From Rick Anderson in The Scholarly Kitchen:
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“One plenary session of the 2019 Researcher to Reader (R2R) Conference was a debate on the proposition “Resolved: Sci-Hub is doing more good than harm to scholarly communication.” Arguing in favor of the resolution was Daniel Himmelstein, a postdoctoral fellow in genomics at the University of Pennsylvania. Arguing against it was Justin Spence, partner and co-founder of PSI Ltd., and the IP Registry.”
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From Liz Gabbitas in The Scholarly Kitchen:
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College textbooks are expensive. In most industries, a more expensive product is also a higher quality one. However, in college textbook publishing this may not be true. In the following case study, an instructor at the University of Utah on the hunt for better materials for an entry-level Arabic language course came to the library looking to create a solution. This article explores the resulting workbook, the collaborative process, and the future of course materials like this one.
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Source: Guest Post – Low Cost Textbook Alternatives: Worth the Effort? – The Scholarly Kitchen
From Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe in The Scholarly Kitchen:
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Like many others, I found myself reading response after response after response to cOAlition S’ call for feedback on the Guidance on the Implementation of Plan S last week. The volume of response is staggering. Statements have poured in from individual and groups — publishers, scholarly societies, disciplinary repositories, scholarly communications platforms, funding agencies, publishing professionals, libraries, library associations, and researchers themselves. As the deadline drew near on Friday, I could hardly “right click/open link in new tab” fast enough as my Twitter feed scrolled by. The input from Norway alone has reached 885 pages. The Open Access Tracking Project currently has almost 400 documents tagged oa.plan_s. reddit Open Science and Scholia/wikidata have also been tracking replies. One imagines that there is feedback that has not been shared publicly as well.
Source: Taking Stock of the Feedback on Plan S Implementation Guidance – The Scholarly Kitchen
From Gwen Evans via the Scholarly Kitchen:
OhioLINK, the state agency for Ohio’s higher education libraries, recently negotiated statewide pricing agreements for inclusive access textbooks with six major publishers: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., McGraw-Hill Education, Pearson, Macmillan Learning, Cengage and Sage. It covers all 91 member institutions in OhioLINK – public and private. According to the publishers, this is a groundbreaking initiative in its scale and comprehensiveness across virtually all non-profit higher education institutions in a single state.”
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From Joseph Esposito via the Scholarly Kitchen:
“When librarians prepare for a negotiation, they now routinely reach for the muscle.
At least that’s how I read the news about the Swedish library consortium and its dealings with Elsevier. If you have been too preoccupied with the Royal Wedding to pay attention to news coming out of the world of STM publishing, you can get a good backgrounder here. Briefly, the Swedish consortium attempted to dictate terms to Elsevier, terms that Elsevier would not accept. The result is that Elsevier’s contract will be cancelled, meaning that there will be no authorized access to Elsevier content for the consortium users.”
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Source: Libraries Face a Future of Open Access – The Scholarly Kitchen