Category: Publishing

ACS Launches ChemRxiv

ACS has launched ChemRxiv.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

ChemRxiv, a new chemistry preprint server for the global chemistry community, is now available in a fully functioning Beta version for use and feedback by researchers. The Beta launch has been undertaken with initial strategic input from the American Chemical Society (ACS), Royal Society of Chemistry, German Chemical Society and other not-for profit organizations, as well as other scientific publishers and preprint services. The free-of-charge service, originally announced late last year, is managed on behalf of the chemical science community by ACS and is powered by Figshare, an online digital repository for academic research.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Reflections on ‘Elsevier Acquires bepress’: Implications for Library Leaders"

Roger C. Schonfeld has published "Reflections on 'Elsevier Acquires bepress': Implications for Library Leaders" in the Ithaka S+R blog

Here's an excerpt:

If this is the case, libraries adopting standalone institutional repositories are moving in exactly the wrong direction strategically. Instead, thinking more in terms of a workflow as are Elsevier and the Open Science Framework (and to some degree Digital Science) may be the strongest strategy. If this is so, then the urgent question facing institutional repository managers and strategists is how quickly and thoroughly they can integrate into one (or more) such workflows. And, while such integration may not require the kind of platform-first multi-tenant approach to repositories that Digital Commons and OSF Preprints each seems to have developed, it seems like a strong design approach.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

COUNTER Code of Practice, Release 5

COUNTER has released "COUNTER Code of Practice, Release 5 ."

Here's an excerpt:

Release 4 is the current Code of Practice and the requirement for COUNTER-compliance. The effective date for compliance with Release 5 is January 2019. The Transition Timeline and Transition Options graphics explains the detail.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Practicing What You Preach: Evaluating Access of Open Access Research"

Teresa Auch Schultz has self-archived "Practicing What You Preach: Evaluating Access of Open Access Research."

Here's an excerpt:

The open access movement seeks to encourage all researchers to make their works openly available and free of paywalls so more people can access their knowledge. Yet some researchers who study open access (OA) continue to publish their work in paywalled journals and fail to make it open. This project set out to study just how many published research articles about OA fall into this category, how many are being made open (whether by being published in a gold OA or hybrid journal or through open deposit), and how library and information science authors compare to other disciplines researching this field. Because of the growth of tools available to help researchers find open versions of articles, this study also sought to compare how these new tools compare to Google Scholar in their ability to disseminating OA research. From a sample collected from Web of Science of articles published since 2010, the study found that although a majority of research articles about OA are open in some form, a little more than a quarter are not. A smaller rate of library science researchers made their work open compared to non-library science researchers. In looking at the copyright of these articles published in hybrid and open journals, authors were more likely to retain copyright ownership if they printed in an open journal compared to authors in hybrid journals. Articles were more likely to be published with a Creative Commons license if published in an open journal compared to those published in hybrid journals.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

SSRN Launches ChemRN (Chemistry Research Network)

SSRN has launched ChemRN

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Chemistry researchers can share ideas and other early stage research, including posting preprints and working papers on ChemRN. Users can quickly upload and read papers for free, across all of Chemistry, including the fields of Energy, Environmental and Materials Sciences.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"For Second Time, Appeals Court Hears GSU E-Reserves Case"

Andrew Albanese has published "For Second Time, Appeals Court Hears GSU E-Reserves Case" in Publishers Weekly.

Here's an excerpt:

In the hearing, which went for just over an hour, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, once again pressed attorneys for the fault lines in the decade-old copyright case, with much of the hearing focusing on whether Judge Orinda Evans correctly evaluated the fourth factor of the four factor fair use test (the effect on the market), and then properly weighted that factor in making her fair use determinations.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"The State of OA: A Large-Scale Analysis of the Prevalence and Impact of Open Access Articles"

Heather Piwowar et al. have self-archived "The State of OA: A Large-Scale Analysis of the Prevalence and Impact of Open Access Articles."

Here's an excerpt:

We estimate that at least 28% of the scholarly literature is OA (19M in total) and that this proportion is growing, driven particularly by growth in Gold and Hybrid. The most recent year analyzed (2015) also has the highest percentage of OA (45%). Because of this growth, and the fact that readers disproportionately access newer articles, we find that Unpaywall users encounter OA quite frequently: 47% of articles they view are OA. Notably, the most common mechanism for OA is not Gold, Green, or Hybrid OA, but rather an under-discussed category we dub Bronze: articles made free-to-read on the publisher website, without an explicit Open license.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Elsevier Acquires bepress"

Roger C. Schonfeld has published "Elsevier Acquires bepress" in The Scholarly Kitchen.

