What Then Must We Do? (Part 1)

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 can haz tenure

And now, for your viewing pleasure, my tenure letter. This is, I would just like to point out, the culmination of thirteen, fourteen years of my life, since I started my Masters program in 1995… though it wasn’t until 1996 that I decided that I wanted the job of a faculty member and that I was going to go on to do the Ph.D. And I would just like to.. Read More

Peer review and institutional repositories

“Now you have two problems…”: On mandating Open Access, from Open Access Anthropology So, you might ask yourself: what in the world is the [scholarly society that publishes its own journal] providing authors who seek to publish in their journals? It certainly isn’t the article… The answer, to my mind is actually simple: prestige; high quality peer review; creative, path-breaking editorial vision; promotion and marketing; public policy relevance and creative.. Read More

Intellectual debates in public forums

In the latest issue of JASIST is an article by Marcia Bates, which is a response to an article by Birger Hjørland, which is a response to an article by Marcia Bates. Bates’ first article was published in 2006; Hjørland’s article was published in 2007; Bates’ second article was published in 2008. First of all, let me say that I love these sorts of exchanges. First, in a schadenfreude kind.. Read More

That word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

Project of Publishers’ Association Is Criticized by Some of Its Members and Open-Access Advocates, from the Chronicle Mr. Dezenhall’s advice to the publishers’ association, says Nature, included a suggestion that it focus on messages such as “Public access equals government censorship.” That advice echoes throughout Prism’s Web site in language like this: “Policies are being proposed that threaten to introduce undue government intervention in science and scholarly publishing, putting at.. Read More

None, I think, do there embrace

Scholars Embrace New Publication Modes in Theory More Than in Practice, Study Finds, from the Chronicle The report concludes that “the UC faculty largely conform to conventional behavior regarding scholarly communication, such as publishing in traditional venues, but widely express a need for change in the current systems of scholarly communication.” Well, I can’t say that’s a huge surprise to me. Everyone recognizes that the existing scholarly communication system is.. Read More

UBC is not ignoring Google Scholar

Five (5) Reasons Why Academic Librarians Can’t Ignore Google Scholar, from the UBC Academic Search – Google Scholar Blog For my money, reason #2 is the killer: GS will now contain on the order of 800 million to 1 billion citations, thus making it probably one of the largest scholarly citation databases on the planet. Ignoring that is like ignoring the elephant in the room. And, I would just like.. Read More

Miss Collegiality

Top Academic Workplaces report, from The Collaborative On Academic Careers in Higher Education While the majority of junior faculty at America’s colleges and universities are satisfied at work, some institutions are doing extraordinarily well in this area. The survey, administered by the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) in 2005, determined that some colleges and universities are “exemplary” on certain key dimensions of faculty work life. UNC-CH is.. Read More

Open Peer Review Closed

Nature Ends Experiment With Open Peer Review, as Responses Are Disappointing, from the Chronicle …while participation by authors was greater than anticipated, the posted remarks were disappointing. … Nearly half of the papers received no comments at all. Most of the messages made reasonable but minor points. Others, such as “nice work,” were far from useful. Once a decision had been made to accept or reject a paper, the entire.. Read More