? Continue reading
Vitamins, Painkillers, and the Entrepreneurial Library
What does it mean for libraries to be competitive and “entrepreneurial”? And is the very concept a Trojan horse for neoliberalism? Does it matter? Continue reading
Divided We Fall — How a Fragmented Media Space Affects Academia and Scholarly Publishing
The general fragmentation of media and society has profound implications, and may explain to some extent the fragmentation being seen in higher education and scholarly publishing. Continue reading
Bitcoin: A Solution to Publisher Authentication and Usage Accounting
The technology developed to create a crypto-currency may be used to solve two intractable problems in scholarly publishing: authenticating users and counting usage.
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The Partnership Between Q and U
More language nerdery, probing the origins of the pairing of the letters Q and U in English. Continue reading
Sci-Hub and Academic Identity Theft: An Open Letter to University Faculty Everywhere
When entities like Sci-Hub invite you to share your network credentials in order to help create free access to licensed scholarly publications, they’re asking for more than access to research. What they’re asking for may also give them access to your email account, your course management program, your tax documents, and more. Here are some things to think about before you decide to share that network user ID and password. Continue reading
Andrea Powell – an interview with CABI’s Chief Information Officer
Robert Harington interviews Andrea Powell, Chief Information Officer at CABI, revealing an inspiring advocate and leader across publishing and technology sectors. Continue reading
Authors
The mission of the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) is "[t]o advance scholarly publishing and communication, and the professional development of its members through education, collaboration, and networking." SSP established The Scholarly Kitchen blog in February 2008 to keep SSP members and interested parties aware of new developments in publishing.
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The Scholarly Kitchen is a moderated and independent blog. Opinions on The Scholarly Kitchen are those of the authors. They are not necessarily those held by the Society for Scholarly Publishing nor by their respective employers.
