Tim Elfenbein

A leading historian of decolonization, Fred Cooper, on the uses and pitfalls of the inflationary invocation of decolonization.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

"We believed contributions such as interactive articles and visualizations were held back by not being seen as real publications...we no longer believe this...the bottleneck is the amount of effort and the unusual combination of scientific and design expertise required" distill.pub/2021/distill...

Teaching Friedler et al today "The (Im)possibility of Fairness: Different Value Systems Require Different Mechanisms For Fair Decision Making." It's the final word on this question (how can you make a machine fair?) but I still find something new in it every time.

"First Monday will cease publication, after 30 years, with the May 2026 issue, volume 31, number 6, scheduled for release around the first Monday of May, 4 May 2026."

What a loss. Just a groundbreaking platform for weird research about the internet, from back when no one took the internet seriously

Screen shot of title page of a preprint. Title: Should generative AI be used in reflexive qualitative research? Authors: Elida Izani Ibrahim, Laura K. Nelson, and Andrea Voyer

Recent publications arguing against the use of genAI in reflexive qual research inspired us (Elida Ibrahim and @andreavoyer.bsky.social) to write our own perspective. Not to convince anyone to use genAI but for those who might be interested and are looking for guidance.

osf.io/preprints/so...

www.dukeupress.edu/p-fkn-r

Finally get to teach my son about curling. Didn’t expect to be doing so from our new home in Saint Martin, instead of Wisconsin.

Handwriting recognition (HTR) is now on the same track as printed character recognition (OCR). It ain't perfect and there are some types of docs and some languages that it's much worse for, but for an increasing set of documents, it's basically infinitely faster than and about as good as people.

ADVICE: If universities want their journals to be sustainable, and to serve scholarship well, three practical implications follow.
First, treat journals as infrastructure.
Second, invest in metadata as a public good.
Third, recognise diversity as a feature, not a failure.

Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves – In the Library with the Lead Pipe Vocational awe describes the set of ideas, values, and assumptions librarians have about themselves and the profession that result in notions that libraries as institutions are inherently good, sacred notions, and therefore beyond critique. I argue that the concept of vocational awe directly correlates to problems within librarianship like burnout and low salary. This article aims to describe the phenomenon and its effects on library philosophies and practices so that they may be recognized and deconstructed.

If you're not familiar with Fobazi Ettarh's scholarship, her essay on vocational awe is a foundational text in critical librarianship. The best time to read it was any time since it was published, the second best time is right now: www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocatio...

Last time I tried this, two books replaced the one I pulled out to read. Won’t do that again.

It was a mistake to teach sand to think

Argonauts of the Western Passiac

Looking forward to this #UKSGwebinar on Open Access and AI "does free to read mean free to train?" with Caroline Ball (@heroicendeavour.bsky.social), Stephanie Decker, & Rob Johnson (@rschrobuk.bsky.social)
#openaccess

MetaROR’s approach to Crossref DOI registration

Innovation in scientific publishing and its implications for Crossref DOI registration practices - MetaROR’s approach

doi.org/10.64000/vfe...

Together with @andre-brasil.bsky.social I just published this blog post about @crossref.bsky.social DOI registration practices for @metaror.bsky.social.

DOAJ Platform Manager Brendan O’Connell

Web scraping to train #LLMs has surged in the past few years, overwhelming #OpenAccess infrastructures like #DOAJ with bot traffic.

DOAJ Platform Manager Brendan O'Connell discusses how we’re responding to these challenges.
🤖 #AI #OpenInfrastructure #Chatbots

blog.doaj.org/2026/01/26/o...

Academic libraries cannot afford to carry on with transformative agreements - LSE Impact Caroline Edwards argues transformative agreements are unaffordable and introduces the Open Journals Collective as a model for scaling open access.

Now the #OpenJournalsCollective catalogue is live time to revisit @theblochian.bsky.social's @lseimpactblog.bsky.social article abt why it matters, why #TheFutureIsDiamond & how you can join our movement

Read the blog & follow links to the #OJC website for more info

blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

Bookshop.org Teams with Draft2Digital The online bookselling platform has partnered with the self-publishing company to allow self-published authors to sell e-books on its site.

For so long Amazon has had a monopoly on selling self-published books. Good to see that @bookshop.org is ready to compete in the space! www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

Wait a minute, slow down AJ, you rushed right past the literal trauma surgeon to reach for a figurative one.

Academic publishers defeat lawsuit over ‘peer review’ pay, other restrictions A group of major academic publishers convinced a judge in New York to dismiss a lawsuit accusing them of thwarting competition by barring scholars from submitting papers to multiple journals simultane...

Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

What Makes This Repository Different? Its Values. KCWorks for Institutions, an open-source repository service affiliated with Michigan State University, is distinguished not only by its price, but by its mission.

We are in the final technical stages of launching our institutional repository, KC Works. The idea is to provide a community-governed, academic-owned repository system with decent, open values. Here's some more info about it!

katinamagazine.org/content/arti...

"When in doubt, draw a distinction."

Not sure where he got it, but in grad school one of my teachers taught me that.

This (long) thread is about the key distinctions I rely on as a critic. There's a Twitter version from 2021. This one builds on that one.

I will post them one at a time. Ready?

Wiley: "We’re supporting responsible research assessment practices" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1520...

Also Wiley: "Prove that your article is a good fit for this journal 😉😉😉😉😉 by citing at least two of our articles in your manuscript before we will even consider reviewing it" 🤡

clawXiv.org The world's first preprint server for agents.

Should you want to browse through the new academic public sphere of papers fully written by autonomous AI agents

www.clawxiv.org

Open Journals Collective launches to give libraries 'exit ramp' from big deals - Research Information Libraries invited to back a "sustainable, community-led alternative to commercial scholarly publishing models"

Getting some nice press coverage for the launch of #OpenJournalsCollective last week @researchinfo.bsky.social #TheFutureIsDiamond

www.researchinformation.info/news/open-jo...

Have I got a publication for you.

limn.press/issue/ghostw...

A colorful graphic bearing the Direct to Open (D2O) logo.

We're happy to open 39 titles in our Spring 2026 list via Direct to Open. Our thanks to the libraries that have pledged their support! To reach our funding goals and those of partners Goldsmiths Press & Duke UP, the commitment window is open through Feb 28th, 2026: mitpress.mit.edu/the-mit-pres...

"In 1934, editors at one major publisher went on strike, and big names joined the picket line, among them Dashiell Hammett. The strikers' demands painted a dreary picture: enough light to see manuscripts; no docking pay for sick days... "

—Michael Castleman, "The Untold Story of Books"

People like to romanticize letterpress printing but the working conditions were *terrible* for those who did it as a job. When ppl play around with it now that should be remembered too

Update: found a box of matzos at our local grocery, which is up the street from the one Jewish institution in Saint Martin, the Chabad house. So our traditional Super Bowl meal of spam musubi and matzo ball soup is a go.