Businessman Closes Product, Community Enraged! The Death of Tools of Change
When a popular and iconic product is ended, the outrage doesn’t match the pragmatism and agility we all espouse. TOC’s end is one such example.
Fighting on Three Fronts — A Presentation to the Council of Scientific Society Presidents
A summary with slides of a presentation for the Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP). The argument is that professional societies are now fighting on three fronts: with the new open access mandates, with the large commercial competitors, and sometimes internally when governance is an issue.
You Won't Believe What People Are Doing With Their Pants at Kmart!
Kmart = hip? Of course, as they demonstrate taboos, when combined properly, can be funny and memorable.
Disruption Ain’t What It Used to Be
The journals business has not been disrupted and does not appear likely to be disrupted for some time. Journals publishers continue to dominate the institutional market and are seeking to coopt Gold OA services.
Book Review — "Academic and Professional Publishing"
A new book for scholarly publishers updates a classic, and shows just how diverse, interesting, and promising scholarly publishing has become.
Financial Realities — A New Analysis Suggests OA Will Have a Benign Effect on Publishers
A new financial analysis of open access and two major publishers suggests that many of the trends we’re seeing aren’t about adversarial ideas and win:lose propositions, but about relatively small market adjustments and incremental changes.
PubReader — Obscuring Journal Branding for the Sake of Repository Branding
A new way to view journal content in PubMed Central casts journal branding aside for a uniform PMC approach.
The Results Are In — A Survey of Book Purchasers
The results from a recent survey on book discovery and purchasing are now available. Print is declining, but still an essential component of the business.
Ask the Chefs: What Are STM Publishers Doing Wrong?
The first of a two-part series, today we review a long and complicated list of things STM publishers are doing wrong. Tomorrow, we’ll explore the opposite question — what are STM publishers doing right?
Six Mistakes the Library Staff Are Making
In a follow-up to the six mistakes sales reps make, here’s a list of six mistakes library staff can make. It’s a sobering comparison.
Dancing with Myself — The Principal Impediment to Change and Innovation
The principal impediment to changing or developing an organization is the view of the management that they already are doing a good job. Thus all new initiatives are measured in terms of past successes.
Six Mistakes Your Sales Reps Are Making
While your sales reps are doing a great job overall, here are six mistakes that can creep into their interactions with buyers.
New Media and New Markets — Making Sense of the Possibilities in Publishing
In order to take best advantage of new digital technology, a publisher must identify new places and ways that products can be sold. New media requires new markets or the investment in digital media will simply be an unwelcome additional expense.
The Financial Burdens of the CC-BY License for Scholarly Literature
By allowing free commercial use of OA articles, current CC licenses may shift costs to researchers, presage an unsustainable information economy, and ultimately work against their stated goals. A commercially viable option might actually prove more sustainable.
A Two-Week Vacation — Let's Watch Movies Until July 9th!
It’s time to kick back, take some time off, and watch some videos. So that’s what we’ll be doing for the next two weeks.