Springer and Macmillan. A Marriage Made in Heaven?

Holtzbrinck Publishing announces agreement to merge majority of Macmillan Science and Education with Springer Science+Business Media.

This is a strategic transaction by Holtzbrinck and BCP aimed at securing the long-term growth of both businesses. It will create a leading global science and education publishing house with the opportunity to better serve its authors, the research community, academic institutions, learned societies and corporate research departments, as well as to extend its reach within the education and learning markets.

Opening Science: New publication forms in science

Digital technologies change how scientists access and process information and consequently impact publication forms in science. Even though the core of scientific publications has remained the same, established publication formats, such as the scientific paper or book, are succumbing to the transitions caused by digital technologies. At the same time, new online tools enable new publication forms, such as blogs, microblogs or wikis, to emerge. This article explores the changing and emerging publications forms in science and also reflects upon the changing role of libraries. The transformations of publishing forms are discussed in the context of open science.

Nature makes all articles free (to view)

Interesting move from Nature: All research papers from Nature will be made free to read in a proprietary screen-view format. It can be annotated but not copied, printed or downloaded. Is this open access or public relations? John Wilbanks:
"With access mandates on the march around the world, this appears to be more about getting ahead of the coming reality in scientific publishing. Now that the funders call the tune and the funders want the articles on the web at no charge, these articles are going to be open anyway.”

Microsoft Adds Momentum to “Open Science”

Momentum continues to build behind the “open science movement,” propelling the debate over publication of scholarly works and the scientific process itself. Last week, Microsoft Research announced it was adopting a policy that allows it to retain a license for research submitted to conferences or publishers in order to post it to a freely accessible online site as well. And earlier this week, pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson said it will release data from clinical trials, through an agreement with the Yale University Open Data Access Project.


re/code.

Open and Networked Initiatives and the Digital Transformation of Academic Publishing in China

A rare insight to academic publishing in China.
Many aspects of China's academic publishing system differ from the systems found in liberal market based economies of the United States, Western Europe and Australia. A high level of government intervention in both the publishing industry and academia and the challenges associated with attempting to make a transition from a centrally controlled towards a more market based publishing industry are two notable differences; however, as in other countries, academic communities and publishers are being transformed by digital technologies. This research explores the complex yet dynamic digital transformation of academic publishing in China, with a specific focus of the open and networked initiatives inspired by Web 2.0 and social media. The thesis draws on two case studies: Science Paper Online, a government-operated online preprint platform and open access mandate; and New Science, a social reference management website operated by a group of young PhD students. Its analysis of the innovations, business models, operating strategies, influences, and difficulties faced by these two initiatives highlights important characteristics and trends in digital publishing experiments in China.

Edinburgh: Publishing Conference 2 – Live stream

See also this summary.
The publishing industry is now changing faster than ever before due to internet services, digital publishing, free blogging platforms and open access journals. How will this continue to evolve in the future? Will the erosion of traditional publishing methods continue and how will publishing companies adapt? What are the growing entrepreneurial opportunities in this dynamic industry? Join us for a day of publishing talks, discussion and networking.
Mendeley were bought outright this week by Reed Elsevier, the Dutch publishing house who publish more than 2000 scientific journals, including the Lancet. Victor Henning is joined by Jason Priem of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, author of a recent horizon scanning feature in Nature, to discuss the future of science publication and how this wealth of research will be managed in the future.
BBC Radio.

Open Access, the Impact Agenda and resistance to the neoliberal paradigm

Tech Therapy: Episode 104: Professor Sees ‘Moral Imperative’ for Open Access

Permission barriers to text mining

Publishing Research Consortium 2013: Text Mining and Scholarly Publishing by Jonathan Clark, independent advisor on strategy and innovation. Prior he worked with Elsevier for 20 years in various roles in publishing, product management, technology, strategy & business development. Clark is a former Chair and Director of the International DOI Foundation.

Peer review – Pitfalls, possibilities, perils, promises

Two ways open access can radically reform science communication

Two ways open access can radically reform science communication