The Scholarly Kitchen
Latest Post
Exhibition Prohibition — Why Shouldn’t Publishers Celebrate an Improved Impact Factor?
A trend toward shaming journals that promote their impact factors needs to be rolled back. Impact factors are journal metrics. It’s the other uses that need to be curtailed. Continue reading
Today's Specials and Featured Items
Reproducibility of research results, and the lack of availability of negative results have both been deemed “crises” for the research community. But proposed solutions for each seem at odds with one another. Continue reading
A research report on direct-to-consumer marketing is provided here. The study was first announced on the Scholarly Kitchen. The report includes a survey of current university press practices and recommendations for steps to take to improve performance. Continue reading
A look back at some of Rick Anderson’s insightful pieces on the economic realities of journal prices and library budgets. Continue reading
The competition among the largest journal publishers to acquire the rights to professional society publications is very keen. The bidding for these publications is likely to result in an alteration of strategy, whereby the bidding publishers seek to bind the societies more closely to them. Continue reading
More and more studies are emerging showing how misdirecting and expanding citations can lead to long-term misconceptions and mistaken belief systems in the sciences. Continue reading
An overview of Vox, a news site designed around current technology and information trends offers a fresh set of design choices worth considering. Continue reading
The chefs are asked about international publishing strategy and so are you. Tell us how you’d answer today’s question! Continue reading
Long “Instructions to Authors” filled with ancillary policies and undifferentiated requirements don’t help authors, staff, or editors. As the graveyard for unmade decisions, they’ve only gotten longer and more opaque. Maybe it’s time to clean yours up! Continue reading
This year’s beach reading will be spent with books by public intellectuals. Unfortunately, writing for the general public is not valued within the academy, to the detriment of public education. Continue reading
An interview with the President of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents, on the unintended and potentially damaging consequences of public and open access mandates and embargoes. Continue reading
A sobering look at the coming “robot revolution”, and how for many jobs in the future, humans need not apply. Continue reading
The lack of an Impact Factor is one reason that new journals have difficulty attracting submissions. Some journals, such as eLife and Cell Reports, qualify for an Impact Factor based on partial data. This post explores how that happens. Continue reading
We’ve got DOIs (digital object identifiers) to help identify research articles, images, and other digital objects, and ORCIDs (Open Researcher and Contributor IDs) to help disambiguate the authors of those objects. Now there’s a new initiative to create a contributor taxonomy that identifies who’s done what in the creation of published research – find out more in our interview with Amy Brand, one of the brains behind the concept. Continue reading
There is a rumor, based on no or scant evidence, that Google is preparing to launch a platform for scholarly communications, which could threaten established STM publishers. A publisher should react to this by reviewing its own internal operations and value proposition. In particular, the role in certification should be strengthened. Continue reading
Adding to the discussion of APCs, eLife’s financials suggest that being competitive with some major journals means the journal is expensive to run. Continue reading
HBO’s John Oliver offers a numerically representative debate about climate change. While he accurately skewers how the media presents science, this “majority rules” approach may not be the best way to judge what’s right or wrong. Continue reading
The DOAJ is kicking out hundreds of predatory and scam publishers that found their way into the directory, and tightening standards to ensure that they don’t sneak back in. Which makes things a bit awkward for a community that, for years, has been insisting that predatory OA publishing isn’t a problem worth worrying about. Continue reading
Google recently disclosed that they give Web sites higher ranking if they are encrypted. This is but one example of how Google serves as a gatekeeper of the Internet, making cultural decisions in the name of technological elegance. Continue reading
Attempts to use new measurements to more finely predict or represent journal quality are bound to falter because of some qualities inherent to journals themselves. Continue reading
Monkey Copyright… of all the juxtapositions of words; I never thought I’d be entering that particular two word combination into Google. This particular search combo was prompted by (what else) a selection of updates in my twitter feed about a monkey that took a selfie and a takedown notice for the photo in question. Over here it’s … Continue reading
Thomson Reuters launched a new platform called InCites last week. The platform combines Journal Citation Reports with the Essential Science Indicators. In this Q&A, Patricia Brennan from Thomson Reuters describes the new platform and new additions that answer concerns from critics. Continue reading
Could a Kindle Unlimited subscription replace your local library? What can scholarly publishers learn from Amazon’s tactics here? Continue reading
Despite the increase in open access publishing, public access initiatives like Research4Life, INASP, the UK’s Access2Research pilot, and more are still playing a valuable role in making research publications more widely available, both to researchers outside of the developed world, and to the general public. Continue reading
Why can’t researchers agree on whether Open Access is the cause of more citations or merely associated with better performing papers? The answer is in the methods. Continue reading
On February 22, 2013, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a memorandum on, “Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research.” Today marks the first release of a funding agency’s plans to fulfill the requirements of that memo, as the Department of Energy has now announced their Public … Continue reading
We ask our authors to gaze into their crystal balls regarding the future of print. Continue reading
Although there are clear benefits to being a large publisher to engage in D2C sales, there are practical steps that even the smallest publishers can take. Here is a summary of some options. Continue reading
How much of the book usage in a research library collection involves books from university presses? Findings from this case study suggests that the answers are complex and, to some degree, suprising. Continue reading
FASEB’s Stand Up For Science competition winner brings perspective to the question of why we need to fund basic research. Continue reading
A recent “Slate” article shows what can go wrong when we talk about “peer review” as if we all share a common definition about an unchanging phenomenon. Continue reading
There is no comprehensive solutions provider for academic book publishers today. The emergence of such a vendor could transform the academic book publishing world by inviting new entrants into the marketplace. Continue reading
Over the past three decades, the research library has been receiving a smaller proportion of the university budget. Does this trend reflect the failure of library administrators and the declining relevance of libraries? Or does it tell the story of self-control and growing efficiency against a backdrop of spiraling higher education costs? Continue reading
The Authors Guild’s lawsuit against HathiTrust over the latter’s massive library of digitized print books has been dismissed by the Second Circuit Court. What does this mean for libraries, authors, and readers? Continue reading
Journal redesigns seem to be occurring more frequently — and are certainly more complex — than in the past. What motivates a publisher and editor to undertake a redesign? And why is it so complex, costly, and strategic today? Continue reading
A recent survey of authors by Taylor and Francis reveals growing acceptance of open access publishing; however, Creative Commons licensing may still pose a problem. Continue reading
The half-forgotten subscription model deserves our praise and renewed attention. In the Digital Age, it has become more popular than ever. Continue reading
Authors
Angela Cochran
Stewart Wills
Alice Meadows
Ann Michael
David Crotty
David Smith
Joseph Esposito
Jill O'Neill
judyluther
Michael Clarke
Rick Anderson
Phil Davis
Robert Harington
Kent Anderson
Todd A Carpenter
The mission of the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) is "[t]o advance scholarly publishing and communication, and the professional development of its members through education, collaboration, and networking." SSP established The Scholarly Kitchen blog in February 2008 to keep SSP members and interested parties aware of new developments in publishing.
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The Scholarly Kitchen is a moderated and independent blog. Opinions on The Scholarly Kitchen are those of the authors. They are not necessarily those held by the Society for Scholarly Publishing nor by their respective employers.
Authors
The mission of the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) is "[t]o advance scholarly publishing and communication, and the professional development of its members through education, collaboration, and networking." SSP established The Scholarly Kitchen blog in February 2008 to keep SSP members and interested parties aware of new developments in publishing.
......................................
The Scholarly Kitchen is a moderated and independent blog. Opinions on The Scholarly Kitchen are those of the authors. They are not necessarily those held by the Society for Scholarly Publishing nor by their respective employers.
