Guest Post: The American Chemical Society on the Shared Cybersecurity Concerns of Universities and Publishers
Jack Ochs from the American Chemical Society discusses the significant increase in cybersecurity threats to both publishers and libraries.
Vitamins, Painkillers, and the Entrepreneurial Library
What does it mean for libraries to be competitive and “entrepreneurial”? And is the very concept a Trojan horse for neoliberalism? Does it matter?
Publishing, Politics and Reason
Robert Harington grapples with the lack of understanding by the publishing elites on all sides of shifting ideologies of an individual’s relationship to information on the web.
Scholarly-Communication Reform: Why Is it So Hard to Talk About, and Where are the Authors?
Why is it so frustrating and difficult to talk about scholarly-communication reform, and why do those conversations seem to involve virtually all members of the scholcomm ecosystem except for authors?
Selling to Libraries vs. Selling to Users
On an academic campus, the consumer of licensed scholarly information products is usually not the buyer and does not make purchasing decisions. If your sales reps aren’t careful about respecting that distinction, they can get themselves into hot water fast.
Library-Institution Misalignment: One Real-World Example
There seems to be a significant disagreement between academic libraries and their own host institutions with regard to an important rule change proposed by the Department of Education. That disagreement has implications that go way beyond the rule itself.
Complexity and Misrepresentation in the New York Times
Robert Harington comments on a New York Times article by Kate Murphy , published on Sunday 13th March, 2016, suggesting that when journalists write such an article they, do not fan the flames of fundamentalism, recognize the complexity at hand, and understand that there is a constructive debate to be had.
Interview with an Empire: Tim Collins, CEO of EBSCO Industries
Robert Harington asks Tim Collins for his views on publishing industry trends seen through the prism of his leadership role at EBSCO, exploring Tim’s sense of a connected world of stakeholders in today’s publishing industry.
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to OA
As digital piracy goes large scale, publishers, libraries, and the open access movement have a lot at stake.
Revisiting: When Is a Feature a Product, and a Product a Business?
Revisiting Joe Esposito’s post on distinguishing between features, products, and businesses. Not all features can become full-fledged businesses. Sometimes the best business case for a feature is to link it to an established business, where it adds value to assets that are already in place.
Raised by Feral Librarians
A short story about what happens when a library closes.
What is an Academic Journal?
We spend much time these days wondering when the academic journal as we know it will cease to exist. Robert Harington discusses the role of the journal in light of a fascinating new venture in the field of mathematics – the overlay journal Discrete Analysis.
Guest Book Review: Disaster Planning for Libraries: Process and Guidelines
University of Utah Preservation Librarian Randy Silverman reviews Guy Robertson’s “Disaster Planning for Libraries: Process and Guidelines”.
Scholarly Kitchen Podcast: The New Growth Engines
Michael Clarke looks at some of the growth avenues in scholarly communications.
A New Century of Libraries
A whirlwind tour of the fascinating architecture of the modern library.