Those who argue that “predatory” behavior is not only a problem among author-pays OA publishers have a good point. But this raises another question: is the term “predatory” itself really useful in the context of scholarly communication?
Researchers’ multiple and changing institutional affiliations create tangible challenges, both for the researchers themselves and for scholarly publishers as well.
Popular discussion of the enduring popularity of print often obfuscate the business issues of managing a company that is transitioning from print to digital.
What do we mean by ethnographic research? In essence we are talking about a rich, multi-factorial descriptive approach. While quantitative research uses pre-existing categories in its analysis, qualitative research is open to new ways of categorizing data. We take a look at how we can use this technique to delve into the subtleties of online user behavior – a must for publishers and societies involved in new product development
New research on book publishing shows that ebook usage is growing and that the academic and professional segment is maturing, while still growing at a steady pace.
The HathiTrust archive now contains 5 million digitized books that are in the public domain and are freely available to all. Do we recognize how significant that is?
Content providers operate in the systems ecosystem of the licensing academic library, but they have been challenged to integrate their offerings as seamlessly into this ecosystem as would benefit researchers. To adapt, publishers need to examine not only the usability of their own platforms and how they can continue to be improved, but also how they are in practice used in scholarly research alongside other content platforms and intermediary services. As distance learning continues its inexorable growth and research practices continue to anticipate always-connected devices, it is becoming more urgent for libraries, content providers, and other intermediaries to work together to address these problems.
A researcher’s core interests may be in a specific set of areas, but effective discovery also helps that researcher to stay aware of adjacent areas of interest or even potential areas of unknown interest. Personalized approaches to discovery can improve research efficiency without sacrificing serendipity.
Rakuten, the owner of Kobo, has acquired OverDrive, a leading library ebook vendor. The implications of this deal will ripple through the industry and require many players to reevaluate their strategies.
Lack of information about how books are actually used has resulted in a set of actions that don’t make solid economic sense. Now that more end-user information is becoming available, the book business is likely to adjust its practices.
April sees the first Advancing Research Communication & Scholarship conference, described by the organizers as providing a “broad and collaborative forum for addressing and affecting scholarly and scientific communication. Find out more about this new meeting in our interview with two ARCS 2015 Board members, Robin Champieux and Jill Emery
As user expectations on digital experiences change, flat-out “search” is no longer good enough. The up-and-coming users of digital content expect you to know what they want and when they want it, without having to ask for it. These thoughts and more from the recent NFAIS Conference are discussed here.
In an increasingly open world, should more subscription journals be converted to OA? And if so, why, how, and when?
A presentation to a scientific society on the current environment that STM publishers have to work in. Five issues are identified: regulatory matters, new technology, the structure of the marketplace, competition, and governance.
As we drift into a scholarly economy with centralized payment mechanisms and greater dependence on government funding, are we truly setting ourselves up for long-term independence and success?