Search results

The aims of the present paper is electronic publishing has transformed the business model of publishing houses in Spain in such a way that two models currently coexist. The specificities of each of these models were studied and the consequences of each model for the future of electronic publishing in Spain were analysed.

The first stage of this study consisted in locating studies that would allow the authors to obtain useful indicators and statistic data regarding publication in Spain. The second stage of this study consisted of extracting from the sources cited above all data relevant to the study. To wit, these were the number of electronic books published, the major publishing houses offering electronic publications, the major platforms currently selling electronic books, presently available electronic reading devices, the rates of reading on all devices, reading rates itemized by age and educational background and general tendencies in digital publishing and e-reading.

There are traditional publishers of mostly paper-based volumes, whose business models are based on having large catalogues of titles and large print-runs, though print-runs are increasingly smaller and bookseller returns increasingly larger. Intermediary agents operating under this model, for instance booksellers, are subject to ever-greater economic pressures, especially in the current crisis

In the study that follows, the authors attempt to analyse the characteristics behind these changes and learn to what extent these changes will affect the future models of publication and reading in Spain.

The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between public libraries, literature festivals (litfests) and reading habits in Chennai and Bangalore to understand publishing, reading and the role of public libraries to improve reading and learning among public.

A field visit to select book fairs and litfests in Chennai and Bangalore was undertaken in 2015 and 2016 to collect data. A predesigned questionnaire was used for data collection at the festivals to establish the correlation among the libraries, bookshops, book fairs and litfests. A sample of n = 445 responses were received.

The findings suggest that 47 per cent of the respondents do not have any kind of library membership, and most (n = 154) of the respondents say they own an electronic device for reading. In total, 25 per cent say reading books is one of the top leisure activities, and distance (31.7 per cent) hinders people from visiting libraries for reading. Eighty per cent agree that visiting litfests influences and improves reading habits. Further, 48.4 per cent read books several times a week, and 46.7 per cent read 5-20 books in any given year. In total, 84 per cent agree that there is a significant link between a family’s reading habits and a child’s future attitude toward reading. Also, 74 per cent agree that people who buy books from bookshops also borrow books from libraries and vice versa and endorse the fact that there is a strong relationship between book buyers and library visitors.

Litfests are booming to promote literature in India. There is a lot to be done to promote public libraries as a public good for people in India as a third space for reading, inclusion and diversity. Innovations in social media and networks, information and communication technologies and internet give an opportunity to the library sector to tap the litfest phenomenon to celebrate reading to reach a large section of the society.

This is a unique exploration to connect the stakeholders – policy makers, publishers and libraries – associated with reading, as studies of this nature are rarely reported in India, when print and digital publishing is flourishing.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a study set up to investigate and map the landscape of digital writing today. A holistic perspective has been adopted involving writers, readers and publishers alike.

The research uses a qualitative approach and combines interviews and direct observations. In in‐depth interviews 13 participants (four writers, four publishers, three readers and two on‐line readers) were questioned for their opinions on issues related to writing, publishing and reading digital fiction. The three readers were also observed while interacting, for the first time, with three digital stories.

Results show that the area is still unsettled though much excitement surrounds experimentations and freedom of publishing online. Readers seem uneasy with the role of co‐creators that writers want to assign them and prefer linear stories to more deconstructed ones. Writers like to experiment and combine multiple media and readers like to interact with multimedia stories; this seems to open interesting perspectives over interactive narrative. Publishers are not yet involved in digital writing and this is seen simultaneously as a blessing (unfiltering of innovative ideas) and a curse (lack of economical support, lack of quality selection). Despite disagreement and ambiguity all interviewees agree that digital fiction will come, likely prompted by new reading technology.

This paper is the first attempt to understand the phenomena of digital writing taking into consideration the perspectives of writers, readers and publishers simultaneously and comparing their different views.

Although current research has investigated how open research data (ORD) are published, researchers' behaviour of ORD sharing on academic social networks (ASNs) remains insufficiently explored. The purpose of this study is to investigate the connections between ORDs publication and social activity to uncover data literacy gaps.

This work investigates whether the ORDs publication leads to social activity around the ORDs and their linked published articles to uncover data literacy needs. The social activity was characterised as reads and citations, over the basis of a non-invasive approach supporting this preliminary study. The eventual associations between the social activity and the researchers' profile (scientific domain, gender, region, professional position, reputation) and the quality of the ORD published were investigated to complete this picture. A random sample of ORD items extracted from ResearchGate (752 ORDs) was analysed using quantitative techniques, including descriptive statistics, logistic regression and K-means cluster analysis.

The results highlight three main phenomena: (1) Globally, there is still an underdeveloped social activity around self-archived ORDs in ResearchGate, in terms of reads and citations, regardless of the published ORDs quality; (2) disentangling the moderating effects over social activity around ORD spots traditional dynamics within the “innovative” practice of engaging with data practices; (3) a somewhat similar situation of ResearchGate as ASN to other data platforms and repositories, in terms of social activity around ORD, was detected.

Although the data were collected within a narrow period, the random data collection ensures a representative picture of researchers' practices.

As per the implications, the study sheds light on data literacy requirements to promote social activity around ORD in the context of open science as a desirable frontier of practice.

Researchers data literacy across digital systems is still little understood. Although there are many policies and technological infrastructure providing support, the researchers do not make an in-depth use of them.

The peer-review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-05-2021-0255.

