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Category: scholarly communication

On “Breaking the Book: Print Humanities in the Digital Age,” by Laura Mandell

On “Breaking the Book: Print Humanities in the Digital Age,” by Laura Mandell

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In Breaking the Book: Print Humanities in the Digital Age, Laura Mandell contends with the form and function of the book (and especially the book of literary or cultural criticism) as well as the shift from a print-based to electronic-based humanities. She suggests that it is timely to critically engage with the academic book as universities and their outputs increasingly move online. In this sense, Mandell’s topic is akin to Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s in Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future…

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On “Digital Scholarship Considered: How New Technologies Could Transform Academic Work” by Nick Pearce, Martin Weller, Eileen Scalon, and Melanie Ashleigh

On “Digital Scholarship Considered: How New Technologies Could Transform Academic Work” by Nick Pearce, Martin Weller, Eileen Scalon, and Melanie Ashleigh

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In the article “Digital Scholarship Considered: How New Technologies Could Transform Academic Work” Nick Pearce, Martin Weller, Eileen Scanlon, and Melanie Ashleigh contribute to the conversation around integrating digital technology and higher education. The authors take it as a given that new technology is capable of affecting how academics work, but they are steadfast in their belief that this is not an inevitable outcome of our increasingly networked world. Although I suspect this is a bit of a strawman argument,…

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On “Capitalizing on Big Data: Toward a Policy Framework for Advancing Digital Scholarship in Canada”

On “Capitalizing on Big Data: Toward a Policy Framework for Advancing Digital Scholarship in Canada”

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“Capitalizing on Big Data: Toward a Policy Framework for Advancing Digital Scholarship in Canada” is a consultation document that was compiled by the Government of Canada (namely the Tri-Council and CFI, in collaboration with Genome Canada) and released in October 2013. The primary aim of this document is to argue that funding policies for digital scholarship and infrastructure in Canada need to be coordinated. The document’s compilers contend that Canada does not have sufficient infrastructure to manage the increasing load…

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On “A Good Idea, a Difficult Reality: Toward a Publisher/Library Open Access Partnership,” by Rowland Lorimer

On “A Good Idea, a Difficult Reality: Toward a Publisher/Library Open Access Partnership,” by Rowland Lorimer

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The title of this article by Rowland Lorimer, “A Good Idea, a Difficult Reality: Toward a Publisher/Library Open Access Partnership,” may be a bit misleading. When one reads through the article itself, it seems to argue that libraries should not have a substantive role to play in OA, or at least in the publishing side of OA. (Is that a partnership?) Lorimer rightly acknowledges the complexities of scholarly communication, and the need for objective study into successful models. But its…

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On “‘Free to All’: Library Publishing and the Challenge of Open Access,” by Michah Vandegrift and Josh Bolick

On “‘Free to All’: Library Publishing and the Challenge of Open Access,” by Michah Vandegrift and Josh Bolick

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In the published conference paper “‘Free to All’: Library Publishing and the Challenge of Open Access,” Micah Vandegrift and Josh Bolick argue that libraries need to be unwavering forces in the promotion and implementation of open access (OA) publishing. They contend that libraries are increasingly becoming “library publishers” (107). Although I do think there’s an argument to be made to this end, it is not overwhemingly clear to me, from the paper itself, just how libraries are publishers. My immediate…

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On “Beyond Open: Expanding Access to Scholarly Content,” by Alice Meadows

On “Beyond Open: Expanding Access to Scholarly Content,” by Alice Meadows

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Alice Meadows provides a review of major low cost or public access initiatives  in “Beyond Open: Expanding Access to Scholarly Content.” She summarizes the New School for Social Research’s Journal Donation Project , Research for Life, the International Network for Access to Scientific Publications (INASP), Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL), patientACCESS, Access to Research, Emergency Access Initiative (EAI), and Strengthening Research and Knowledge Systems (SRKS). Meadows’ review is useful insofar as it provides a broad sense of low cost / public…

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On “Beyond Open Access to Open Publication and Open Scholarship,” by John Maxwell

On “Beyond Open Access to Open Publication and Open Scholarship,” by John Maxwell

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In “Beyond Open Access to Open Publication and Open Scholarship,” John Maxwell imagines what a humanities-based digital scholarly communication system would look like if it was modeled after prevalent web technologies, practices, and metaphors. He compares the opportunities that this approach might bring against traditional (read: current) academic publishing practices. This “webby model of scholarly communication” (5) would need to produce recognizable academic artifacts. Maxwell concludes that for digital scholarly artifacts to succeed in our current climate, they require at…

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On “Delivering Impact of Scholarly Information: Is Access Enough?,” by Heidi McGregor and Kevin Guthrie

On “Delivering Impact of Scholarly Information: Is Access Enough?,” by Heidi McGregor and Kevin Guthrie

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Heidi McGregor and Kevin Guthrie look beyond open access in their article, “Delivering Impact of Scholarly Information: Is Access Enough?” Their sentiments reflect some of my own, that is, just because you put something online, and its free, doesn’t mean that folks are going to engage with it. McGregor and Guthrie write explicitly from their experience with JSTOR, the not-for-profit organization that negotiates access to scholarly journals and articles and in turn supplies this access to institutions and individuals on…

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On “Open Access Publishing and Academic Research” by Rowly Lorimer

On “Open Access Publishing and Academic Research” by Rowly Lorimer

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Rowly Lorimer begins this chapter by surveying the history of corporate journal publishing as we know it today. It began, Lorimer tells us, shortly after the Second World War by a fellow named Robert Maxwell, whom Lorimer paints as a “scoundrel, thief, probable spy, and publisher” (177). He traces it to the release of the World Wide Web, and the Internet’s gift to scientists of allowing them to share their work online at a much lower cost than publishers charge…

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On The Access Principle, by John Willinsky

On The Access Principle, by John Willinsky

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In The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship (2006), Dr. John Willinsky lays out an expansive argument for open access to scholarly research, based on a steadfast belief, articulated from the outset, that open access has the potential to change the public presence of science and scholarship, and increase the circulation of these particular forms of knowledge (xi). Willinsky concludes that knowledge is, inherently, a public good (like lighthouses [9]), and as such the public should…

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