The OMB Guidance Revision Threatens All Research
The OMB proposed revision is about all research — and humanities research is just as vulnerable as STEM.
Guest Post — Rethinking Disciplinary Data Regimes
Between a political policy environment focused on defunding and deleting data collections – an environment in which little can be trusted – and an onslaught of new AI tools that feed indiscriminately on data, bits of information at the intersection of rows and columns are appearing in headlines more than ever before. To avoid cultural memory loss, we must build systems that save what humanity needs across disciplinary silos rather than saving some archives and losing others through an accident of history.
Guest Post — Manifesto Time: Do You Need a Publishing Manifesto?
Does your publishing organization need a manifesto? Writing a manifesto for your organization can be a great exercise for team building and planning, and a way to ignite action.
It’s a New World? Revisiting What Universities — and Researchers, Libraries, and Publishers — Owe Democracy
In light of recent events, we revisit Karin Wulf’s 2022 post which declared that universities need democracy, and vice versa, and discussed an important book which shows the 20th century history of that relationship in the United States, and offers a prescription for what we do as both are imperiled.
“Mrs. Foster Has Sworn A Rape”; or, What Do We Owe? Generosity, Attribution, and the Perilous Invisibility of Research Infrastructure
Attribution has many virtues, but among them it can make visible the vast infrastructure of research for a public largely unaware or unconcerned with how much hard-won knowledge, including creative endeavor, that research has facilitated.
Happy Holidays, See You in 2024
We’re off for the holidays, see you in January.
Libraries, Archives, Choice and Red Envelopes: The Growth of Streaming, the Decline of Choice, and the Death of the Red Envelope
The role of libraries and archives as streaming grows, choice declines, and the death of the red envelopes arrives.
Critical Archives
Studying the way we’ve studied the past is mutual work. Archivists and librarians, and scholars using their collections, have each been producing critical archives scholarship that too often remains within disciplinary and professional siloes.
Fallout from the Implosion of Humanities Enrollments
What does the decline of the English major mean for society at large, and university presses in particular?
Happy Birthday to the eBook!
On July 4, 1971 Michael Hart posted the first ebook file on the ARPANET and transformed content distribution.
Book Review: “Technically Wrong,” by Sara Wachter-Boettcher
A new book explores how biases and broken systems get built into technology products and platforms.
How To Live Safely in a Post Factual Universe
2016, The. Laughs. Just. Keep. Coming… This is a post about how events in the non-scholarly publishing world are going to have a very big impact on us. Question is, what are we going to do about what’s going on?
Book Review: "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari
An excellent book about humankind in general holds important fundamental insights for scholarly publishers, editors, and researchers.
The Importance of Academic (History) Writing
Historians can and do play a vital role in the public humanities, but there are vital reasons not just why but how we write for one another, too.
Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Our Story: Hamiltunes and the Burden of Founding Histories
The musical “Hamilton” raises questions about history and historical practice that reflects what scholars are and aren’t doing.