Writing

A new study of 8 learned-society journals in the humanities and social sciences reaches some surprising conclusions. For instance, it costs almost four times as much to publish an article in such a journal than it does to publish one in a science, technical, or medical journal. (We're talking about journals run by scholarly societies, not the big commercial ventures or the heavyweights like Nature.) The report's not publicly available yet but should be soon, and I expect it will kick up a lot of dust in scholarly-publishing circles. Read More at The Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription) »

Many scholarly publishers want to make and sell digital books but are daunted by the cost and the technological hurdles. Four university presses--NYU, Penn, Rutgers, and Temple--have banded together to investigate the possibility of a collaborative e-book platform for such presses. Read More at The Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription) »

How can we make sure that the record of what happened at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center is not lost to time, link rot, and historical rewriting? Create a Gitmo archive. Mark Denbeaux, a law professor at Seton Hall University, and Jonathan Hafetz, an ACLU lawyer, are doing just that, beginning with Gitmo defense attorneys' accounts and notes. (Both men represent detainees.) Michael Nash, head of the Tamiment Library at NYU, is helping them. I take a look at the early stages of the project. Read More at The Chronicle of Higher Education »

My report from this year's Association of American University Presses, held June 17-20 in Philadelphia. My assessment: Scholarly presses are "bloodied but still standing." Read More at The Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription) »

What makes a lead book a lead book? For my Hot Type column, I asked a handful of presses how the casting process works. Read More at The Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription) »