Peter Barr

Google Scholar Is Doomed Academia built entire careers on a free Google service with zero guarantees. What could go wrong?

Since search is dead, how soon do you think Google Scholar is headed for the Google Graveyard? I'm betting it's soon, and academia is NOT prepared

Out now!

We've published Issue 07 of @proghist.bsky.social's Bulletin // Boletín // Bulletin // Boletim.

We highlight the French team's call for reviewers, thank a long-term member, and invite you to our first webinar on reuse of PH lessons under CC-BY.

Read it here!

tinyurl.com/bulletin-iss...

With today's sad news about PubPub, is it time to roll out the much-overused infrastructure image? A reminder that funders, agencies, ministries, and institutions continue to fund outputs and new projects that sit precariously atop software, projects, and community initiatives that go un(der)funded.

I think this is a positive move. KU has been very effective at getting things OA but its governance has always been a stumbling block for us at Sheffield

New Release by Lever Press. One of the publishers supported by @sheffielduni.bsky.social Library Open Scholarship Fund

Come and join our team as Production Manager at @uolpress.bsky.social! 📚

The role would particularly suit someone with production experience in academic publishing, interested in #OpenAccess books and the #humanities. More info on the job and how to apply below ⬇️

Please share!

Great reflection on the importance of libraries to society, now more than ever, from University Librarian at Maynooth University @cathalmccauley.bsky.social

Back on the picket line with Library colleagues and @sheffielducu.bsky.social

It's nice to wear shorts and all but It's a testament to how consistently mismanaged this place is that we've had to do this during blizzards and heatwaves

SU flier: 10:00: Learn a Minority Language: Mari by Irina Sadovina, Gallery Room 3 Sheffield Labour Against Benefit Cuts by Ash Taylor, Gallery Room 2 11:00: Does Confronting Prejudice Work?, by Lilith Roberts Gallery Room 2 Sewing/crafting skills swap, by Jessica Baily, Gallery Room 3 12:00: Rally: Students and Staff Against University Cuts! SU Concourse 13:00:Student & Staff Tea Time, hosted by Tea Soc, Uni Central 14:00: The Fight for the Archeology Department by Umberto Albarella, Uni Central 15:00: Palestine organising and repression, by SUCU’s Working Group on Palestine, Uni Central Zine Making & Quilting for an Anti-Ableist University, by Cassie Kill & Daniel Jones, Gallery Room 3

Tomorrow our members are taking strike action to say no to job cuts! 💪

Join our picket lines from 8:30am, as well as various teach outs from 10am, and a Demo on the SU Concourse from Midday. 📣

Positive spin – things break down a little, but this undermines a slightly warping commercial logic that has dominated for too long, and we come out of this with creative, partnership approaches for future dissemination of scholarly content

Negative spin – the constant turmoil is going to make people protect what power they have, making things more confrontational, more suspicious losing track of the big idea in pursuit of short term survival

Scaling up – a lot of revenue-driven publishers told me that only they could offer the scale the sector needed, yet at the same conference @ojcollective.bsky.social was launched and @oipassoc.bsky.social and @copim.bsky.social were out in force

Next Gen OA – big publishers don’t seem to know what libraries/institutions want, and I fear they are going to fall back on vaguely adapted R&P deals. Libraries message about what they want is muddled between budget cuts and principles. Also US & European Libraries are not the world

Malevolent Tech – cybersecurity, AI & research integrity but the idea that trusted actors (libraries and publishers) can help mitigate this. The downside of proliferation and unfettered access, with the potential to be painted as an anti-OA argument

Money – there’s less of it to go around, UK & US Academic libraries are hoping for political changes that might not be very slow in coming. Publishers recalibrating to a shrinking market

🧵 My views after #UKSG2025, regurgitated from linkedin. Themes of lack of money, wider turmoil, malevolent tech but with opportunities everywhere to do things differently now

Can you play "Everday AI writes the book" by Elvis Costello & The Attractions

#researchintegrity
#uksg2025

The ruins of Brighton's west pier

And here's a metaphor for the funding model of British higher education

The sea... vast, unfathomable, treacherous. Just like academic publishing #amirite? *

Made it to Brighton before sunset for #uksg2025 tomorrow

(*follow me for more pithy metaphors throughout the conference - maybe)

In bid to expand, bioRxiv and medRxiv preprint servers move to newly formed nonprofit Backers seek to increase contributions from authors at institutions beyond the global elite

"Principal funders are the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI)... and another donor that wishes to remain anonymous" 🤔

In bid to expand, bioRxiv and medRxiv preprint servers move to newly formed nonprofit | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

...Vibe...

Tension between recurring-revenue and perpetual ownership, but also the desire to reduce transactional cost (which is an expense for libraries too, but a key to giving our users the freedom they want)... if everyone would just choose from one platform it would be a massive efficiency but they don't

Alexei Sayle: “Austerity was the idea that the world financial crisis was caused by having too many libraries open in Wolverhampton”

I agree. This warping of terminology is a general curse of the age

To be fair, CUP are trying harder than the other big publishers to think about what comes next after R&P deals, and their ownership model should give them some freedom, but they can't seem to break out of a very revenue driven way of thinking

At the ALPSP redux conference last year several senior CUP people kept saying it was time for "librarians to step up" they never really explained what this meant but I think they meant find more money for us (...and I've got some bad news for them since then)

I'm interested in whether Big UPs and Scholarly Socs. could flip (to community-owned/scholar-led/whatever term we now have to come up with) but totally agree it needs to build up from governance and transparency not back from current revenue

Only a few days remaining to apply for this brilliant opportunity with @uksg.bsky.social

Librarian Criminalization Bills Are Growing, But They're Not New: Book Censorship News, March 14, 2025 With several bills that would criminalize librarians across the country, here's a recent history of this legislation and what it means. That, plus this week's book censorship news.

Librarian criminalization bills are growing in numbers across the US, but they're not new. Get to know what they are, how they began, what they mean, and what states are proposing them in 2025.

That, plus this week's book censorship news: bookriot.com/librarian-cr...

Just got around to reading this... it's great 👏👏👏

"libraries need to act as a community... [and] commit to prioritizing investment in the kinds of publishers & initiatives that we want to see continue and flourish."