Traditional Measures of Quality: Irrelevant, Miscast, Outdated, and Inhibiting?
How we measure quality may be a form of vestigial elitism, stemming from the print age. And it may be holding us back.
A Future of Touch and Gestures: New Interfaces Driving Scientific Information Presentation
Image by jdlasica via Flickr For scholarly publishers, librarians, and readers, the article remains the coin of the realm — a text-based narrative that strips data of all but its most superficial aspects and doesn’t integrate itself into the body […]
Look to Production to Predict the Next Digital Breakthrough — Editorial Offices
Is editorial knowledge generation the last “production shop” available for digital improvement?
Publishers Risk Losing to Authors: Why the E-Book Waiting Game Will Backfire
The e-book age is here — infrastructure, readers, storefronts. Publishers should heed the warning signs and stop delaying the inevitable.
Is OUP’s “Anti-Google” Just a Half-Million Words of Filter Failure?
The OUP has launched Oxford Bibliographies Online, hoping to filter major fields down to a high-quality, peer-reviewed reference kick-start. But does a wordy filter actually filter in the networked world?
Short Stories and Comics: Niche Markets with Core Lessons for STM Publishers
The failure of the traditional music industry has become the standard cautionary tale for content industries adapting to a digital era. But for scholarly publishers, many factors make the music industry a poor comparison. We have more in common with smaller niche markets. Watching their electronic experimentation and new business models may be more informative as we seek new strategies for presenting and selling content.
Passive-Aggressive (or Maybe Just Aggressive) Library Signs Reveal the Vagaries of Patrons
A collection of 20 library signs says a lot about the trials and tribulations of librarians. Patrons do the strangest things!
Optimism and Pessimism in Journalism: Attitude Reflects Vulnerability, Packaging Seals It
A new Pew Research report shows that news media — print and broadcast — vary in their attitudes. But a deeper attitude about how the news should be presented may be their ultimate vulnerability.
Mobile Devices and Privacy — Why It’s So Easy to Swap Personal Information to Satisfy an Itch
Mobile computing is the norm, but it also creates easy trading ground for our privacy. Is this just the new normal?
Traffic Isn’t Revenue: Twitter and Ning Reach Different Crossroads
Twitter and Ning are both tremendously popular online tools-but popularity does not immediately translate into revenue. While the two companies are in decidedly different positions, each is trying to find a way to monetize all that traffic.
Do Lava Lamps Work Under Centrifugal Force?
Lava Lamps can work under difficult conditions, but would we still want to watch them?
Clouds, Gestures, and Incumbents — Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad
Major trends are at work in information exchange technologies and interface design, but publishers remain hampered by incumbent traits.
Four Days with the iPad
Four days with the iPad reveals a landscape of possibilities and some real functionality pros and cons.
The Creative Deadline — A Video of Post-it Notes
Creativity transcends technology, even if you’re on a deadline.
Clay Shirky’s Collapse of Complexity — Does It Also Require a Collapse of Quality?
Clay Shirky reflects on the end of complexity. He’s right, but can simplified systems produce quality? Can other approaches also survive?