ETDEWEB Is Now Open To All
An interview with Debbie Cutler, discussing the Energy Technology Data Exchange’s recent move to broaden access to their ETDEWEB resource.
Will 2014 Be the Year of the Individual Paywall for Publishers?
As revenues from alternatives decrease and digital revenue sources prove insufficient, publishers are finding that straight-up asking readers to pay may be the best approach going forward.
Scholarly Kitchen Podcast: Standards, Standards, Standards
Scholarly Kitchen chef Todd Carpenter discusses technical standards in today’s scholarly-publishing landscape, and what’s on the horizon.
Google Books Lawsuit Dismissed: "All Society Benefits," Says Judge Chin
In a decision that may have deep and wide-ranging implications for the publishing industry and for future applications of the fair use doctrine, Judge Denny Chin has dismissed the Authors Guild’s eight-year-old lawsuit against Google over its Google Books project.
Tell Us About the Old Days Grandpa: Video Rental Stores
A nostalgic look back in the wake of the shutdown of Blockbuster Video.
The Making of a Book, 1925
A set of short films illustrating the state of the art in publishing technology, circa 1925.
Should the Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA) Stop Using PMC As Its Publishing Platform?
Using free government infrastructure that’s not available to everyone else raises questions of fairness, which lead to questions of harm. But who is harmed may be both obvious and subtle.
UPDATED — 73 Things Publishers Do (2013 Edition)
An updated version of the “60 Things Publishers Do” list, recognizing a baker’s dozen of contributions provided via comments, other Chefs, and a changing world.
To TED or Not to TED?
TED Talks are nearly always fascinating to watch. But are they accurate?
A New Science Blogging Scandal: Deja Vu All Over Again
A new science blogging scandal shows that the conflicts between commercial platforms and bloggers continue to dog the integration of blogs into mainstream media outlets.
Scholarly Kitchen Podcast: Howard Ratner on CHORUS and ORCID
Howard Ratner, Director of Development at CHORUS, brings us up to date on that project and on the ORCID system, which turns one year old today.
PubMed Central and eLife — New Documents Reveal More Evidence of Impropriety and Bias
New documents show that the Director of the NCBI was deeply involved in getting eLife launched on PubMed Central, that NLM staff were uneasy about the shortcuts taken to make it happen, and that eLife was largely driving the bus throughout.
Seeking a Path toward Open Access for Books
It is challenging to come up with an open access program for books that is financially sustainable. One strategy has been proposed by Unglue.it, which uses crowdfunding to purchases copyrights from authors.
Scholarly Kitchen Podcast: Peter Brantley on Annotating the Web
Peter Brantley of Hypothes.is talks about efforts to bring an open layer of annotation to the Web, and what they mean for scholarly communication.
Link Miser — Why the NLM Links to PubMed Central Versions Directly from PubMed Search Results
Why does PubMed preferentially link to PMC versions in its search result lists? Emails from 2011 suggest it’s specifically to generate more traffic to PMC and show off NLM services.