In today’s Kitchen Essentials, Roger Schonfeld speaks with Richard Jefferson, founder of The Lens, which enables discovery and analysis for scholarly works, patents, and patent sequences.
Annual reports from publishing organizations always have a marketing slant, even when they are required filings with governmental bodies. But some are more marketing-oriented than others, and should not be mistaken for transparency, but rather tend toward rationalization. eLife’s recent report, challenging others to be as transparent, is itself opaque and purposeful.
Eighteen years ago, Mosaic ushered in the potential for a sea-change in publishing based on technological prowess and scale. Today, the “open” label covers a set of disparate incentives under a single blanket, one that funders, government, and technology companies are all under, each for its own reason.