News for Library Nerds, December 13, 2013

Project Information Literacy releases their report on the research habits of college freshman. Librarians rank highly in the survey. Yay for us!

The problem with publishing in “luxury” journals according to a nobel laureate. Another scientist agrees and would even go so far as to get rid of peer review. And another nobel laureate says he wouldn’t have been able to compete in today’s publish-or-perish environment. Leaving behind high-priced journals would be nice, in my view, but it doesn't create a perfect research world. If nothing else, the complicated patchwork we have to day is one form of librarian job security.

Meanwhile, one “luxury” journal, Nature, is joining forces with reddit to post in the /r/science subreddit. 

The Education Department plans for a measure that would reduce funding to for-profit schools that produce students with high debt. 

The Chronicle profiles the Digital Public Library of America. 

Are MOOCs creating a backlash against online learning? MOOCs aren't the only big news in online learning these days (the heat for-profits have taken recently also ties in, since so many are online institutions), but I can see a bit of buyers remorse among those who saw MOOCs as revolutionary (versus those who saw them merely as a useful addition to the education landscape).

News for Library Nerds, December 6, 2013

Librarians see knowledge as things, while faculty see it as people. Every day I help students find the "things," but so many of them seem to miss the idea that it is also conversation between people. Once you have that mindset, "things" like a literature review make more sense. But in an environment where everyone is online and most interactions are procedural, how do you help students make the shift?

 What’s the safest way to store all that digital data? Old-fashioned magnetic tapes are making a comeback. 

Israel has settled their own e-reserves copyright case, on terms that are much more pro-fair use than we’re seeing in the Georgia State case. 

Scientific American outlines the benefits of paper over screens. Even Bill Gates is still in the paper realm (I share his disappointment with ebook note-taking, but I still love reading novels on my ereader). 

The Director of a library in Naples, full of priceless books, is on trial for selling them. 

A quick visual history of academic libraries as architecture (and a larger visual history of libraries published this year).

The We Are All Criminals project asks Minnesotans to confess to their uncaught crimes. Here’s a great one from a librarian (who knew that Library Club was so prestigious!?) It reminds me of the library school professor who confessed to her own library-related malfeasance. We've all got things in our pasts . . .

U Penn study finds that almost all of their MOOC students already have a degree.  You can read their study. This isn't exactly breaking news, but it does change the way we should think about MOOCs in higher education. If most MOOCers already have degrees, it's more of a way to save money on professional development than it is a game-changer for those with poor access to higher education.

Open access now coming to monographs. 

Authors try to have their names removed from research implicated in medical fraud case. 

First book printed in (what became) the U.S. sells for $14.2 Million. New owner plans to lend it to libraries.

India is planning its first liberal arts college. Not that I have anything against engineers, but there's been so much anti-liberal arts talk recently. It's nice to see someone stand up for other types of learning and thinkin.

Creative Commons announces their 4.0 license, which is designed to work better with international requirements.