Catching the Wave — The Tide Turns Toward the Subscription Model
Silicon Valley’s advertising model has been exploited, and free information’s price is more apparent. Will we be saved by subscription model innovations?
Fixing Instead of Breaking, Part Three — Blockchain, RA21, Privacy, and Trust
We continue to battle the tidal wave of data with a bucket brigade of individual privacy settings. Maybe it’s time to pause and consider a state-level solution, ala Estonia.
Evaluating Open Access Programs
It often seems that it is taken for granted that open access will accelerate scientific discovery, but how would we evaluate this? Do we even know that it is true?
Stage Two Disruption in Scholarly Communications
Popular opinion to the contrary, scholarly publishing has not been disrupted. But only superior management can navigate the many challenges ahead.
Identity Is Everything
Publishers are understandably concerned about piracy, but the STM/NISO initiative RA21 “to align and simplify pathways to subscribed content across participating scientific platforms” has scoped its problem the wrong way. Simply put: It’s not about security. It’s about identity. Every individual should be in control of their own identity. Can RA21 realize its potential to serve the broader interests of scientists and academia, not just the understandable objectives of publishers and vendors?
A New Citation Database Launches Today: Digital Science’s Dimensions
Breaking news today: Digital Science is launching a new citation index that includes a research analytics suite a modern article discovery and access experience. This new product, Dimensions, will offer stiff new competition for Elsevier and Clarivate.
The Wake-up Call — Looking Back at 2017, and Some Factors Affecting 2018
2017 may have been a watershed year for the Internet and its future. What did we learn? And what factors may shape 2018?
All the News That Fits — What’s Really Driving Altmetric’s Top 100 Articles List?
The Altmetric “flower” is an icon, and the annual Top 100 list a much-anticipated event. But is the flower really a stalk?
Enriching Book Metadata is Marketing in the Digital Age
A study of how enriching keyword metadata improved sales of 4 publishers points to changes in how we should view marketing of books online.
Metrics: Human-Made, but Humane?
With a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, HumetricsHSS is a kind of meta-workshop in “rethinking humane indicators of excellence in the humanities and social sciences.”
Book Review — “World Without Mind,” by Franklin Foer
Franklin Foer’s new book is a bracing account of the current information economy, the monopolies and motivations at its heart, and the weakening of democratized knowledge.
Guest Post — Does ResearchGate Emerge Unscathed, or Even Strengthened?
Librarian Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe offers thoughts on where the ongoing clash between scholarly publishers and ResearchGate may end up.
Who Owns Digital Science?
In the shift beyond content licensing and towards supporting researcher workflow, Elsevier has few competitors. A key question is whether Digital Science and SpringerNature should be understood strategically as one company, or two. Who owns Digital Science?
Retirement Wave To Hit Academic Librarianship
Like other greying professions, demographic data for ARL libraries warn us of a breaking wave of retirements but may paint an unrealistic picture of what the beach will look like after the surf has settled.
Transforming Research, in the Face of Uncertainty, Scarcity, and Bias
Last week’s Transforming Research conference in Baltimore, MD, gathered a range of speakers across the academic and professional spectrum. Charlie Rapple highlights some of the new research that was shared, and draws out some of the prevalent themes.