Why Aren't There More Women at the Top in Scholarly Publishing?
How well does the scholarly publishing field fare in terms of the number of women in leadership roles compared with others?
Book Review — "The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths"
A new book about the role of governments in long-term R&D and market-creation functions should send shockwaves through the political system over the coming decades. Fortunately, you can read it now.
Scholarly Kitchen Podcast: Jeffrey Beall on "Predatory Open Access"
Librarian Jeffrey Beall talks about his list of predatory open access journals, the potential pitfalls of article-level metrics, and more.
Have We Forgotten Readers in Our Worries Over Access?
A long-term observation among physicians and their relationship with the scientific literature leads to thoughts about the risks we run with our increasing focus on authors and funders — the producers, not the consumers.
For Libraries the Future Is a Foreign Country
A new essay by Rick Anderson proposes that libraries begin to focus more strongly on special collections and migrate away from the collection of commodity content. This would have a dramatic impact on the structure of the marketplace for scholarly materials and would be more disruptive than anything currently being bandied about. That may not be a bad thing.
Is Access to the Research Paper the Same Thing as Access to the Research "Results"?
Is access to the research paper really the same thing as access to the research results themselves? Are funding agencies creating a false equivalency by confusing the two? And does this confusion favor researchers in some fields over others?
Scholarly Kitchen Podcast: Scholarly Societies and the Search for Relevance
Scholarly Kitchen chef Alice Meadows discusses the challenges, and opportunities, for scientific societies in an Internet era.
Jaron Lanier Discusses Power Laws, Centralized Publishing, and the Social Perils of Free Information
An interview in IEEE Spectrum with Jaron Lanier touches on the perils of free information, including shrinking the information economy, creating a few powerful players, and providing the government free tools of power.
Dissertation Embargoes and the Rights of Scholars: AHA Smacks the Hornet's Nest
A recent statement by the American Historical Association is generating heated debate about the rights and best interests of junior scholars, the market dynamics for scholarly monographs, and the competing needs of publishers, libraries, authors, and readers.
The Price of Posting — PubMed Central Spends Most of Its Budget Handling Author Manuscripts
New documents obtained via an ongoing FOIA request show that PubMed Central spends most of its money tagging author manuscripts, and that its stricter rules for NIH authors may double its costs.
Scholarly Kitchen Podcast: Jason Priem on Altmetrics, Today and Tomorrow
An advocate for alternative metrics for article impact takes stock of where they are now, and where they’re going.
On the Likelihood of Academia "Taking Back" Scholarly Publishing
The question addressed here is not whether we in the academy should “take back publishing” from the commercial scholarly publishers, but rather what the options for doing so might be, and whether any of those options seems feasible at the moment.
PubMed Central and F1000 Research — More Signs of Favoritism and Activism, and More Conflicts of Interest
More indications of favoritism and cronyism, this time stretching back from F1000 Research to BioMed Central, and more mismanaged conflicts of interests. The common thread may be a new “old boys” network.
CHORUS Confusions
Here is how CHORUS works, in its simplest form.
Open Access – Keeping It Real
Like rock and roll, Open Access is here to stay but, as with rock and roll, it doesn’t always live up to its own hype.