Can machine readable articles, built on author/editor/publisher curated declarative statements and the associated data (or links thereto), be a way of generating metrics that get us nearer to a ‘standard candle’ of scientific research output?
A survey of university presses on selling books directly from their Web sites shows that for most presses, sales hover around 1% of total volume, but a concerted effort to improve Web marketing could increase that figure to 3% or perhaps even more.
SXSW Interactive is over, but the impact is not. Why SXSW continues to be relevant to business and publishing.
Ithaka S+R has just published the latest in its ongoing series of triennial library director surveys, and its findings are interesting and, in some ways, sobering.
Online advertising fails to match print advertising in its scalability, slowing the transition to online for major journals and capping the potential for online subscription prices to be offset in a manner similar to print’s legacy business.
The infrastructure layers that are emerging specifically for scholarly publishers, authors, and readers are yielding new services and even more layers. What’s next? And what’s missing?
As online systems for discovering and distributing content have grown, so too has the need for unambiguous identification of people and the parties exchanging that content. Several systems have been in development in the past couple of years, notably the Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) and the International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) system. How these two systems relate, engage each other, and serve community needs isn’t always clear. In hopes of alleviating some of the confusion, I sat down with Laura Dawson from Bowker to discuss the International Standard Name Identifier, how it relates to ORCID, and other issues surrounding identity management systems.
As university presses become more involved with D2C marketing, they are going to confront the need for clearly articulated privacy policies. The time to put those policies in place is now.
Interlibrary loan is a complex and difficult issue in the realm of ebooks. A new tool called Occam’s Reader hopes to simplify the process for libraries, provide better service to users, and reassure publishers worried about rights management.
Scholarly Kitchen chef, Robert Harington asks “what do researchers want?” From those in mathematics to tumor immunology, from gerontology to Melville studies, the answer is often “to do my research in the best way possible.” Using a dose of pythonesque humor, this post chips away at this question, providing an interesting example of how the American Chemical Society is thinking through such issues.
Data sharing and publication is a topic we need to consider carefully, and weigh the risks, costs, and benefits, as well as the complexities.
Businesses are using more data than ever to inform decision making. While the truly large Big Data may be limited to the likes of Google, Amazon, and Facebook, publishers are nonetheless managing more data than ever before. While the technical challenges may be less daunting with smaller data sets, there remain challenges in interpreting data and in using it to make informed decisions. Perhaps the most daunting challenge is in understanding the limitations of the dataset: What is being measured and, just as importantly, what is not being measured? What inferences and conclusions can be drawn and what is mere conjecture? Where are the bricks and mortar solid and where does the foundation give way beneath our feet?
While we usually think of innovators as visionaries with big ideas that challenge the very assumptions of the way we conduct our lives, many innovations seem to happen almost by accident. The challenge is how to make these accidents occur more often and to benefit from them.
A video translates the odd behaviors of the conference call into real life.
When does it make sense to call an Open Access policy a “mandate” — and when does it constitute unhelpful exaggeration?