Traditional Measures of Quality: Irrelevant, Miscast, Outdated, and Inhibiting?
How we measure quality may be a form of vestigial elitism, stemming from the print age. And it may be holding us back.
A Future of Touch and Gestures: New Interfaces Driving Scientific Information Presentation
Image by jdlasica via Flickr For scholarly publishers, librarians, and readers, the article remains the coin of the realm — a text-based narrative that strips data of all but its most superficial aspects and doesn’t integrate itself into the body […]
Publishers Risk Losing to Authors: Why the E-Book Waiting Game Will Backfire
The e-book age is here — infrastructure, readers, storefronts. Publishers should heed the warning signs and stop delaying the inevitable.
Is OUP’s “Anti-Google” Just a Half-Million Words of Filter Failure?
The OUP has launched Oxford Bibliographies Online, hoping to filter major fields down to a high-quality, peer-reviewed reference kick-start. But does a wordy filter actually filter in the networked world?
Short Stories and Comics: Niche Markets with Core Lessons for STM Publishers
The failure of the traditional music industry has become the standard cautionary tale for content industries adapting to a digital era. But for scholarly publishers, many factors make the music industry a poor comparison. We have more in common with smaller niche markets. Watching their electronic experimentation and new business models may be more informative as we seek new strategies for presenting and selling content.
The Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), Science, and the Public Good
If consumer web sites remain the source of most health information, there is little that FRPAA will do to improve the transmission of research to the public.
Optimism and Pessimism in Journalism: Attitude Reflects Vulnerability, Packaging Seals It
A new Pew Research report shows that news media — print and broadcast — vary in their attitudes. But a deeper attitude about how the news should be presented may be their ultimate vulnerability.
Misused Quotes We Live By: When Rules of Thumb Get Bent or Amputated
Examine what you’re quoted carefully. Some commonly held views of the world are based on misappropriated quotations.
Clouds, Gestures, and Incumbents — Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad
Major trends are at work in information exchange technologies and interface design, but publishers remain hampered by incumbent traits.
Four Days with the iPad
Four days with the iPad reveals a landscape of possibilities and some real functionality pros and cons.
Wikipedia + POD = A Flooded Amazon: The Endless Spigot at Alpha- and Betascript Publishing
Another German publisher tries to profit off printed Wikipedia entries, this time by flooding Amazon with POD compilations.
Printing’s Alive! A Celebratory Video on the Eve of the iPad
Print is alive, but demoted. This video argues the point in a lively and entertaining way.
OK, Print Isn’t Dying — But It’s Definitely Not the Boss
The editor of “Vanity Fair” claims print isn’t dying. But the death metaphor obscures the reality — print isn’t as important as it once was.
Improving Peer Review: Let’s Provide an Ingredients List for Our Readers
We describe many aspects of studies, but “peer reviewed” is a generic label for a multitude of recipes. Maybe we should start listing what went into it.
The Next E-book Device Is Already Here
The next new e-book reading device is already here. (You may already own one.)