Invest in Open Infrastructure: An Interview with Dan Whaley

Several of the foremost enterprises in open source recently joined forces with a group of universities that direct funding to support open source, to call for greater resources to be invested in support. This Invest in Open Infrastructure initiative, though nascent, may be the best hope to date of some kind of common collective action in support of open infrastructure. Today, we interview one of its leaders, Dan Whaley.

Better Metadata Could Help Save The World!

Widely available high-quality, up-to-date, complete metadata could significantly speed up the dissemination of scholarly research. Metadata 2020 is working to make this a reality. Learn how and why in this post by Alice Meadows.

Why Is It So Hard to Solve Problems with Technology?

Publishing has always been an information technology business. Why then, is our industry often accused of being slow to adopt technology? Do we struggle to integrate new ideas into our systems and workflows more than we should? How can make the best use of new technology innovation without being overwhelmed?

Guest Post – A Study of Commenting on PLOS Articles

Despite the near consensus about the popularity (or lack thereof) of commenting on academic articles, there is surprisingly little publicly available data relating to commenting rates. To address this, a team of academics from the Universities of Sheffield and Loughborough have recently published research into article commenting on PLOS journals. Simon Wakeling, Stephen Pinfield and Peter Willett report here on their findings.

Guest Post — Low Cost Textbook Alternatives: Worth the Effort?

When a University of Utah professor grew frustrated with the slim textbook offerings available to students of Arabic, she turned to the library for help. The result was the collaborative creation of a new and radically cheaper text — that got much higher ratings from students than the old one had. How did we do it?

Isn’t Leakage Good for Libraries?

Leakage has strengthened libraries’ negotiating position with respect to content providers. The emerging syndication model syndication offers libraries the opportunity to provide dramatically improve the research experience for their users — with a number of risks as well, including the prospect of substantially reducing their leverage at the negotiating table.