Archives des mots-clés : self-publishing

Gender inequality and self-publication are common among academic editors

Posté le par

Authors : Fengyuan Liu, Petter Holme, Matteo Chiesa, Bedoor AlShebli, Talal Rahwan

Scientific editors shape the content of academic journals and set standards for their fields. Yet, the degree to which the gender makeup of editors reflects that of scientists, and the rate at which editors publish in their own journals, are not entirely understood.

Here, we use algorithmic tools to infer the gender of 81,000 editors serving more than 1,000 journals and 15 disciplines over five decades. Only 26% of authors in our dataset are women, and we find even fewer women among editors (14%) and editors-in-chief (8%).

Career length explains the gender gap among editors, but not editors-in-chief. Moreover, by analysing the publication records of 20,000 editors, we find that 12% publish at least one-fifth, and 6% publish at least one-third, of their papers in the journal they edit.

Editors-in-chief tend to self-publish at a higher rate. Finally, compared with women, men have a higher increase in the rate at which they publish in a journal soon after becoming its editor.

URL : Gender inequality and self-publication are common among academic editors

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01498-1

Public Libraries as Publishers: Critical Opportunity

Posté le par

Author : Kathryn M. Conrad

Libraries have a long and distinguished history of publishing, since their earliest days. Traditionally libraries published to expose their collections through bibliographies, facsimiles, and catalogs.

While the Internet has made discovery and dissemination of library holdings easier than ever before, digital publishing technologies have also unlocked compelling new purposes for library publishing, including through Open Access publishing initiatives.

The self-publishing explosion and availability of self-publishing tools and services geared to libraries have heralded new opportunities for libraries, especially public libraries, to engage their communities in new ways.

By supporting self-publishing initiative in their communities, public libraries can promote standards of quality in self-publishing, provide unique opportunities to engage underserved populations, and become true archives of their communities.

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/3336451.0020.106

From publishers to self-publishing: The disruptive effects of digitalisation on the book industry

Posté le par

Authors : Morten Hviid, Sabine Jacques, Sofia Izquierdo Sanchez

This paper explores the structure of the book publishing industry post-digitalisation. We argue that the introduction of successful e-book readers has belatedly given digitalisation the characteristics of a disruptive technology by making self-publishing a serious option for authors.

This has been supported by the entry of new types of intermediaries and the
strengthening of others. These changes have reduced the overall complexities for an author to get a book self-published.

As a result, a larger share of the surplus from the book industry is likely going to authors, explaining the significant increase in the supply of books. The potential over-supply of books has created a new problem by making consumer search more difficult.

We argue that digitalisation has shifted the potential market failure from inadequate supply of books to asymmetric information about quality.

It remains to be seen whether the market will provide appropriate intermediaries to solve the associated asymmetric information problem and, if not, what appropriate interventions should be contemplated.

URL : https://zenodo.org/record/321609/files/CREATe-Working-Paper-2017-06.pdf