From Page to Screen

At such an event as the recent Miami Book Fair, everyone may be forgiven for thinking of reading and writing as natural. Certainly, these activities seem natural to us all, but reading and writing are not natural at all. Speech is natural to humans, as natural as...

The Varied Voices of Science

Picture in your mind a research laboratory. The researchers working there may wear the same white coats, and their faces may be obscured behind safety glasses and gauze masks, but they are, naturally, individual human beings –newly-minted Ph.D.s and much-respected...

Publishing’s Big Night Out

At the National Book Awards on Wednesday night, the program ran a close second to the winning authors for its diversity and its high entertainment quotient. The evening’s master of ceremonies, Larry Wilmore, brought to the gala the same sharp wit he had shown as host...

Meet An Open Access Hero

For taking on the challenge of Open Access, the real heroes are publishing professionals like Raegel De Guzman of BMJ Group in London. In the last year alone, BMJ has launched seven new Open Access journals, including one that is wholly-owned by a society. De Guzman...

Big Data Big Trouble

Equal parts mathematician and political activist, Cathy O’Neil has calculated the impact of algorithms on society.  For the most part, she says, big data adds up to big trouble. When it comes to human activities, algorithms are expected to be models of objectivity,...

Books In Browsers Returns

Born in a world before smartphones and tablets, the Books in Browsers conference was once aptly named, as it concentrated on reading online. In 2016, of course, digital reading is about much more than books and browsers. After a one-year hiatus that allowed organizers...

The Power of Content

In May, Copyright Clearance Center acquired UK-based Ixxus to help harness the power of content and licensing. Together, CCC and Ixxus are now working with publishers to develop a “content-fi­rst” strategy that combines advanced semantic enrichment, a “single source...

The Future of Copyright

As was evident everywhere at the recent Frankfurt Book Fair, publishing today depends on technology, and technology is pressing copyright in ways never imagined in the days of printing presses. Copyright holders in the digital age are under challenge across the globe,...

BookExpo Evolves

Organizations and organism share more than a Latin root word. Both are never static, but destined forever for change. Over time, evolution takes its course. Organisms and organizations once dominant in their environments must find ways to adapt to change or give way...