Who changed the periodic table?
(nrc-cnrc.gc.ca): In honour of the International Year of Chemistry, Dimensions takes a peek behind recent changes to the periodic table — that marvel of simplicity and scientific achievement that represents the building blocks of chemistry. Remember the periodic table with its neat rows and columns of elements grouped into alkali… Read More
Going beyond the textbook: The need to integrate open access primary literature into the Chemistry curriculum
(7thspace.com): Unrestricted, open access to scholarly scientific literature provides an opportunity for chemistry educators to go beyond the textbook, introducing students to the real work of scientists. Despite the best efforts of textbook authors to provide information about recent research results, textbooks are not a substitute for learning to use… Read More
Ereaders Outpace Tablets in U.S. Adoption
(pcmag.com): The increase in U.S. adults who own ereaders is outpacing the growth of tablet owners, according to a new phone survey by the Pew Internet Project. Adults who owned ereaders like Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook doubled from 6 percent of the U.S. adult population in November… Read More
Local Libraries and ebooks – The lending continues into the Digital Age
(ebookanoid.com): With the rising trend of eReaders, public libraries have joined the masses with new downloadable eBooks and audio books for their customers. Those unfamiliar with eReaders and overall downloadable services might shy away from the eBook program. That is why public libraries have enlisted Digital Bookmobile, a community outreach… Read More
Can you trust open-access journals?
Open-access journals have proliferated in recent years. As opposed to ‘traditional’ publications that charge readers (often institutions) a hefty fee to access journal content, open-access journals provide their content for free on the web, and typically charge writers to publish their work. Open-access journals are a good thing because they… Read More
What Good are They to Academic Libraries?
New knowledge is built on existing knowledge and academic libraries are the primary repositories of existing knowledge for the scholars whose work they support. In these times of belt tightening and budget reductions, it behooves academic libraries to think about how to demonstrate to administrators the value being returned on… Read More
An important week for scholarly publishing in Europe
The second week in December has been a triumphant one in Europe for supporters of new developments in scholarly publishing. Two European announcements have underlined that the publishing landscape is fast changing. The first announcement took place on 9 December, when the European Commission issued a Communication on the future… Read More
New moves in push to Open Access to scholarly journals
Two important steps were taken in the drive to support the conversion of the majority of present scholarly journals from subscription only to Open Access. The Max Planck Society published an Expression of Interest already adopted by 30 signatories, inviting all parties involved in scholarly publishing to collaborate on a… Read More
Attention Earth Sciences: PLOS ONE wants YOUR Preprint
Preprint servers offer a myriad of benefits to authors who are excited to share their work with the community as soon as possible. So PLOS offered their authors the ease of automatically posting their life science submissions on bioRxiv. But PLOS ONE is a community of many different voices and… Read More
European funders detail their open-access plan
Plan S, the contentious plan that a group of European science funders hopes will end scholarly journals’ paywalls, has fleshed out its rules, and softened its tone a bit. The seven page implementation guidance outlines three ways researchers can comply with Plan S, which is backed by national funding agencies… Read More
