Print on demand and book innovation

With todays technology there is not significant cost saving with printing books in bulk compared to print on demand. It is computers and robots that is doing most of the work anyway.

I believe that eventually open digital books with innovative business models will win over the proprietary offerings that we have today.
"10 innovative digital books you should know about
A look at 10 envelope-pushing digital books."

Climate change and open source

THE HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF ‘OPEN SCIENCE’ An Essay on Patronage, Reputation and Common Agency Contracting in the Scientific Revolution Higly recommended!!
http://www-siepr.stanford.edu/workp/swp06008.pdf

Could climate science become open source?
http://ourworld.unu.edu/en/could-climate-science-become-open-source/

Mitigating “Anticommons” Harms to Research In Science and Technology New Moves in “Legal Jujitsu” against Adverse Consequences of the Exploitation of IPR on Publicly and Privately Funded Research Results (oktober 2010)
http://siepr.stanford.edu/system/files/shared/pubs/10-009_v2.pdf

Collaborative Research in e-Science and Open Access to Information
http://www-siepr.stanford.edu/papers/pdf/08-21.pdf

Preparing for the Next, Very Long Crisis: Towards a ‘Cool’ Science and Technology Policy Agenda For a Globally Warming Economy
http://www.merit.unu.edu/publications/wppdf/2009/wp2009-031.pdf

Kjell Lars Berge sin argumentasjon mot Huitfeldt

Kjell Lars Berge og hans mange støttespelarar ser ut til å ta i bruk "målet heilagar midlet"-tankegang for tida. No er det ikkje berre barneporno og terror ein vil til livs med Datalagringsdirektiver. No skal bevaring av språket verte det som legitimerar forlaga sine ynskjemål om privilegier og økonomisk støtte, for å bevare demokratiet og yttringsfridomen.

Det er tydelegvis ikkje grenser for kor viktig det er å bevare privilegiane til det gamle kulturfinansieringssystemet. Eg er ikkje overraska over at dei same folka har null problemer med å ofre yttringsfridomen med Datalagringsdirektivet, Acta, Ipred etc.

Me har altså med ein kulturelite som jamt over har eit veldig lite gjennomtenkt praktisk og etisk nivå, syner tydeleg at dei manglar evna til å tenkje i proporsjonar og nyansert.

I artikkelen i Dagbladet 19.10 "Vil kneble Språkrådet" http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/19/kultur/debatt/debattinnlegg/sprakradet/13904103/ visar Kjell Lars Berge at han eigentleg er interessert i å vidareføre gamleg forretningsmodellar og privilegier i kulturlivet, under dekkje av at språket er grunnlaget for demokrati og yttringsfridom. Ok, språk er viktig, men det får vere måte på. Å blåse opp Språkrådet si rolle som nærmast ein garantist for kunnskap, yttringsfridom, levande språk og demokrati er heilt ute av proporsjonar.

At til dømes den norske Wikipediaen sansynlegvis er langt meir effektiv for å bevare det norske språket enn dei fleste av privilegia som Berge foreslår er nok eit døme på kor einauga og unyansert han er på norsk språkpolitikk.

Då Per Egil Hegge måtte forklare han skilnaden på å skulde folk for lygn og seie at dei tøvar, så viste han at me eigentleg har å gjere med ein person som er oppteken av å overtyde framføre å stå for det han eigentleg driv med.

I diagogen Gorgias, så avkledde Platon retorikarane (talekunstnarane) og viste at dei eigentleg ikkje kunne stå for det dei sa. Filosofane vant. I går på Aktuelt vant Per Egil Hegge over talekunstnaren Berge som måtte fossro etter å ikkje ha nytta sjansa han fekk av Hegge til å koma med ei orsaking.

Det er forøvrig deprimerande at store delar av kulturnoreg er så lotteleg prinsipplause at dei kritiserar Huitfeldt for å undergrave yttringsfridom på grunn av at ho ikkje støttar Store Norske Leksikon, medan dei sjølve går inn for totalovervaking av vanlege borgarar og ein totalfjerning av pressa sin bruk av løynde kjelder. At det går an?!

If we listened to the the anti-technologists...

We would have banned:
Hollywood, recording industry, cabel TV, copy machine, radio, VCR, MP3, Cassette player etc.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100925/12401911168/a-look-at-the-technologies-industries-senators-leahy-hatch-would-have-banned-in-the-past.shtml

See also:

More People Think about Smart Copyright Reform
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100926/23314311178/more-people-thinking-about-smart-copyright-reform.shtml

The worlds biggest research community is...

Zotero!

"Downloaded millions of times since 2006 and used by hundreds of thousands of researchers daily, Zotero has grown to the world’s largest and most diverse online research community, with nearly 50 million library items presently synced to zotero.org."

http://www.zotero.org/blog/zoteros-next-big-step/

American Economic Association swimming in money

"This is a society with a sound financial basis that could set an example for the rest of the publishers by showing that good research should not be gated. Would this be a money losing proposition? I do not think so, first because the AEA will always have good income from its meeting registrations, and second because it would not need to maintain anymore a whole infrastructure to keep outsiders away from its journals. The AEA could probably cancel membership fees altogether and still make it work."

http://economiclogic.blogspot.com/2010/08/aea-is-missing-golden-opportunity.html

Nature golden open access fees

I wonder if these estimates can be real:

"1. Estimates of $10,000 – $30,000 in author charges for one OA article? You heard it here first. That’s the entire journals budget for some small libraries. They’d be able to get one article for the year – for all the faculty. I wouldn’t call that a viable OA option."

http://scientopia.org/blogs/bookoftrogool/2010/09/20/nature-the-response/

Barnes and Nobles without a buyer

The future don't looks to bright for Barnes and Nobles at the moment. Founder and Chairman of Barnes and Nobles look at the digitization as a major challenge:

"According to Riggio: “Digital publishing and digital book-selling will soon become the most explosive development in the history of our industry and will sweep aside those who aren’t participating.”"

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article22100.html

Does the internet make experts dumb?

Most people think that the Internet makes us smarter (65 % vs. 34 percent of Wall Stret Journals readers), but Andrew Keen seems to disagree in his book "The Cult of the Amateur". Now JP Rangaswami make a wonderful analysis which he states that the internet just makes experts looks dumber :-)

http://online.wsj.com/community/groups/online-services-398/topics/internet-making-us-smarter-dumber

http://www.amazon.com/Cult-Amateur-Internet-Killing-Culture/dp/0385520808

http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2010/08/22/does-the-web-make-experts-dumb/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ConfusedOfCalcutta+%28Confused+of+Calcutta%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

New important book

Barbara van Schewick has written a book that deserve attention:

http://ammori.org/2010/08/11/vanschewic/

More than 100 cubic feet archive goes open access

The Irving Louis Horowitz-Transaction Publishers Archives, 1939-2009 are now open access documenting development of the social sciences.

http://live.psu.edu/story/47470/rss13