The New Plugins — What Goals Are the Access Solutions Pursuing?
The apparently different approaches Kopernio, Unpaywall, and Anywhere Access are taking might have a common assumption at their hearts — the status quo.
Guest Post: Reflections on Text and Language Perception, and the Ramifications for Publishing Workflows
Donald Samulack offers thoughts on typesetting, design, font choice and how the brain processes information to create meaning.
Guest Post: Scholarly Books Unbound: A Portal for Brainy Books
Leann Wilson and Marshall Poe revisit the idea of a unified online books platform for scholarly works.
Advancing an Integrated Vertical Stack of Publication Services?
We can be certain that, if Elsevier asserts its obvious platform advantages, there is no data firewall that can protect other publishers from Elsevier’s strategic advance.
Clowns to the Left of Me… Jokers to the Right: The Independent Publisher in an Age of Mergers and Acquisitions
With the news last week that Elsevier made another strategic purchase with the acquisition of Aries System, owner of Editorial Manager submission and peer review systems, Angela Cochran looks at what happens to societies and smaller publishers when the big competing publishers buy up the previously publisher agnostic service providers.
Interpreting Elsevier’s Acquisition of Aries Systems
Elsevier’s acquisition of Aries Systems sends shockwaves through the industry, but is it really that surprising?
A Surveillance System Disguised as a High School Reunion
John Oliver takes Facebook to task for their seemingly insincere apology advertisements.
Guest Post: Manuscript Exchange — What MECA Can Do for the Academic Publishing World — And What it Can’t
HighWire’s John Sack discusses MECA, a framework for best-practices development in manuscript transfer across systems.
Guest Post: Safiya Umoja Noble and the Ethics of Social Justice in Information (Part 1)
Jocelyn Dawson and Rebecca McLeod interview Safiya Noble, author of “Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism”.
Hipster Antitrust and Structural Dominance — What Is a Monopoly Now?
Calling something a “monopoly” has been misleading in many cases, but the new economy may require a complete rethinking of the anti-competitiveness created by intermediaries at scale.
Guest Post: Is the Research Article Immune to Innovation?
Despite the enormous changes that digital communication has brought to our lives, the form of the research article remains much the same as it was centuries ago. Sarah Andrus looks at why it hasn’t changed and where it is likely to go in the future.
The Core vs. the Crowd — Why Barriers to Entry May Help Restore Trust
A history of the rise of coercive media suggests that raising barriers to entry may be a remedy. Could a business model shift do most of the work for us?
The Latest in Search: Do New Discovery Solutions Improve Search as well as Retrieval?
We have seen a surge in scientifically minded search engines and browser extensions that aim to supercharge content discovery — have they cracked the code in mainstream search and retrieval of scholarly literature?
The Global Battle for Attention and Authority – Have We Already Lost?
As we learn more on an almost daily basis about the growing power and influence of social media and Facebook in particular, Alison Mudditt spoke recently with Siva Vaidhyanathan about the intricate relationship between media and democracy, and the critical role that cultural institutions – including scholarship, publishers and libraries – need to play in countering this pernicious hold on our attention.
Has Google Become a Journal Publisher?
Google’s journal about artificial intelligence (AI) coming from editors and authors associated with Google and Google Brain raises questions about conflicts, vanity publishing, and Google as a media company.