The Information Landscape — How Do We Tackle the Problems Caused by Silicon Valley?
Science’s historical progress can’t be assumed. It has to be reclaimed, re-established. That’s more difficult in a fragmented information space geared for extremism.
Sound Savings: The Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry
Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden walks us through this year’s entrants into the National Recording Registry.
The Velvet Underground & Nico: A Cultural Landmark Turns 50
Editor’s prerogative: the occasional piece of nostalgia to mark an important cultural anniversary, and so we celebrate 50 years of The Velvet Underground & Nico.
The Tyranny of Amusements — Science, Spectacle, and the Lowly PDF
Do scholarly and scientific publishers risk more than they realize when they embrace modern media spectacle and seek to marginalize the PDF?
The Origins of Numbers
A brief history of numbers.
Ancient (1992) Piece of Science Humor Discovered
One from the vaults — a well worn Xerox copy of the sort of humor scientists used to share back in the ancient days of the early 1990’s.
Monograph Output of American University Presses, 2009-2013
This is a report on the monograph output of American university presses. The report had the cooperation of 65 presses, which contributed their historical data to the project. The report shows the output of the presses and provides a more granular analysis by subject area and press size.
Journals and Politicians — A Marriage for Mutual Benefit? Or a Temporary Alignment of Interests?
President Obama has published three articles in six months in three of the world’s most prestigious scholarly journals. Is it appropriate? With these precedents, what happens when the politics of the President conflicts with the politics of science?
Welcome to the New Scholarly Kitchen
Welcome to our new website. Let us know what you think.
The Map of Physics
Dominic Walliman offers a visual map of the field of physics.
University Press Books We Loved in 2016
As a follow-up to the chef’s best books read during 2016, I’m happy to present a selection of our favorite university press reads of 2016 (and thanks to one of our commenters for the suggestion!). We tend to think of […]
Restoring a 17th Century Map and the Stories It Tells Us
A fragmented map found stuffed up a Scottish chimney is restored into a meaningful historical document.
The Price of Silicon Valley’s "Disruption" — Is It Possible to Now Have Responsible Information Economics?
As we’ve absorbed and adopted the information economy assumptions peddled by Silicon Valley, social isolation has increased, the definition of “fact” has become slippery, and the scientific record has become more superficial, less reliable, and more transitory. In fact, confirmation bias seems to have become our main operating principle. Maybe a change in economic incentives and greater skepticism across the board could help — all driven by more humans at the controls.
A Look Back at 2016 and a Peek Forward at 2017
A look back at The Scholarly Kitchen in 2016 and a glimpse at what’s coming in 2017.
STM Week 2016 — Stray Thoughts on Security, Open Access, and Data
A few take-aways from STM Week, including London Information International — why publishers have to take security seriously, why OA may need to itself be disrupted, and why we might want to rethink the “content business” positioning we have.