The Sometimes Folly of Peer-Reviewed Journals
(medpagetoday.com): The peer review process employed by Type 1 medical journals uses secret, anonymous peer reviewers working behind an opaque shield hiding clueless and spineless editors who may use either no reviewers, or a few cronies, or those reviewers known to be opposed or known to be in favor of… Read More
EBooks sales increased more than 1,000% since 2008
(ubergizmo.com): It looks like eBooks are one of the few things that are still selling well in the US despite the country’s current depressing economy. According to BookStats, a company that studies the US publishing industry, eBooks have been doing really well. Sales of eBooks made up 6.4% of all… Read More
Rise of e-books will benefit one group: readers
(bellinghamherald.com): Last month's news that the giant Borders bookstore chain had collapsed, taking 400 stores and 11,000 employees with it, leaving behind only a couple of hundred millions of dollars in IOUs to publishers, was for many the seventh sign of an impending apocalypse: for bookstores, for the art of… Read More
Innovative, EBSCO Agree to Cross-Pollination of Discovery Search Results
(libraryjournal.com): EBSCO Publishing recently announced a new partnership with library automation company Innovative Interfaces (III) to provide the option of accessing EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) search results via III's Encore Discovery platform. Though the functionality will only be available for libraries that already use both services, it's an intriguing move… Read More
Can Textbooks be Replaced By E-Books?
(technobuffalo.com): While e-books may have started off as just for casual reading on vacation, more and more titles are becoming available in digital form -including several textbooks. This school year, Amazon is even offering textbook rentals, where students can opt to “borrow” a digital copy of a book for a… Read More
Open science, Freedom of Information and the Big Journal monopoly
(guardian.co.uk): The conflict between tobacco behemoth Philip Morris International and the University of Stirling is the latest in a string of clashes over access to research and the Freedom of Information Act. Professor Mike Baillie, a dendrochronologist, was ordered to hand over data to a city banker and climate crank,… Read More
Publish-or-perish: Peer review and the corruption of science
(guardian.co.uk): Pressure on scientists to publish has led to a situation where any paper, however bad, can now be printed in a journal that claims to be peer-reviewed. Peer review is the process that decides whether your work gets published in an academic journal. It doesn't work very well any… Read More
What smaller publishers, agents, and authors need to know about ebook publishing
(idealog.com): As the shift from a print-centric book world to a digital one accelerates, more and more digital publishers are creating themselves. The biggest publishers, with the resources of sophisticated IT departments to guide them, have been in the game for years now and paying serious attention since the Kindle… Read More
A Different Question of Open Access: Is There a Public Access Right to Academic Libraries in the United States and Canada?
(aallnet.org): Providing public access to libraries is a public service, but is it a right? This paper explores participation in depository programs, public university status, and public funding as possible bases for this right. It examines relevant cases and finds that courts respect the right of academic libraries to determine… Read More
Authors To Universities: Give Up Your Google Books
(paidcontent.org): In a surprise move, authors’ groups slammed their one-time university partners with a lawsuit demanding that the schools’ surrender digital collections and stop working with Google (NSDQ: GOOG). The lawsuit opens a new phase in the fight over digital libraries and comes the same week that Google’s controversial books… Read More
