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Weekly News Digest

January 14, 2021 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today. CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.

Springer Nature CEO Sings the Praises of Collaborative and OA Practices

A Springer Nature press release notes that during the address, “he will provide evidence and data gathered over the past year to set out the need for a collaborative approach by research publishers in order for the benefits offered by open science to be fully realised—one which has partnership, collaboration, open access and transparency at its heart.”

Per the press release, the benefits of the partnerships Springer Nature has entered into include the following:

• Delivering increased publishing options to researchers and enabled the transition to OA at scale by Transformative Agreements with the likes of Projekt DEAL and the University of California
• Improving access and discoverability of research through partnerships such as that with ResearchGate for content syndication and being founding members of cross-publisher initiatives like Crossref and Get FTR
• Enhancing understanding of the societal impact of open research by working with data specialists like Digital Science and institutions and consortia such as VSNU and UKB in the Netherlands 
• Demonstrating the importance of research to making progress on the Sustainable Development Goals by partnering with the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network on a high-level global virtual conference that connected almost 1000 researchers, experts working alongside UN officials, government representatives, civil society leaders and policymakers.

For more information, read the press release.

ALA Suggests Ways to Join the 2021 National Day of Racial Healing

Libraries can use the Libraries Action Kit to get ideas for activities, such as:

• Offer reading recommendations about race and equality at your library or on your website. To start, visit ALA’s compilation of recommended reading lists on race and equality for all ages and reading levels.
• Convene a virtual book discussion focused on themes of race, identity and healing or host a virtual Racial Healing Circle. …
• Expand on anti-racism work in your community by applying for a Libraries Transform Communities Engagement Grant from ALA. …
• Take advantage of online resources to explore equity, diversity and inclusion in your own life and organization. Reflect about your own implicit biases using Project Implicit’s free Implicit Association Tests. Consider whether unintended racial prejudices are part of your organization with the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Race Matters: Organizational Self-Assessment.

For more information, read the press release.

'The Changing Logics of Scientific Publishing' by Koen Frenken

With the advent of online publishing in the 2000s, the cost structure of scientific publishing changed drastically. Now, printing and distribution costs have become very low. This has not only lowered the entry cost of new publishers, but it also lifted the natural restriction on the number of papers per issue which provided a strong rationale for gate-keeping by legacy journals. At the same time, several repositories became available on the Internet with published papers and pre-prints, making these accessible to readers without subscription. Partly due to this, the subscription model is now slowly substituted by the open access model, often with author processing charges.

In this turbulent context, many new journals have been introduced, both by incumbent publishers and new entrants. Some of these journals are considered predatory by one part of the academic community, pointing to high volumes of papers, low review standards and misleading soliciting. Indeed, as revenues of such journals rely solely on article processing charges, they may be tempted to follow a market logic of quantity over the professional logic of quality. Another part welcomes the many new open-access journals as it provides more opportunities for scholars in less-favored, peripheral positions as well as for new topics that are less readily accepted in other journals. What is more, the fast turn-around of papers helps the quick diffusion of results and insights, while their relatively low article processing charges promote inclusiveness.

In this light, labeling particular journals as predatory assumes a binary world of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. An alternative view is to acknowledge that there is a large ‘grey area’ of journals whose practices can be questioned, if only because most journals show little transparency about peer reviews, editorial policies and accept/reject decisions anyway.

For more information, read the article.

EBSCOed Gives On-the-Go Access to Educational Materials

EBSCOed can be used anytime, anywhere by students, teachers, administrators, staffers, and parents to get what they need, and there are integration options available for platforms such as a school’s course management system, learning management system, or Google Classroom.

For more information, read the press release.

ProQuest Rolls Out New Electronic Theses and Dissertations Dashboard

“Administrators and librarians can use this dashboard to get insights that lead to data-driven decisions about their institution’s research strengths, promotion opportunities, and performance against goals,” says April Ellsey, product manager lead at ProQuest.

For more information, read the press release.

Books Entering the Public Domain in 2021

[The Great] Gatsby, published in 1925, was illegal to reproduce without authorization in the United States until … January 1, 2021, when the copyright finally expired in the United States, along with those of other titles, including some that Duke University highlighted as part of the Public Domain Day initiative. I’d love to see the Biden Administration push for truly school-friendly copyright reform shortening outrageously long terms. Dr. Jill Biden, the forthcoming First Lady, has taught English for years at Northern Virginia College—full of cash-strapped students likely to benefit from a wider selection of free books. …

Below are links for students and other Americans to download some of the books Duke listed as newly freed.

—An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser (Feedbooks and Internet Archive).

—in our time, by Ernest Hemingway (One More Library).

—Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (Feedbooks and One More Library).

—The Trial, by Franz Kafka. The German text is now legally available for free, but even better from a U.S. perspective, Project Gutenberg appears to have arranged to distribute a free English-language translation. Also see Feedbooks.

—The New Negro—collected works from writers including W.E.B. du Bois, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Eric Walrond ... (Internet Archive).

For more information, read the article.

Publishers Weekly Creates a New Book Fair

Nawotka writes, “The fair will be run via a new, proprietary digital platform that will facilitate online exhibitors, presentations, and networking. In addition to Book Buzz and Galleys-to-Grab author events aimed at librarians and booksellers the show will feature an extensive professional programming series that will discuss the state of the industry as the nation begins to emerge from the grips of the Covid-19 pandemic.” Pricing will allow as many people as possible to attend, and self-publishers will have their own dedicated track of events.

“Having everyone under one ‘roof,’ so to speak, will go a long way toward unifying the industry around an annual U.S.-based event we have all come to rely on for networking, learning about the forthcoming big fall titles and one-to-one connection with booksellers and librarians,” says Jim Milliot, PW’s editorial director.

For more information, read the article.

Europe PMC Indexes Research Square's Preprints That Pertain to COVID-19

For more information, read the press release.

New LinkedIn Live Series Celebrates Women Business Leaders

Hosted by Pivot Point Consulting co-founder and managing partner Rachel Marano, each episode will be 19 minutes long in honor of the 19th Amendment. The first one arrives on Jan. 26 at 11 a.m. CST. The series will alternate between Vaco and Pivot Point Consulting’s LinkedIn pages and will be offered as a podcast as well.

For more information, read the press release.