The paper's aim is to point out trends in scholarly communication – both some of the main advantages and the yet unsolved problems that technology – swift communication lines, digitalization and the web – brought into one of the most important activities of academic life: the reading – writing – publishing cycle.

The different stages, which eventually give birth to a scientific paper, are described here as thinking – (experimenting) – reading – writing – publishing, and analyzed from handwritten to print to digital texts, with an emphasis on the revolutionary changes that scholarly publishing is experiencing.

Thanks to computerization, hypertext and the web, academic life enjoys swift and effortless communication, ease of writing, rapid publishing, almost unlimited access, but there are several uncalled for developments as well.

The new technologies lack a convenient way of writing‐while‐reading, enhance plagiarism, eliminate traditional archiving methods without offering a satisfactory new substitute (presently) and give rise to a call for a revised way of citation, together with new ways of archiving and storing.

This study investigates how important the preprint arXiv is for Slovenian scientists, whether there are differences between scientific disciplines and the reputation of arXiv among Slovenian scientists. We are also interested in what advantages and disadvantages scientists see in using arXiv.

A voluntary sample of active researchers from the scientific fields covered by arXiv was used. Data were collected over 21 days in September 2021 using a 40-question online survey. In addition to descriptive statistics, nonparametric statistical methods such as Pearson's chi-squared test for independence, Kruskal-Wallis' H-test and Mann-Whitney's U-test were applied to the collected data.

Among Slovenian scientists there is a wide range of different users of arXiv. The authors note differences among scientific disciplines. Physicists and astronomers are the most engaged, followed by mathematicians. Researchers in computer science, electrical engineering and systems science seem to have recognized the benefits of the archive, but are still hesitant to use it. Researchers from the other scientific fields participated in the survey to a lesser extent, suggesting that arXiv is less popular in these scientific fields. For Slovenian scientists, the main advantages of arXiv are faster access to knowledge, open access, greater impact of scientists' work and the fact that publishing in the archive is free of charge. A negative aspect of using the archive is the frustration caused by the difficulties in assessing the credibility of articles.

A voluntary sample was used, which attracted a larger number of researchers but has a higher risk of sampling bias.

The results are useful for international comparisons, but also provide bases and recommendations for institutional and national policies to evaluate researchers and their performance.

The results provide valuable insights into arXiv usage habits and the reasons for using or not using arXiv by Slovenian scientists. There is no comparable study conducted in Slovenia.

To provide an insider's review of the journal management and publishing software, Open Journal Systems (OJS), from the Public Knowledge Project, which the author directs at the University of British Columbia.

The paper outlines the history, development, and features of OJS, including some of the experimental aspects, as well as early research results and work underway, on which it is based.

OJS (http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs) is an open source solution to managing and publishing scholarly journals online, which can reduce publishing costs compared to print and other traditional publishing processes. It is a highly flexible editor‐operated journal management and publishing system that can be downloaded for free and installed on a local web server.

OJS has been designed to reduce the time and energy devoted to the clerical and managerial tasks associated with editing a journal, while improving the record keeping and efficiency of editorial processes. It seeks to improve the scholarly and public quality of journal publishing through a number of innovations, from making journal policies more transparent to improving indexing.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of reading in scholarly work among academics in Finland. This study analyzes readings from a variety of publication types including books, conference proceedings, research reports, magazines, newspapers, blogs, non-fiction and fiction.

An online survey was developed and distributed in Finland in 2016–2017 (n=528). Participants were asked their finding and use of scholarly information resources of all types.

Scholars read from a variety of publications. Different types of publications are read and used differently. Reading also varies between disciplines, ranks, work responsibilities and type of research performed.

The study was a nationwide study of researchers in Finland; therefore, all findings are within the context of researchers in a single country. All results are self-reported; therefore, the authors assume but cannot be sure that respondents accurately recollect the specifics of their use of scholarly information.

The results of this study are relevant to publishers, research librarians, editors and others who serve consumers of scholarly information resources, design information products and services for those scholars, and seek to better understand the information needs and use of a variety of types of scholarly publications.

This study replicates previous studies in a variety of countries and provides a more up-to-date and single-country contextualized overview of how researchers find and use scholarly information in their work.

The purpose of this study is to examine the extent of production of digital book titles and deployment of e-promotion and how they correlate with school, library, bookshop, consumer and author readiness, with a view to enhancing publishers’ understanding of and participation in e-publishing, which is now crucial for growth and sustainability

A questionnaire was completed by 109 publishing firms, 79 publishing websites were observed in search of digital titles and e-promotion, and data were analysed using the SPSS to compute frequencies, percentages and correlates of digital publishing innovation adoption

It is found that 2014 digital titles (mainly textbooks and scholarly content) were issued in four formats by 33 out of 109 firms. Authors and consumers were perceived to be more digital-ready than libraries, schools and bookshops. There was a significant relationship between the issuance of digital titles and author readiness (r = 0. 372), consumer readiness (r = 0.338) and library readiness (r = 0.255). There was also a significant relationship between the adoption of e-promotion and consumer readiness (r = 0.381) and author readiness (r = 0.265).

Book publishing innovation research, especially in Africa, focuses mainly on the adoption of mobile devices, infrastructural challenges and reading habits, paying inadequate attention to the correlates of digital publishing adoption. The results of this study, therefore, shed light on the correlates of digital publishing adoption and should help interested publishers and scholars to understand that author, consumer and library readiness are important determinants of digital publishing adoption, especially in developing economies.