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).