[GOAL] ‘It is all a bit of a mess’ – observations from Researcher to Reader conference

[Danny Kingsley]

<Apologies for cross posting>

Dear all

My observations from this week’s Researcher to Reader conference are now available as a blog https://unlockingresearch.blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=539 <https://unlockingresearch.blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=539> A taster:

“It is all a bit of a mess. It used to be simple. Now it is complicated.” This was the conclusion of Mark Carden, the coordinator of the Researcher to Reader <http://r2rconf.com/> conference after two days of discussion, debate and workshops about scholarly publication. The conference bills itself as: ‘The premier forum for discussion of the international scholarly content supply chain – bringing knowledge from the Researcher to the Reader.’  <…>

Suggestions, ideas and salient points that came up

Journals are dead – the publishing future is the platform
Journals are not dead – but we don’t need issues any more as they are entirely redundant in an online environment
Publishing in a journal benefits the author not the reader
Dissemination is no longer the value added offered by publishers. Anyone can have a blog. The value-add is branding
All research is generated from what was published the year before – and we can prove it
Why don’t we disaggregate the APC model and charge for sections of the service separately?
You need to provide good service to the free users if you want to build a premium product
The most valuable commodity as an editor is your reviewer time
Peer review is inconsistent and systematically biased. 
The greater the novelty of the work the greater likelihood it is to have a negative review
Poor academic writing is rewarded
Enjoy!

Danny

Dr Danny Kingsley
Head of Scholarly Communications
Cambridge University Library
West Road, Cambridge CB39DR
P: +44 (0) 1223 747 437
M: +44 (0) 7711 500 564
E: dak45 at cam.ac.uk
T: @dannykay68
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-3636-5939



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