How relevant is the peer review process in the digital age? In our fast-paced world of instant Twitter, innumerable and often-illuminating blogs, comprehensive wikis, and insightful electronic magazines, does peer review still have a place? Does it help imbue scholarly e-books and e-journals with resonance, heighten quality, and encourage objectivity? Robert Townsend’s article about the [...]
When Paul Baran conjured out of the haze of sunny Santa Monica summer afternoons the concept of “distributed communications”—later called packet switching—did he imagine that his theory, born out of the Cold War as a means to help survive a nuclear attack, would bring new connectivity both high and low, that the desire to hurtle [...]
On June 20 of 2009, I gave what I consider my most significant speech to date, at the Association of American University Presses’ annual meeting, entitled “Scholarly Publishing in the New Era of Scarcity.” It was the last presentation in the last Plenary session of the meeting, and allowed me to talk about the two [...]
I’ve been reading a couple of things lately that could restore, if you were in need of such a thing, your faith in print, and in the vitality of scholarship and publishing in the digital age. The publishing industry is in crisis—well, nearly everything these days seems to be in crisis—but you would hardly realize [...]
A few days ago I was riding home on my Xootr push scooter—yes, it’s a tough commute—when an old Ford Falcon pulled up next to me at the light. I noticed the undercarriage splotched with rust, the tires baring their sole, but what struck me most was the backseat, brimming with books, magazines, and yellowed [...]
On the surface, one wouldn’t immediately think of the t-shirt as a great model for web collaboration and community, often referred to, either fondly or derisively, as Web 2.0. But Threadless has managed to carve out an interesting niche, uniting designers, fans of great design, and t-shirt aficionados (many members are undoubtedly all three). For [...]
Purchase on demand is the new POD and is likely to restructure the publishing supply chain.