Here's an excerpt:

Today, Elsevier announces its acquisition of bepress. In a move entirely consistent with its strategy to pivot beyond content licensing to preprints, analytics, workflow, and decision-support, Elsevier is now a major if not the foremost single player in the institutional repository landscape.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"The Surge in New University Presses and Academic-Led Publishing: An Overview of a Changing Publishing Ecology in the UK"

Janneke Adema and Graham Stone have published "The Surge in New University Presses and Academic-Led Publishing: An Overview of a Changing Publishing Ecology in the UK" in LIBER Quarterly.

Here's an excerpt:

This article outlines the rise and development of New University Presses and Academic-Led Presses in the UK or publishing for the UK market. Based on the Jisc research project, Changing publishing ecologies: a landscape study of new university presses and academic-led publishing, commonalities between these two types of presses are identified to better assess their future needs and requirements. Based on this analysis, the article argues for the development of a publishing toolkit, for further research into the creation of a typology of presses and publishing initiatives, and for support with community building to help these initiatives grow and develop further, whilst promoting a more diverse publishing ecology.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Sci-Hub Provides Access to Nearly All Scholarly Literature"

Daniel S Himmelstein et al. have published "Sci-Hub Provides Access to Nearly All Scholarly Literature" in PeerJ.

Here's an excerpt:

Since its creation in 2011, Sci-Hub has grown rapidly in popularity. However, until now, the extent of Sci-Hub's coverage was unclear. As of March 2017, we find that Sci-Hub's database contains 68.9% of all 81.6 million scholarly articles, which rises to 85.2% for those published in closed access journals. Furthermore, Sci-Hub contains 77.0% of the 5.2 million articles published by inactive journals. Coverage varies by discipline, with 92.8% coverage of articles in chemistry journals compared to 76.3% for computer science. Coverage also varies by publisher, with the coverage of the largest publisher, Elsevier, at 97.3%.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

Changing Publishing Ecologies: A Landscape Study of New University Presses and Academic-Led Publishing

Jisc has released Changing Publishing Ecologies: A Landscape Study of New University Presses and Academic-Led Publishing.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

In 2016 we commissioned a research project focused on institutional publishing initiatives which includes academic-led publishing ventures (ALPs) as well as new university presses and library-led initiatives (NUPs). We are pleased to announce the publication of the report 'Changing Publishing Ecologies. A Landscape Study of New University Presses and Academic-led Publishing', which charts the outcomes of this research. . . .

The NUP and ALP strands of the research study were co-ordinated and run in tandem by [Janneke] [Graham] Stone and Adema. This study was informed by a desk top review of current library publishing ventures in the US, Europe and Australia and an overview of international academic-led initiatives and their existing and future directions. The NUP strand consisted of a survey, which collected 43 responses, where the ALP strand was informed by interviews with 14 scholar-led presses. Taking different approaches for these two types of press, the report captures the take-up, reasoning and characteristics of these initiatives, as well as their future plans.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"EU Research Committee Wants to Gift Publishers New Rights to Restrict Access to Scientific Research"

COMMUNIA has released "EU Research Committee Wants to Gift Publishers New Rights to Restrict Access to Scientific Research."

Here's an excerpt:

Last week the Culture and Education Committee (CULT) and the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) voted on their final opinions on the Commission’s Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. . . .

The introduction of a new right for press publishers (aka the “link tax”) to extract fees from search engines for incorporating short snippets of—or even linking to—their content in article 11 is one of the most controversial issues of the proposed directive. Adopting this type of ancillary right at the EU level would have a strong negative impact on all stakeholders, including publishers, authors, journalists, researchers, online service providers, and readers. . . .

In the votes last week in the CULT and ITRE committees, the press publishers right was also carried through – and even expanded. Both of the recent opinions remove the restriction that the right applies to digital uses only, meaning that if adopted it would cover all uses—both digital and in print. Even worse, ITRE—the committee responsible for policy relating to the promotion of research—voted to extend the press publishers right to cover scientific publications.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Research Output Availability on Academic Social Networks: Implications for Stakeholders in Academic Publishing"

Mikael Laakso, et al. have self-archived "Research Output Availability on Academic Social Networks: Implications for Stakeholders in Academic Publishing."

