Platforms, Networks, and Information Literacy
In the kind of digital community envisioned by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, information literacy skills ought not to be treated as an afterthought.
Collision Course — Why Are Funders Straying from Their Lane?
Funders have shifted their focus, and are funding, investing in, or launching initiatives that compete with publishers and constrain researchers. What changed?
Book Review: “The Death of Expertise” by Tom Nichols
The new book by Tom Nichols, “The Death of Expertise,” is not perfect, but it is an important exploration of existential threats to science, education, and representative democracy.
Supply, Demand, and the Subscription Model in Scholarly Publishing — An Analysis
An overview of usage trends across libraries and journals indicates that usage is generally stable or up, archives remain of interest, and consumption doesn’t align with authorship or funding.
Scientific Publishing in a Time of Political Assaults
With recent political upheaval sparking activism among scientists, librarians, and educators, where do publishers fit? What are they doing? What should they do?
Institutional Conservatism in Scholarly Communications: Thoughts from UKSG’s One-day Conference
A recent UKSG conference explored what researchers need from scholarly communications, and whether the provisions of publishers, libraries and others are keeping up. Once again, the biggest frustration is rooted not in publisher / library services but in institutional structures for recognition.
Economics, Silicon Valley, and Information Warfare — Is Accuracy Becoming a Luxury Item? Or a Casualty?
Information warfare is both tactical and strategic, with much of its success stemming from the weakened economics of the current information economy. Scholarly publishers have experienced this in many ways, from Google Scholar to predatory publishers to pre-print archives — all answers to the calls for “free information” and all revealing tactical and strategic vulnerabilities as accuracy and facts become luxury items in the information war.
How Wrong Is Greta Van Susteren about Libraries?
Is Greta Van Susteren right in taking universities to task for building “huge libraries” and in characterizing them as “vanity projects” that have been obviated by the growing online availability of books and other scholarly resources? Obviously not — that’s the position of an ignorant philistine. Except…
A Library in A Nuclear Bunker
A look at the National Audiovisual Conservation Center.
Revisiting: Why Publishers’ Brands Matter
Revisiting Joe Esposito’s 2010 post on the role publishers’ brands play in purchasing decisions.
Managing the Cost Burden — Is the Pendulum Swinging Back to the Individual Market?
The pendulum for revenues swung from personal subscriptions to institutional subscriptions with the rise of digital options. With growth capped, a new mix of access options is likely to emerge.
Reshelving the New York Public Library’s Rose Reading Room
A time lapse look at the final stages of re-opening the New York Public Library’s magnificent Rose Reading Room.
Ask The Chefs: What’s Your Favorite ‘Dirty Little Secret’ About Scholarly Publishing?
Every industry has its dirty little secrets. This month we asked the Chefs what those secrets are in scholarly publishing.
Guest Post, Adam Hodgkin: Do Books Need More Aggregation or More Curation — Time to Uncircle the Wagons?
Guest post from Adam Hodgkin, looking at the differences between the academic books and journals markets, and how the aggregation strategies for journals may not work in the same manner for books.
APCs and Competition: What Shulenberger Got Wrong
Would a systemwide “flip” to open access by means of universal article-processing charges work? David Shulenberger argues that it would not, and he may be right — but not for the reasons he gives.