The Scholarly Kitchen
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The Video College Application: Tufts Embraces the YouTube Generation
A large university embraces video applications, and more than 1,000 students submit, mostly via YouTube. Here are some clever videos spotlighting some of today’s college applicants. Continue reading
The Internet’s Extended Cultural Memory — Is It Sapping Our Creativity?
One of the great benefits of the Internet is how it has extended our cultural memory. But has this also stolen our freedom of thought, our ability to create original works of art? Continue reading
Old PhDs and the Matthew Effect — Is the Attention Economy of Scholarship Making Science Too Staid?
Older PhDs, longer postdoc stints, the rich getting richer, and other factors are creating a “founder effect” and consolidating power at the upper end of scholarship. Is it a Ponzi scheme? Can grassroot efforts change things? Continue reading
Platform Wars Come to the Book Business
Technological platform wars have taken control of the book business, and publishers are now collateral damage in the fight. Continue reading
“You Are Not a Gadget” — Why Open Culture and Technocentric Philosophies Are Ruining Our Lives
Jason Lanier’s manifesto about the open culture exposes its lack of ingenuity, its commercial depredations, its amoral world view, and its elitist predilections. It’s worth reading in full. Continue reading
The Scholarly Kitchen Turns Two!
The Scholarly Kitchen turns two! Thanks for reading and commenting. We have some surprises coming later this year. Continue reading
E-books Get a Leg Up from CrossRef
CrossRef moves into the reference works area for e-books, with a linking approach and pricing that might just work. Continue reading
Star Wars vs. Star Trek — Or, the Story of What Happened to the Crawl in Space
The yellow letters from 1977 imperil some teens. Can NCC-1701 rescue them from this menace and prove which franchise is best? Continue reading
Why the iPad Marks the End of Price Controls for eBooks—and Why Publishers Have Lost
Publishers may have won the pricing war, but the real struggle is now on for users’ attention. Because the iPad is not a dedicated e-book reader there are, unfortunately, many things that users can do with the device other than read books. Unlike the Kindle, where publishers have the device all to themselves iPad users will be able to surf the Web, play games, watch movies, view their photo collections, listen to music, watch TV, send e-mail, work on a presentation, or access over one hundred thousand applications that do any number of distracting things. Continue reading
Why the iPad Marks the End of Price Controls for eBooks—and Why Publishers Have Won
The iPad moves electronic reading to a multi-function device, marking the end of proprietary interfaces controlling commerce for e-reading. Continue reading
Lessons from a Neighboring Industry — Demand Media’s Disruptive Impact on Journalism
Demand Media has created a journalism and custom content platform that disrupting neighboring publishing models. Can we learn something from their approach? Continue reading
Culture Trumps Technology: The UC Berkeley Scholarly Communication Report
A guide to the values, cultures and scholarly communication behaviors of academics. A must read for publishers and technologists. Continue reading
A Technology Reality Check — The Fable of the Facebook Login
While we continue to explore new and ever-more complex online technologies, the Internet provides a stunning example that for many, the web browser is more than they can handle. Continue reading
Google Buys Aardvark for $50 Million
Google makes a definitive move in social, acquiring Aardvark for $50M. Continue reading
Google Buzz: Will Social + Email = Happiness?
Google Buzz has dragged Gmail into the social sphere. Will it be a match made in heaven? Or does it remind users of someplace farther south? Continue reading
Distribution Doesn’t Matter? Content Vessels Are Irrelevant? Device Makers and Broadband Providers Are Laughing All the Way to the Bank
Information wants to be free? Then why are expenditures for information skyrocketing? Maybe the pendulum has swung back to “information wants to be expensive.” Continue reading
Are Publisher Linking Networks Like 2Collab and Connotea Choking to Death on Spam?
2Collab and Connotea are choking on spam, and they may not have the right scale or architecture to avoid a future defined by it. Continue reading
Mapping Facebook — How Our Cultures Are Revealed Through Social Networking
How the US appears through Facebook. Do you live in Stayathomia or Socalistan? Continue reading
Are Google and Microsoft Squaring Off Over Public Domain Works?
Why Google apparently gives government documents more protections than 19th century texts is just one of the puzzles in their usage guidelines. Continue reading
New Chef: Welcome Alix Vance to the Scholarly Kitchen
We welcome Alix Vance, SSP Board Member and president of Paratext, as the newest chef in the Scholarly Kitchen. Continue reading
Authors
The mission of the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) is "[t]o advance scholarly publishing and communication, and the professional development of its members through education, collaboration, and networking." SSP established The Scholarly Kitchen blog in February 2008 to keep SSP members and interested parties aware of new developments in publishing.
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The Scholarly Kitchen is a moderated and independent blog. Opinions on The Scholarly Kitchen are those of the authors. They are not necessarily those held by the Society for Scholarly Publishing nor by their respective employers.