Strategy 1, 3, 5, and 10
Organizations need to encompass multiple perspectives on where a business is headed. It’s usually the case that the staff is not in agreement on that direction, but that could be a very good thing.
Old and Stale? — Aging Researchers, Funding Trends, and the Doughnut Effect
Proposals to get more money to younger researchers shine a light on the aging cadre of academic researchers and the lack of succession we risk with current practices.
UPDATED — 82 Things Publishers Do (2014 Edition)
The annual update to the list adds some important items overlooked on prior versions, including design, enforcement of editorial policies, and Board interactions.
Finding Stuff: Discovery and Data Quality
Three different items recently published discuss the current state of thinking about discovery tools for purposes of research. Which one captures the right mindset? What should content providers be doing to support discovery?
Tour the Toronto Reference Library, By Drone
A drone’s eye view of Toronto’s spectacular new library.
More Data, More Problems — Lessons from the Limitations of Google Flu Trends
“Big data” continues to draw attention, but will it ever amount to more than a hypothesis-generating engine and supplementary findings?
Surprise, Surprise — The Web Turns Out to Be Too Persistent
The recent “right to be forgotten” case raises a corollary issue for scholarly publishers — are you managing your archives so that users have been given the “right to ignore”?
Meet the New Economy of Letters, Same As the Old Economy of Letters
Last fall in the New Yorker, Jill Lapore bemoaned the current relationship between intellectuals and the general public, which she feels is “more vexed than ever” — in part because of a system that rewards academics for outrageousness and for lousy writing. Does she have a point?
D2C Marketing Report Now Available
A research report on direct-to-consumer marketing is provided here. The study was first announced on the Scholarly Kitchen. The report includes a survey of current university press practices and recommendations for steps to take to improve performance.
Have You Looked At This? Vox.com
An overview of Vox, a news site designed around current technology and information trends offers a fresh set of design choices worth considering.
Interview with Gordon Nelson — Public Access Policies, Open Access, and the Viability of Scientific Societies
An interview with the President of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents, on the unintended and potentially damaging consequences of public and open access mandates and embargoes.
Luddite Horses and Why Your Job May Soon Cease to Exist
A sobering look at the coming “robot revolution”, and how for many jobs in the future, humans need not apply.
The Virtue of Rumor and Groundless Speculation
There is a rumor, based on no or scant evidence, that Google is preparing to launch a platform for scholarly communications, which could threaten established STM publishers. A publisher should react to this by reviewing its own internal operations and value proposition. In particular, the role in certification should be strengthened.
How Much Does It Cost eLife to Publish an Article?
Adding to the discussion of APCs, eLife’s financials suggest that being competitive with some major journals means the journal is expensive to run.
And the New Maxwell Perkins is . . . Google!
Google recently disclosed that they give Web sites higher ranking if they are encrypted. This is but one example of how Google serves as a gatekeeper of the Internet, making cultural decisions in the name of technological elegance.