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Multigrain Discussion: If Books Are Dead, Why Is Barnes & Noble Stock So Hot?

gilsont — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 19:11:23 +0000

Good Question! Why are shares of B&N returning 34.5 percent over the last 12 months if books, their main stock in trade, are on life support? There is no denying that on the surface things are not looking good for the bookstore giant as it continues to suffer revenue shortfalls and negative operating cash [...]

Mulitgrain Discussion: PubMed, F1000 Research, Peer Review and the question of standards

gilsont — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 01:03:09 +0000

A number of you may have read Information Today‘s article F1000Research Launches Following Successful Beta-Testing Phase reporting the successful launch of F1000Research’s new Open Science publishing program for life scientists. According to the article this new publishing platform offers “researchers for the first time immediate publication, transparent and fast peer-review post-publication, and [...]

Multigrain Discussion: Is the Traditional Research Library Dead or Morphing into a New Model?

gilsont — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 19:02:39 +0000

As many of you will remember, the recent Charleston Conference ended with a Hyde Park Corner Debate between Rick Anderson and Derek Law over the proposition that the traditional research library is dead. After a feisty debate, Rick prevailed when the audience vote to support his argument that traditional research libraries are in [...]

Multigrain Discussion: The 12 Planets and the Unidentified Flying Elephant

gilsont — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:48:52 +0000

The 12 Planets and the Unidentified Flying Elephant

By Sue Wiegand

Okay, so the elephant isn’t really flying, but the six blind monks in the old story who were trying to identify it based on different parts of its anatomy (“It’s like a tree branch!” cried the one who touched [...]

Multigrain Discussion: The Finch Report: “Gold” versus “Green” open access

gilsont — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 22:25:34 +0000

As many of you know the Finch Committee Report and its support of “gold” open access has gotten a lot of press both pro and con. The battle lines continue to be drawn. InfoDOCKET reports an article in the Guardian that notes the UK government “is to unveil controversial plans to [...]

Multigrain Discussion: Why Publishers Don’t like Apps.

gilsont — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 14:18:23 +0000

Recently Jason Pontin, editor in chief and publisher of Technology Review raised some eyebrows with his provocative article Why Publishers Don’t like Apps. Mr. Pontin claims that two years ago publishers were “overtaken by a collective delusion.” They thought that the advent of iPADs and smartphones promised a way to deliver their newspaper [...]

Multigrain Discussion: Ray Bradbury and the Lifelong Love of Libraries

gilsont — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 18:46:24 +0000

With the recent loss of the great science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, we’ve been seeing number of quotes attributed him in the media. However, one in particular jumped out at us.

“I am a librarian. I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library. Before I fell in love [...]

Multigrain Discussion: Tony Horava’s thoughts on the “Tools of Change” digital publishing conference

gilsont — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 19:07:05 +0000

Last week we posted the article “At Last, They See: E-Books ‘Democratize’ Publishing” by NPR’s by Lynn Neary as our Article of the Week. The article focused on major themes from the recent Tools of Change digital publishing conference and raised a number of very interesting questions. So when we received this typically [...]

Multigrain Discussion: Another Response to the Elsevier Boycott

gilsont — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:58:33 +0000

As most of you know we have featured the Elsevier boycott as the Hot Topic of the Week on the ATG NewsChannel. In fact, it’s so hot we have featured it twice – with updates. Now, in this Multigrain Discussion piece, Chuck Hamaker adds his perspective to the ever-growing list of viewpoints on the [...]

Multigrain Discussion: What’s going on in the Penguin-OverDrive-Amazon Affair?

gilsont — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:23:02 +0000

Multigrain Discussion: What’s going on in the Penguin – OverDrive – Amazon Affair?

by Tom Gilson, Associate Editor.

As many of you know, last week Penguin suspended availability of their ebooks to libraries via OverDrive and asked that the “Get for Kindle” functionality be disabled for all Penguin eBooks. And then a few days later, [...]

