When the Data hits the Fan!

Book of the Dead of the Priest of Horus, Imhotep (Imuthes), ca. 332–200 B.C. The Metropolitan Museum of Art http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/551786 The recent final reports for the Academic Book of the Future are a revealing, well balanced account of the current and future state of scholarly monograph publishing in the UK. One feature is the close attention given to Open Access in books ( pages 175-195 in Michael Jubb's report ) . In this blog I want to unpack the consequences of Book Processing Charges in a Gold OA environment and how they would be utterly unsustainable in a future OA mandated REF environment.

Barnes & Noble is shutting down its Nook app store , (effective from March 15, 2016) through which it sold ebooks for its e-reader, the Nook. Unless Nook owners in the UK take action immediately then their ebooks (& films) could be lost to them. It is yet another example of how you don’t own your ebooks with DRM - you’re merely licensing the right to read them for a time. This announcement is a bit like a commercially driven virtual Fahrenheit 451 "fireman" is going to disable your eBooks in a fast digital fire.