The Core vs. the Crowd — Why Barriers to Entry May Help Restore Trust
A history of the rise of coercive media suggests that raising barriers to entry may be a remedy. Could a business model shift do most of the work for us?
The Latest in Search: Do New Discovery Solutions Improve Search as well as Retrieval?
We have seen a surge in scientifically minded search engines and browser extensions that aim to supercharge content discovery — have they cracked the code in mainstream search and retrieval of scholarly literature?
Will Europe Lead a Global Flip to Open Access?
There appears to be no realistic path forward that achieves Europe’s 2020 open access targets without resulting in substantial revenue reductions for existing publishers. Will Europe miss its OA target? Or will publishers miss their revenue targets?
Counting the Holes in the Swiss Cheese: “Read and Publish” Discovers America
The read-and-publish business model has been introduced to the U.S. by MIT and the Royal Society of Chemistry. It has implications for publishers, however, that must be studied carefully.
Will the European Big Deal Contagion Spread to North America?
The European academic sector has taken a stronger consortial negotiating posture, resulting in Big Deal cancellations. Today, equity investors and analysts want to know: Will this contagion spread from Europe to North America, resulting in global pandemic?
Guest Post: Building an Inclusive Culture in Scholarly Publishing is “Everybody’s Everyday Work”
Jocelyn Dawson reviews the panel on Building an Inclusive Culture in Scholarly Publishing from the recent SSP Annual Meeting.
Has Google Become a Journal Publisher?
Google’s journal about artificial intelligence (AI) coming from editors and authors associated with Google and Google Brain raises questions about conflicts, vanity publishing, and Google as a media company.
Guest Post: MLA InSight – A Constructive Forum Emerges
Steven Heffner and Shalu Gillum present the results of the first MLA InSight Summit, an innovative new forum helping libraries and publishers find common ground.
Libraries Face a Future of Open Access
Libraries and legacy publishers are in an unholy embrace. They need not love each other to feel they should stick together.
Are Library Subscriptions Over-Utilized?
Lisa Hinchliffe asks, if the true value is of a subscription is being obscured by over-utilization, should libraries seek to dampen such excess in order to have more appropriate measures of the real value of a subscription?
Guest Post: From Supermarkets to Marketplaces — The Evolution of the Open Access Ecosystem
Sven Fund from Knowledge Unlatched talks about new approaches needed to drive open access progress.
Guest Post: Research Deluge — Are Researchers Writing More yet Contributing Less?
Sneha Kulkarni from Editage takes a look at the ever-increasing global scientific output, and asks questions about quantity versus quality.
Is Copyright Piracy Morally Wrong or Merely Illegal? The Malum Prohibitum/Malum in Se Conundrum
Is copyright infringement malum prohibitum (wrong only because it’s prohibited) or malum in se (morally wrong in and of itself)? Interestingly, scholcomm commentators and legal reference materials often characterize it as the former–while both statute and case law treat it like the latter, classifying it as “property theft” and regularly awarding its victims both statutory and punitive damages.
The Race to the Bottom — Short-term Bargains versus Long-term Vitality
Haggling for cheaper content today will certainly have hidden and unpleasant costs — large and small — down the road.
FBI Indicts Nine Iranians in a Massive Scheme to Target Academic Credentials and Steal Content
At a press conference on Friday last week, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) unsealed indictments of nine Iranian citizens. This sentence is an odd way to start a Scholarly Kitchen post, admittedly. What makes this case interesting to […]