When on-demand systems for bookselling, such as patron-driven acquisitions, are set up, they create an unexpected problem: How do you know the book will still be available when you finally get around to ordering it? The bookstore of last resort is a preservation-based commercial venture to ensure that books are always available.
A fascinating video showing another way to multiply moderately big numbers, courtesy of Japan.
Scarcity limited the amount of material, hence the amount of editing necessary to make sense of what we had. Now, with more information than ever, the value of editing should be increasing. Perhaps we’re just not as aware of it as we should be.
A new education initiative seeks to shift students away from academia. Is this the shape of things to come?
Responses to the OSTP’s RFI are in and available. Some big ideas exist. Can the Scholarly Kitchen’s audience help us discover the best?
A vision created by corporate scientists — of a future filled with their products — proves arresting and inspiring.
Apple’s move into the education market may be just a bare-knuckled move designed to sell more iPads. Does Apple truly support the education market? Or is it hoping the education market will support Apple?
The rankings of journals based on F1000 scores reveals a strong bias against larger journals and those with little disciplinary overlap with the biosciences.
Google once represented the spirit of Internet optimism distilled into a successful company. Now, with more cynical plays and shuttering experiments, what does Google’s new approach tell us about the Internet of tomorrow?
Old intersections of libraries and book publishers don’t work in the e-book era, and the rapid adoption of e-readers has shown that new bargains are inevitable. Whether libraries and publishers belong together in that future isn’t clear.
When it comes to discussions about access, the silent majority focused on doing science is presented with real choices, not all of which square with the scorched-earth rhetoric that too often dominates.
As customers become facile with a new level of information infrastructure, what will that mean for us over the next few years?
Can an online dictionary combining wiki and search do better? In some ways, yes. In others, there’s still the intractable problems of English to solve.
A dialogue on patron-driven acquisitions by a librarian (Rick Anderson) and a publishing consultant (Joe Esposito). Patron-driven acquisitons may evolve into patron-driven access. But publishers ultimately will have to bless the plans.
From classics old to classics new, the Chefs’ discursive reading habits surfaced some gems in 2011.