I was recently asked to talk to the UNC library staff about open access & copyright issues. Why was I, who am neither a lawyer nor a scholar whose research focuses on publishing and OA, invited to talk about this? Because of my recent run in with Taylor & Francis. Truly, I have achieved internet fame through my blog: I am famous to 15 people. Also, apparently the way to.. Read More
I’ve gotten a lot of love and kudos from the interwebs from my recent post, in which I document in nauseating detail my taking a principled stand on retaining copyright to an article I and a colleague wrote, and ultimately telling the publisher Taylor & Francis to kiss my shiny metal ass. I haven’t done any data analysis to back up this claim, but my sense is that this was.. Read More
Actually it’s our copyfight, but my had a better ring to it. Here’s the backstory. Lorri Mon, a friend and colleague, is the guest editor of a special issue of the journal The Reference Librarian, on topics around the future of reference and library education. Since I have a thing or two to say about those topics (as my students have heard ad nauseam), Lorri asked me to contribute a.. Read More
Inspired by Paul’s #noemail project, I’ve been wondering what the cost-benefit of the various media I employ is. Despite being solidly in the “I wish I could do that” group, I’m not quite ready to divest from email. For me, the most important consideration is that, as Paul points out, our shared institution relies heavily on email, and there is no real institutional solution other forms of communication and data.. Read More
Within the past two days the news came out that Google was shot down by Judge Chin for overstepping in the Google Books case, and that Google is forking over half a million dollars to detect Internet transparency issues. On the topic of a Google books: I am not by any stretch of the imagination a copyright lawyer, so I’m not really qualified to be issuing opinions on this subject… Read More
Cross-posted with the Pomerantz Kidblog. It’s been a long time since I’ve obsessed publicly, here on this blog, over a children’s book. So clearly it’s time. We’re big Mo Willems fans (the man who brought us the pigeon who is not allowed to drive the bus), and ever since seeing this movie, have been obsessed with naked mole rats. (It was a happy, happy day when the Syracuse zoo installed.. Read More
Recently I tried to watch Babylon 5. I never saw it when it was on the air in the mid- to late-90s, even though many of my friends were big fans. So, way late, I figured I’d give it a go. I’ve always been impressed by the fact that Straczynski apparently created a real 5 season-long story arc, without succumbing to the X-Files Effect (that is, getting hopelessly lost in.. Read More
This tweet by Howard Rheingold led me to this short piece that he wrote in 1994. In it he describes newsgroups as “a worldwide, multimillion member, collective thinktank, available twenty-four hours a day to answer any question from the trivial to the scholarly.” That description sounds a lot like social Q&A sites to me. Which got me thinking: of course there’s nothing particularly new about a “new” technology not being.. Read More
Every semester I advise a few students on their Masters papers. Last semester I had two students who, for very different reasons, had trouble collecting data. In the end, both students were fine, they collected good data, their papers were interesting, they got their papers submitted on time, and all’s well that ends well. But the fact remains that the middle part of their process was rocky. This has stuck.. Read More
Maybe I’m just having a bad week, but I’m starting to find that the journals that I regularly browse (that is, the journals for which I subscribe to an RSS feed or an email table of contents service) are not as interesting to me as they once were. Which is being generous. To channel Lemony Snicket for a moment, “not as interesting to me as they once were” is a.. Read More