Here's an excerpt:

In an effort to map out factors related to ASN [Academic Social Networks] use this article provides a multi-method case study of one business school (Hanken School of Economics, Finland) that incorporates 1) a bibliometric analysis on the full-text availability of research output on ASNs for research published 2012–2014 by Hanken affiliated authors, 2) semi-structured interviews with faculty active in publishing in order to gain insight into motivations for use and use patterns, and 3) a survey distributed to all research-active faculty and doctoral students in order to gain a wider perspective on ASN use.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"On Sponsorship, Transparency, Scholarly Publishing, and Open Access"

Richard Poynder has published "On Sponsorship, Transparency, Scholarly Publishing, and Open Access" in Open & Shut?

Here's an excerpt:

Sponsorship and lobbying (which often amount to the same thing), for instance, have assisted legacy publishers to co-opt open access. This has seen the triumph of the pay-to-publish model, which has been introduced in a way that has enabled publishers to adapt OA to their needs, and to ringfence and port their excessive profits to the new OA environment. Those researchers who do not have the wherewithal to pay article-process charges (APCs), however, are finding themselves increasingly disenfranchised.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Open Access Publishing Models and How OA Can Work in the Humanities"

Martin Paul Eve has published "Open Access Publishing Models and How OA Can Work in the Humanities" in the Bulletin of the Association for Information Science and Technology.

Here's an excerpt:

Open access (OA) has been shaping and benefiting the scientific community for years now, but this new wave of disseminating research freely has not quite taken hold in the field of humanities. Though humanities publishers could also benefit from an OA model, many have been resistant, citing possible issues with plagiarism or appropriation of an author's work for less than ideal uses. There are also challenges with the cost of publishing OA content, which for humanities could be much higher than in the scientific community due to the length of works produced.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"E-book Usage: Counting the Challenges and Opportunities"

Angela Conyers et al. have published "E-book Usage: Counting the Challenges and Opportunities" in Insights: the UKSG Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

This article summarizes how libraries and library consortia are acquiring and evaluating e-books, how usage statistics feature within library workflows, the issues faced in doing so and the resulting impact of these issues on understanding usage and informing purchasing of new titles. Discussions with publishers indicate how usage data are being used within the organization, the requirements of customers and the challenges involved in providing usage data for e-books. Assessing and evaluating e-book usage is a complex and challenging task with processes and workflows in development. A transition from print to e-books represents a significant change for libraries, and the availability of reliable usage statistics to support purchase decisions is vital.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Availability of Open Reference Data Nears 50% as Major Societies and Influential Publishers Endorse the Initiative for Open Citations"

eLife has released "Availability of Open Reference Data Nears 50% as Major Societies and Influential Publishers Endorse the Initiative for Open Citations."

Here's an excerpt:

Among the 20 publishers who contribute the largest amount of citation data, those who are making their citation data freely available now include: AIP Publishing, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Physical Society, De Gruyter, Emerald, and SciELO. They join Wiley, SAGE, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis and many others who made their reference data available prior to, or as part of, the launch of I4OC. Out of the 20 largest contributors, 13 publishers have now moved their reference data into the public domain, and discussions are ongoing with several other publishers.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS): Design And First-Year Review"

Arfon M. Smith et al. have self-archived "Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS): Design And First-Year Review."

Here's an excerpt:

This article describes the motivation, design, and progress of the Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS). JOSS is a free and open-access journal that publishes articles describing research software. . . . JOSS publishes articles that encapsulate scholarship contained in the software itself, and its rigorous peer review targets the software components: functionality, documentation, tests, continuous integration, and the license. A JOSS article contains an abstract describing the purpose and functionality of the software, references, and a link to the software archive. The article is the entry point of a JOSS submission, which encompasses the full set of software artifacts. Submission and review proceed in the open, on GitHub. Editors, reviewers, and authors work collaboratively and openly. Unlike other journals, JOSS does not reject articles requiring major revision; while not yet accepted, articles remain visible and under review until the authors make adequate changes (or withdraw, if unable to meet requirements). Once an article is accepted, JOSS gives it a DOI, deposits its metadata in Crossref, and the article can begin collecting citations on indexers like Google Scholar and other services. Authors retain copyright of their JOSS article, releasing it under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"The Changing Role of Research Publishing: A Case Study from Springer Nature"