MultiGrain Discussion: Are e-textbooks ready for prime time?

hindsl — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 13:00:54 +0000

An article from the Pittsburg Post-Gazette recently caught our eye by claiming that the e-textbooks “that the major publishers have been offering … don’t save students that much money.” That kind of surprised us. The article moved on to pointed out other disadvantages. Many e-textbooks are set to “expire at the end of the semester, preventing students [...]

MultiGrain Discussion: Even when “something’s gotta give,” libraries are thriving…right? Join the debate!

hindsl — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:04:02 +0000

With low usage and shrinking budgets, libraries are challenged to justify resource investments now more than ever. At the same time, information users are ill prepared to navigate the amount and quality of content on the web. This creates a tremendous opportunity for libraries to show that they are well equipped to help users navigate information [...]

MultiGrain Discussion: Are E-Textbooks Ready for Primetime?

hindsl — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 12:30:40 +0000

By Tom Gilson, Associate Editor (gilsont@cofc.edu)

MultiGrain Discussion: Authors Guild Suit

hindsl — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 12:44:47 +0000

by Tom Gilson, Associate Editor (gilsont@cofc.edu)

Perhaps the biggest news item of this week is the lawsuit filed against the HathiTrust, the University of Michigan, and four other universities. The Authors Guild, Inc. and two other author associations as well as eight individuals are suing the HathiTrust and the universities for what they claim is [...]

MultiGrain Discussion: “Gloom and Doom”

hindsl — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:03:18 +0000

by Tom Gilson, Associate Editor, gilsont@cofc.edu

In a recent post to Scholarly Kitchen (The Eve of Destruction,” Now on YouTube), Joe Esposito bemoans the “gloom and doom” that the publishing industry is constantly mired in. “It is the prevailing narrative, and it has been at least since I got into this business 30 years [...]

MultiGrain Discussion: Amazon Boycott

hindsl — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 19:17:15 +0000

by Tom Gilson, Associate Editor (gilsont@cofc.edu)

There has been a lot of recent buzz about the proposed boycott of Amazon by a coalition of non-profits in California. According to the Huffington Post one of the groups behind the boycott, Think Before You Click CA, claims that the sales tax will bring in $200 [...]

MultiGrain Forum: eBooks and Memory

hindsl — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 16:40:59 +0000

by Tony Horava, University of Ottawa, thorava@uottawa.ca

I’ve been thinking alot lately about ebooks and memory, esp as we have entered the era of mobile devices in a major way. Memory and reading are intricately bound together. What we read and how we read affects the development of memory – all of us have [...]

MultiGrain Discussion: ILL

hindsl — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 21:23:24 +0000

by Tom Gilson, Associate Editor, GilsonT@cofc.edu

Interlibrary loan faces more competition than ever and while some may argue that users will never pay the fees asked by services like “Get it Now” or “On Demand Books” they might not have to. What happens if libraries discover that it is more cost effective to allocate funds [...]

MultiGrain: e-Use Statistics

hindsl — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 19:42:59 +0000

by Katina Strauch, Editor kstrauch@comcast.net

This is in answer to Rick Anderson’s recent article in LJ — “Print on the Margins: Circulation Trends in Major Research Libraries”. Rick seems to be addressing the circulation of print resources and points to the the changes in user behavior. We at ATG have been asking our subscribers [...]

Is the Big Deal Unsustainable?

hindsl — Mon, 02 May 2011 13:28:56 +0000

by Katina Strauch, Editor, kstrauch@comcast.net

In light of a recent blog post at Open and Shut? (http://poynder.blogspot.com/2011/03/demise-of-big-deal.html) we are discussing the “Demise of the Big Deal.”

An exerpt:

Claudio Aspesi — an analyst based at the sell-side research firmSanford Bernstein — predicts a difficult future for Reed Elsevier, particularly for [...]