Author Archives: rohn

October 1, 2012

An Open Letter to America’s Publishers from ALA President Maureen Sullivan

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An Open Letter to America’s Publishers from ALA President Maureen Sullivan We librarians cannot stand by and do nothing while some publishers deepen the digital divide. We cannot wait passively while some publishers deny access to our cultural record. We … Continue reading →

May 17, 2012

Great infographic about publishing

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Last week, Mariah Bear of Weldon Owen Publishing posted the following infographic, explaining how a book comes to be published.     Link to the original post.

April 24, 2012

For-Profit Academic Journals “Financially Untenable”

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From the Faculty Advisory Council to the Library at Harvard University: We write to communicate an untenable situation facing the Harvard Library. Many large journal publishers have made the scholarly communication environment fiscally unsustainable and academically restrictive. This situation is … Continue reading →

April 18, 2012

Retractions on the Rise

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Carl Zimmer, writing in the The New York Times, notes a sharp increase in the number of journal article retractions in recent years — by one estimate, a tenfold increase over the past decade. Sloppy research is often to blame, … Continue reading →

April 11, 2012

Chip Kidd on TED Talks

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Chip Kidd, a book designer for Alfred A. Knopf, gives a wonderful talk about the business. (Follow the talk all the way to the end for a graphic comparison between print and ebook publishing—Kidd leaves no doubt which side of … Continue reading →

February 28, 2012

Elsevier and The Cost of Knowledge Boycott

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In January, an international group of mathematicians started a boycott against Dutch publishing behemoth Elsevier over high journal subscription prices as well as policies preventing free access to research. Since then, more than 7000 academics have joined the boycott, agreeing … Continue reading →

January 30, 2012

NYT on the Death of the Bookstore

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This morning’s New York Times has sort of a scattered article on the prospects of a post-bookstore environment for readers and publishers. Just as indie book stores were decimated by the chain stores, so now chain stores have largely fallen … Continue reading →

January 19, 2012

iBooks and Textbooks

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Apple released a new version of iBooks today and, as Dan Nosowitz at Popular Science notes, it’s designed to replace the textbook with the iPad: “The new version of iBooks frees the app from its prior restrictions–now it can boast … Continue reading →

August 31, 2011

A Clarification

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Among several of our journal titles to feature archival materials, American Literary Realism (ALR) focuses on works published between 1870 and 1910. An occasional challenge in working with this sort of research is the condition of illustrations. Not only were … Continue reading →

August 4, 2011

JSTOR and Hacktivism

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Last month, Lisa S. told us about Aaron Swartz, the media hacktivist from Harvard who attempted to slip off with JSTOR’s inventory of academic research articles using MIT’s computer network. The MIT newspaper The Tech has a good summary of … Continue reading →