Steven Inchcoombe has published "The Changing Role of Research Publishing: A Case Study from Springer Nature" in Insights: the UKSG Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

Using Springer Nature as a case study this article explores the future of research publishing, with the guiding objective of identifying how such organizations can better serve the needs of researchers and those that support researchers (particularly academic institutions, institutional libraries, research funding bodies and academic societies) as we work together to help advance discovery for the benefit of all. Progress in four key areas is described: improving the publishing process, innovating across science communication, driving the growth and development of open research and adding value beyond publishing. The aim of this article is thus to set out a clear vision of what research publishers can achieve if they especially focus on addressing researchers’ needs and apply their considerable resources and expertise accordingly.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Economics and Access 2017"

Walt Crawford has published "Economics and Access 2017" in Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large.

Here's an excerpt:

Now here we are—and it’s time to catch up with a variety of thoughts on economics and access. Most items cited come from 2016 and 2015. As usual, the groupings are somewhat arbitrary and items within a group are usually chronological.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"HathiTrust Libraries Propose to Retain More Than 16 Million Volumes in Shared Print Program"

HathiTrust has released "HathiTrust Libraries Propose to Retain More Than 16 Million Volumes in Shared Print Program."

Here's an excerpt:

Fifty HathiTrust member libraries have proposed to retain more than 16 million volumes for 25 years under the HathiTrust Shared Print Program. These volumes correspond to more than 4.8 million individual book titles held in the HathiTrust Digital Library (about 65% of all HathiTrust digital monographs). This is a significant step toward the primary goal of the program: to ensure that print copies of all HathiTrust digital holdings remain available to scholars for many years to come. The Shared Print Program is a core program of HathiTrust, supported by and benefiting all of the more than 120 HathiTrust members

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"American Chemical Society Files Suit against Sci-Hub"

The American Chemical Society has released "American Chemical Society Files Suit against Sci-Hub."

Here's an excerpt:

On June 23, 2017, the American Chemical Society (ACS) filed suit in the United States District Court Eastern District of Virginia against unnamed confederates of Sci-Hub, a self-proclaimed web pirate organization that steals and then illegally reproduces and disseminates copyrighted scientific research articles on the internet. The suit asserts infringement of the professional Society’s copyrights, as well as counterfeiting and infringement of its trademarks.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"AAP StatShot: Book Publisher Trade Sales Flat for 2016"

AAP has released "AAP StatShot: Book Publisher Trade Sales Flat for 2016."

Here's an excerpt:

For the first time in years, publisher revenue for all print formats saw growth: hardback books grew 2.2%, children’s board books grew 7.7% and paperback/mass market grew 4.1% compared to 2015 revenues. The news for digital books was mixed, as downloaded audio continued its double-digit growth from 2015, up 25.8% for 2016 vs 2015 and eBooks continued their decline, down 15.6%.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"What I Learned from Predatory Publishers"

Jeffrey Beall has published "What I Learned from Predatory Publishers" in Biochemia Medica.

Here's an excerpt:

This article is a first-hand account of the author’s work identifying and listing predatory publishers from 2012 to 2017. Predatory publishers use the gold (author pays) open access model and aim to generate as much revenue as possible, often foregoing a proper peer review. The paper details how predatory publishers came to exist and shows how they were largely enabled and condoned by the open-access social movement, the scholarly publishing industry, and academic librarians. The author describes tactics predatory publishers used to attempt to be removed from his lists, details the damage predatory journals cause to science, and comments on the future of scholarly publishing.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Inconsistencies between Academic E-book Platforms: A Comparison of Metadata and Search Results"

portal: Libraries and the Academy has released and e-print of "Inconsistencies between Academic E-book Platforms: A Comparison of Metadata and Search Results."

Here's an excerpt:

This article presents the results of a study of academic e-books that compared the metadata and search results from major academic e-book platforms. The authors collected data and performed a series of test searches designed to produce the same result regardless of platform. Testing, however, revealed metadata-related errors and significant variation in search results that could impact the user experience. This article describes how other libraries could perform this type of testing and how this information could be used to inform the selection of e-books that are available on multiple platforms.

Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap