The Failure of the US Government to Fund Science Infrastructure is Causing Things to Literally Collapse
The Arecibo Observatory collapsed, laying bare the problems of funding science infrastructure.
Is #DeleteFacebook Going to Change Academic Life and Scholarly Publishing?
What might the recent backlash to revelations about how Facebook was exploited mean for the scholarly ecosystem?
Collision Course — Why Are Funders Straying from Their Lane?
Funders have shifted their focus, and are funding, investing in, or launching initiatives that compete with publishers and constrain researchers. What changed?
Supply, Demand, and the Subscription Model in Scholarly Publishing — An Analysis
An overview of usage trends across libraries and journals indicates that usage is generally stable or up, archives remain of interest, and consumption doesn’t align with authorship or funding.
Institutional Conservatism in Scholarly Communications: Thoughts from UKSG’s One-day Conference
A recent UKSG conference explored what researchers need from scholarly communications, and whether the provisions of publishers, libraries and others are keeping up. Once again, the biggest frustration is rooted not in publisher / library services but in institutional structures for recognition.
Ripe for Disruption – From Within?
What do people mean when they say scholarly publishing is “ripe for disruption”? Where might such disruption come from, and what will drive its success?
Love That Dirty Water — Are We Headed Toward a "Clean Science Act"?
With greater awareness of the foibles and failings of scientific publishing, weaker self-regulation systems, and a trend toward governmental regulation of funding, is external regulation of the scientific journals system now inevitable?
Central Casting — The Funding Problems We’re Baking Into the Future of Scholarly Publishing
As we drift into a scholarly economy with centralized payment mechanisms and greater dependence on government funding, are we truly setting ourselves up for long-term independence and success?
Going APE — Thoughts and Insights with a European Perspective
The Academic Publishing in Europe (APE) meeting in Europe is 10 years old, but feels as fresh and frisky as some of the meetings in the US used to. This report touches on some of the most interesting threads of two days’ worth of interesting presentations and conversations.
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.
The Role of Scholarly Societies
Is there hope for scholarly societies? Where once perhaps membership benefits from publications were key, now the emphasis will move to the character of academic life and independence from commercial forces. This post aims to engage the reader in thinking through what it means to be a member of a scholarly society
Open Access: Fundamentals to Fundamentalists
There is a certain fundamentalism that pervades discussions around open access policies and business models. On the one hand there are the advocates, and through the laws of conservation of energy, the equal and opposite reaction of anti-open access advocacy. There seems little room for rational debate about open access in the midst of such an antagonistic atmosphere.This post asks us to spend our time thinking through a range of open access models, experimenting and refining, rather than forcing ourselves down the road of policy mandates that potentially discourage innovation.
By Birdie: A New National Academy Report on Data Sharing
The US government views data policy as an emerging area. A new National Academies report reveals the potential and the barriers, many of which are financial.
Chart of the Day: How Science Stacks Up in the US Budget
Chart of the Day: How Science Stacks Up in the US Budget — from an Atlantic article entitled, “The Innovation Nation vs. the Warfare-Welfare State“: