Your Question for the Day — What Is “Peer Review”?
A recent “Slate” article shows what can go wrong when we talk about “peer review” as if we all share a common definition about an unchanging phenomenon.
Libraries Receive Shrinking Share of University Expenditures
Over the past three decades, the research library has been receiving a smaller proportion of the university budget. Does this trend reflect the failure of library administrators and the declining relevance of libraries? Or does it tell the story of self-control and growing efficiency against a backdrop of spiraling higher education costs?
Stick To Your Ribs: Ask the Chefs: “Are We a Service Industry Or a Product Industry?”
Revisiting a 2012 post to ask, do journal authors really give their articles away for free to publishers?
What is an eBook? How do Publishers price it?
A short video explaining the costs that go into producing a book, and how little difference there is in those costs between electronic and print books.
What Societies Really Think About Open Access
What do societies really think about Open Access? A recent survey, though small, provides some initial answers…
Stick to Your Ribs: Back to School: Rethinking the Textbook
Revisiting Joe Esposito’s 2011 post on the challenges and the strategies for moving textbooks into the digital era.
Life in a Bubble — The Limitations of Public Access, the Challenges of Public Engagement
Presumptions about the benefits of access fail to take into account the power and difficulty of true engagement with diverse publics.
Well, That Went Fast! A Few Last-Minute Reflections on a Year as President of SSP
Serving as President of SSP for a year let me see how uniquely beneficial this organization is for scholarly publishing.
University Presses: "Under Fire" or Just Under the Gun (Like the Rest of Us)?
Are university presses really “under fire,” or are they simply experiencing the natural consequences of doing the wrong things at the wrong time in a marketplace that has evolved away from them?
A Modest Proposal for Scaled-up Open Access
A new white paper by K|N Consulting offers an intriguing blueprint for an Open Access journal publishing system at mass scale, one built on a three-way partnership between publishers, libraries, and higher-education institutions. It suggests interesting possibilities and raises equally interesting questions.
What Does "Unsustainable" Mean?
We breeze by the statement that “scholarly publishing economics are unsustainable,” without contemplating what it actually means, how deep it goes, and why it has been allowed to get this way.
What Library Directors Are Thinking: An Ithaka S+R Survey Report
Ithaka S+R has just published the latest in its ongoing series of triennial library director surveys, and its findings are interesting and, in some ways, sobering.
The Market for Social Sciences and Humanities Publications
A recent research report from Simba Information analyzes the market for publications in the social sciences and humanities.
Vaccines and Autism — Despite a Widely Publicized Scientific Hoax, Celebrity Continues to Dominate the Evidence
The vaccine-autism papers were a hoax. But a lingering controversy around the diagnosis of a celebrity’s child and her insistence on preserving her version of the facts only shows how stubborn misinformation can be.
The Jack Andraka Story — Uncovering the Hidden Contradictions Behind a Science Folk Hero
The story of a teenage science whiz who used free information sources to create a novel cancer screening test may be full of holes. Whether it is or not, it no longer seems the clear, happy story the media wanted to tell.