(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.
(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 some degree, there was a lot of logic and truth in this idea.
(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 things that addresses the many contradictions and issues facing academia and scholarly publishing.
(kccommunitynews.com): The evolution of technology does not mean the extinction of libraries. Patrons want our help with purchase recommendations for the popular eReaders, using the gadgets (straight out of the box), and accessing free books. They have their eReaders and now want their eLibraries.
(mobiledia.com): The federal government, book publishers and the technology industry are considering a large-scale effort to push tablets into public schools, raising questions about hidden costs to implement such a program. The proposed savings made headlines, but infrastructure issues and the effects of tablets upon learning deserve weighty consideration as well.
(mheducation.com): This paper sets out to demonstrate that accelerated, technology-enabled and skills-based developmental education programmes designed specifically for underprepared students entering or returning to college can improve educational and other outcomes. Furthermore, getting ahead of the remedial curve as early as high school can have an even greater impact on college enrollment and successful completion.
(ejournals.bc.edu): This paper describes the ways in which libraries are currently implementing and managing webbased research guides (a.k.a. Pathfinders, LibGuides, Subject Guides, etc.) by examining two sets of data from the spring of 2011. One set of data was compiled by visiting the websites of ninety-nine American university ARL libraries and recording the characteristics of each site's research guides.
(intechweb.org): This InTech white paper is based on a review of current research and a survey sent to 20,000 STM researchers worldwide. The survey attracted an overall response rate of 1.3 percent, with 275 participants taking part and 253 (92 percent) completing it. The majority of respondents were researchers (75 seventy) based at a university (70 seventy).
(niso.org): This publication is the outcome of the NISO Electronic Resource Management (ERM) Data Standards and Best Practices Project, a successor to the Digital Library Federation's Electronic Resources Management Initiative (ERMI). The project's primary goals were to perform a "gap analysis" of standards and best practices and make recommendations on the future of the ERMI Data Dictionary.
(springer.com): eBooks have evolved considerably over the last five years, beyond the more mature, but less dynamic eJournals space. They are now poised at an intersection of library, technology and research trends that afford great opportunities and challenges, for both the library and publisher communities.Similar to the formative years of STM eJournals adoption, eBook uptake shows both promise and challenges: promise as an efficient source for research, and challenges as stakeholders grasp how best to manage this relatively new content format. In their sixth year, eBooks are entering an Age of Experimentation. Stakeholders must learn how to flourish despite the dizzying pace of the technologies that support the eBook format.
(arl.org): As the skills and infrastructure needed to sustain scholarly communication change in the electronic age, many organizations are reevaluating their publishing strategies. Smaller societies and institutions are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the demands of their authors to link research data with publications, repurpose content in new ways online, or push the boundaries of intellectual property to mix and mash-up. Librarians, meanwhile, are extending their skills to organize and preserve data, support XML workflows, and build deep understandings of digital rights and permissions. .
(youtube.com): This presentation describes a project at the University of Oregon which helps students to understand the uses of primary source materials, and also to think about their own roles as creators of such materials, and as prospective contributors to the collective social record. Technology comes into play, of course, but is very much in the background in some sense. It seems the ideas here can be readily adapted and used by a wide range of institutions. If you are not familiar with this project, the video of this presentation is worth watching.
(oclc.org): Preliminary results from a new study into researcher dissemination behaviors were reported at this session. This builds on work done in Scotland funded by JISC in which we have participated, and provides evidence of faculty preferences for "disseminating" their research outputs in ways other than via traditional journal or monograph publication. Discussion included the effectiveness of the institutional or subject repository, and other venues, for dissemination purposes, and the differences that emerge across scholarly disciplines.
(eprints.rclis.org): Online Catalogs: What Users and Librarians Want summarizes findings from research conducted by OCLC on what constitutes quality in library online catalogs from both end users and librarians' points of view. In 2008, OCLC conducted focus groups, administered a pop-up survey on WorldCat.org - OCLC's freely available end user interface on the Web - and conducted a Web-based survey of librarians worldwide. The findings indicate, among other things, that although library catalogs are often thought of as discovery tools, the catalog's delivery-related information is just as important to end users.
(slideshare.net): The topic of sustainability keeps coming up in all discussions of scholarly communications. Sustainability implies stasis, but what we need is innovation. It is very, very hard to make economic sense out of anything that is not growing. This presentation describes some trends, trends that I believe are inevitable, and suggests ways to align scholarly publishing with those trends, the better to reap financial gain from them.
