The Web was created as a coordination and cooperation tool for scientists. Subsequently, it had a revolutionary impact on almost all aspects of our life. The rise of a “network society”  did in the end, however, only had a minor effect on the forms of organising among the scientific community. Its paradigm of scientific communication and cooperation between a scholar and a publisher dates back to the early 17th century.

“The good news is, we’re not too dumb for democracy,” David Moscrop told a packed room of media, activists, book lovers, academics, and more.

I was recently given Amazon credit as payment for peer-reviewing a monograph. While this was a nice perk for doing something I probably would have done for free, it is striking to see just how much Amazon impacts on the publishing industry in often unexpected ways.

Three students share their thoughts on the President’s Dream Colloquium on Making Knowledge Public.

Following on from my last post on academic freedom and statements of principle, I want to further clarify my thoughts on how academic freedom relates to open access mandates. Paradoxically, despite claiming that objections to open access mandates on the grounds of academic freedom are mere conservatism, it is likely that the coercive aspect of mandates is what perpetuates such objections.

Global rankings have decisively shifted the nature of the conversation around higher education to  emphasise universities’ performance in knowledge economies. How did that happen and why are rankings becoming increasingly important? The emergence of global rankings coincided with the acceleration of globalisation at the turn of the millennium. This is because higher education is a global game.

Die community-gestützte Open-Source-Software VIVO gibt es seit etwa 15 Jahren. Ursprünglich wurde sie an der Cornell University entwickelt. Über die Zeit hat sich ein großes Netzwerk von VIVO-einsetzenden Institutionen entwickelt. Weltweit sind zur Zeit 165 Anwender registriert – wobei dort längst nicht alle aktiven VIVO-Implementierungen erfasst sind.

Museums, libraries and archives play a pivotal role in the preservation of human knowledge. They also see themselves as custodians of cultural and natural heritage. The task of natural history collections is twofold: on the one hand, they preserve our knowledge about nature, on the other, they hold records of the history of human exploration and conquest of the earth.

How can a research organization systematically spark innovation in science? The Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft (LBG) borrowed its name from the famous Austrian physicist, mathematician, and natural philosopher Ludwig Boltzmann. We are greatly indebted to him for his way of looking at the world and science itself.

In diesem Jahr findet der 7. Bibliotheks Kongress in Leipzig statt, der zugleich der 108. Deutsche Bibliothekartag ist. Die Veranstaltungsformate variieren von “klassischen” Vorträgen über Fishbolws bis hin zu interaktive Hands-On Labs. Dabei werden alle denkbaren Themen für öffentliche als auch wissenschaftliche Bibliotheken angesprochen. Parallel findet eine Messe statt, bei der sich viele Aussteller zu den verschiedensten Themen präsentieren.