A Tumultuous Week at the Library of Congress
Changes in Library of Congress leadership could have profound impacts on copyright and intellectual freedom.
Guest Post: Eight Hypotheses Why Librarians Don’t Like Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)
AI-assisted search is here, and librarians need to have an honest discussion about how to integrate this new technology into library services. This post explores the parallels to the introduction of discovery layers and how to overcome some of the discomfort librarians might have with retrieval-augmented generation.
Ask The Chefs — The NIH Steps on the Open Access Accelerator
The NIH has answered the lingering questions about the future of the Nelson Memo. Not only is it still in effect, it’s being accelerated by six months. We asked the Chefs for their thoughts.
The Hidden Leadership Trap: Overcoming Reverse Delegation in Academia
Reverse delegation, a cycle where tasks flow back to the leader of an organization or team, can be difficult to overcome, particularly in academia.
New STM 2029 Trends Report Provides a Bridge to the Future
Todd Carpenter describes the new 2029 STM Trends report, which provides a vision and a bridge to the future for the community.
Guest Post — Supporting Academic Librarians in Navigating Attacks on Intellectual Freedom
A recently announced partnership with Emerald Publishing will bring the EveryLibrary Institute’s expertise to the academic library community as the U.S. government attacks extend to institutions of higher education.
Guest Post — Classification as Colonization: The Hidden Politics of Library Catalogs
The renaming of “Mount Denali” and “Gulf of Mexico” to the politically loaded “Mount McKinley” and “Gulf of America” reveal the naked truth of what cataloging has always been: a battlefield where meaning is contested and conquered.
Guest Post – The Future Is Not Perpetual (But it could be yours for just several thousand dollars per year…)
Clarivate recently announced that it is shifting to a “subscription-based access strategy,” meaning that it will no longer allow academic libraries to purchase perpetual licenses to content.
Inclusive R&D: Can it Become the Rule, Not an Exception?
Inclusive publishing and design practices should be the status quo and not an afterthought.
Revisiting: Libraries and the Contested Terrain of “Neutrality”
Revisiting Rick Anderson’s 2022 post which asks, are libraries “neutral”? That question is way too simplistic to serve as anything other than a political football.
Digital Archiving, and What Would it Cost to Print an Always Up-to-date Version of Wikipedia
Is the easiest way to preserve digital materials printing them out? What if we’re talking about the constantly changing Wikipedia?
Chefs de Cuisine: Perspectives from Publishing’s Top Table – Michael Levine-Clark
In today’s Chef de Cuisine article, Robert Harington talks with Michael Levine-Clark, Dean of the University of Denver Libraries. The University Libraries are currently ranked as the #3 “best college library” by Princeton Review.
Ask the Fellows: SSP 2024 Annual Meeting
We asked the 2024 SSP Fellows, “What was the highlight of attending SSP 2024 for you?”
Guest Post — The Truth Is in There: The Library of Babel and Generative AI
The short story “The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges provides an opportunity to consider the veracity of AI-generated information.
Scholarly Communications Meets your Christmas Cracker
It’s been “the year of generative AI”, so Charlie Rapple asked ChatGPT to write some cracker-standard Christmas jokes with a scholarly communications theme.