The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

Authors Want UM Press To Return Their Book Rights

University of Missouri officials spent all last week on the telephone with scholarly authors who want their book rights back because the UM Press is going digital. Ned Stuckey-French, a co-creator of the “Save the University of Missouri Press” Facebook page, said he has a list of 29 authors, including authors of “Dictionary of Missouri Biography,” calling for the university to return rights to their books. “I don’t want this pretend press that is run by students to have my book (“The American Essay in the American Century”),” Stuckey-French said. “I want it back. I don’t want my book to be associated with a vanity press. Read more at: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/11/3758292/mu-tries-to-persuade-university.html

Open Access Journals Could Disrupt The Academic Publishing Industry

Like the E-book, the open access journal has spent much of its existence struggling to gain legitimacy in a crowded marketplace. It is a platform largely applauded conceptually but, until recently, rarely adopted in a world where an academic's publications are important career stepping stones--ones that determine the allotment of large research grants or tenure at universities. Many academics have been reluctant to wade in because of the lack of prestige that accompanies many of these upstarts. This is why librarians have been some of the loudest advocates for open-access journals. But though they have clear financial motives for this advocacy, they have been joined by many academics in recent years, along with some in the federal government who allocate billions of dollars annually in taxpayer-funded research grantsRead more at:
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/07/23/is-the-academic-publishing-industry-on-the-verge-of-disruption

Scholars Prefer Buffy Over Other Pop Topics

Last week in Slate, Tom Shone examined the academic obsession with the Alien quadrilogy, a movie franchise that has been the subject of dozens of scholarly articles. Shone listed 24 notable Alien studies at the end of his essay. Which got us thinking: How many more papers on the Alien movies are there? And how does the Alien franchise stack up against other films and TV shows that generate a lot of academic attention? In addition to scouring the Internet to fill out Shone’s Alienbibliography, we also sought out academic writing on The Simpsons, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Wire, and The Matrix trilogy—pop culture favorites known to have provided plenty of PhD fodder over the last couple decades. Read more at:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/06/11/pop_culture_studies_why_do_academics_study_buffy_the_vampire_slayer_more_than_the_wire_the_matrix_alien_and_the_simpsons_.html

College Graduates Will Lose Their Library Privileges But They Shouldn't Lose Access To Research Articles

At graduations across the country, students are walking across the stage, receiving their diplomas and beginning the next chapter of their lives. These graduates are equipped with a wealth of new tools. However, nearly all are forced to leave behind one of the most important: their library card. Students’ library cards are a passport to the specialized knowledge found in academic journal articles. These articles contain the cutting edge of our understanding and capture the genius of what has come before. In no uncertain terms, access to journals provides critical knowledge and an up-to-date education for tomorrow’s doctors, researchers and entrepreneurs. That’s why our organizations have joined many others — including the Wikimedia Foundation, Creative Commons and PatientsLikeMe — in calling on Obama to unlock publicly funded research. We must have better access to research findings. Read more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/taxpayer-funded-research-should-be-available-for-all/2012/06/07/gJQAshkCMV_story.html 

 

University Of Colorado Advocates For Public Access Legislation

University of Colorado leaders are advocating for a legislative bill that, if passed by Congress, would make academic journals -- which have been soaring in cost -- more accessible. The Federal Research Public Access Act of 2012 would require that taxpayer-funded manuscripts be made available to the public online at no cost and within six months of the article being published in a peer-reviewed journal. Both the CU Student Government and the United Government of Graduate Students have become Right to Research members. Right to Research is an international student coalition focused on open access to research. Read more at:
http://www.dailycamera.com/cu-news/ci_20556453/cu-leaders-back-bill-that-would-increase-access

Merger Allows University Press To Continue Operations

The Utah State University Press will merge with another academic publisher, ensuring its survival in the face of severe budget pressures at the Logan campus. Although the press’ assets will be transferred to the University Press of Colorado, its editorial operations will continue to operate out of USU’s Merrill-Cazier Library, publishing books under its old imprint. “Rather than having eight institutions with separate presses, we have eight institutions funding one joint press,” UPC director Darrin Pratt said. “When you are small you have a lot of business issues you are on the wrong side of. Creating economies of scales will be important for the future of small university presses.” Read more at:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/53668117-78/press-usu-colorado-university.html.csp

Math Professor Refuses To Publish In Elsevier Journals And Asks Others To Join Him

For many years, I, like several other mathematicians, have been careful not to submit papers to journals published by the huge publishing conglomerate Reed Elsevier. Our reasons will be familiar to many readers of Times Higher Education. Journals take time to build up reputations, and we rely on those reputations for making quick evaluations of other mathematicians. That is why the current journal system, despite repeated predictions of its imminent demise, has changed remarkably little in the past 20 years. Recently, I thought that I could add to the pressure for change by making public my refusal to publish with Elsevier, which seems to be the publisher people dislike the most. Read more at:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=419018#.T0Upg0DcQzV.twitter

Advocates For Open Science Say Systemic Change Is Inevitable

For centuries, this is how science has operated — through research done in private, then submitted to science and medical journals to be reviewed by peers and published for the benefit of other researchers and the public at large. But to many scientists, the longevity of that process is nothing to celebrate. The system is hidebound, expensive and elitist, they say. Peer review can take months, journal subscriptions can be prohibitively costly, and a handful of gatekeepers limit the flow of information. It is an ideal system for sharing knowledge, said the quantum physicist Michael Nielsen, only “if you’re stuck with 17th-century technology.” Dr. Nielsen and other advocates for “open science” say science can accomplish much more, much faster, in an environment of friction-free collaboration over the Internet. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/science/open-science-challenges-journal-tradition-with-web-collaboration.html?src=me&ref=general 

 

U.S. Government Asks Science Journals Not To Publish Dangerous Information

For the first time ever, a government advisory board is asking scientific journals not to publish details of certain biomedical experiments, for fear that the information could be used by terrorists to create deadly viruses and touch off epidemics. The panel cannot force the journals to censor their articles, but the editor of Science, Bruce Alberts, said the journal was taking the recommendations seriously and would probably withhold some information — but only if the government creates a system to provide the missing information to legitimate scientists worldwide who need it. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/health/fearing-terrorism-us-asks-journals-to-censor-articles-on-virus.html?hp

Scholarly Publishing Industry Finds Itself In The Throes Of A Revolt

After decades of healthy profits, the scholarly publishing industry now finds itself in the throes of a revolt led by the most unlikely campus revolutionaries: the librarians. Universities from Britain to California are refusing to renew their expensive subscriptions, turning instead to “open access” publishing, an arrangement whereby material is made available free on the Internet with few or no restrictions except for the obligation to cite it. For the moment, that dream is still a long way off. But with British universities already spending 65 percent of their library acquisition budgets on periodicals — up from 50 percent 10 years ago — and university funding cut back, the pressure for change is mounting. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/world/europe/19iht-educLede19.html?pagewanted=1