The system of subscription publishing is unsustainable: a ‘mega-journal’ with low article processing fees and peer review
(blogs.lse.ac.uk): Taking inspiration from the changes that Apple’s iPod had on the music industry Dan Scott hopes that a combination of low article processing fees and peer review could make ‘mega-journals’ part of the future of academic publishing. The social sciences have a need for a new way of doing… Read More
Is there a future for dedicated eReaders?
(techpinions.com): When Amazon introduced their first Kindle eReader, there were a lot of articles that suggested that this device represented the future of books. Many wrote that thanks to the Kindle, eBooks would go mainstream and be the most popular way people would read a book in the future. To… Read More
Open Access Threatens Academic Publishers
(seekingalpha.com): One of the worlds best business model is about to be 'disintermediated.' Academic publishing has been very lucrative for a very long time, but we might be close to the tipping point where that becomes increasingly problematic. Read More
How Lack of Disclosure in Academic Research Can Damage Credibility
Wharton operations and information management professors Joseph Simmons and Uri Simonsohn and UC Berkeley colleague Leif Nelson point out in a recent research paper, too much emphasis is placed on getting research results published in respectable journals, without worrying enough about whether the evidence backs up those findings. Indeed, the… Read More
“Publisher-Library Partnership for Accessibility: A Case Study of Scholarly Publishing for Public Audiences”
Public outreach and access are becoming more and more important across institutions of higher education. Sustainable information technology approaches are necessary to communicate and preserve public education materials generated as part of this new era of “outreach and engagement.” This paper describes the partnership between Oregon State University’s Extension Service… Read More
Publishers Have A New Strategy For Neutralizing Open Access — And It’s Working
Over the last few years, Techdirt has been reporting on a steady stream of victories for open access. Along the way publishers have tried various counter-attacks, which all proved dismal failures. But there are signs that they have changed tack, and have come up with a more subtle and increasingly… Read More
Economics of Scholarly Communication in Transition
Academic library budgets are the primary source of revenue for scholarly journal publishing. There is more than enough money in the budgets of academic libraries to fund a fully open access scholarly journal publishing system. Seeking efficiencies, such as a reasonable average cost per article, will be key to a… Read More
How Can Publishers and Translators Meet More Efficiently?
Publishers are eager to put out works in translation, but this can encounter problems in the research phase. There are various ways a publisher hears about an author who piques their interest: a newspaper article with a fleeting mention of a once-popular foreign author; a glance at the bookshelf of… Read More
How should scientific publishing fit into a “world digital library”?
In the 2013 NYRB piece, Darnton described the DPLA as ‘a distributed system of electronic content that will make the holdings of public and research libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies available, effortlessly and free of charge.’ Initially, the offering would ‘be limited to a rich variety of collections—books, manuscripts,… Read More
Beyond open access for academic publishers
At The London Book Fair held on April 2014, Publishing Technology brought together a panel of academic publishing experts from Nature Publishing, Macmillan Digital Science and PLOS ONE to imagine a future for the industry beyond open access. The digital transition has been a long, rocky road for the academic… Read More
