Scholarly Communication

Listen to this interview of David Shepherd, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Systems and Software (together with Paris Avgeriou). David Shepherd is Associate Professor at Louisiana State University. We talk about writing well, researching well, reviewing well. David Shepherd : "No, with the manuscripts we screen and review and publish, it's not about language. So, we know that most scientists are writing in not their first language. And for us, it's just not about that. I mean, some of the best papers I've read even have some kind of weird phrases that make me think that maybe the authors didn't grow up speaking English as their first language. But the logic in those papers is just so clear that no one worries about that kind of little phrasing stuff. Because, the thing that an experienced editor looks for is just clear logic." Links Journal of Systems and Software The New Reddit Journal of Science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Authorship represents a new area of policy-related work within higher education research administration, funding agencies, and scholarly journal publishing. Developing Authorship and Copyright Ownership Policies: Best Practices (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024) by Allyson Mower offers the unique aspect of combining details on copyright ownership as well as authorship into a single volume on best practices for administrators, journal publishers, research managers, and policy drafters within and outside of higher education. Discover more about the definition of 'author'--from data gatherer to writer--to inform policy development while understanding the interconnected relationships between authorship, copyright ownership, and scholarly communication. This book will also demonstrate how to develop inclusive and equitable authorship policies that reflect the range of diversity within the research endeavor and scholarly publishing. Allyson Mower, MA, MLIS has served as the scholarly communication and copyright librarian at the University of Utah Marriott Library since 2008. Her expertise focuses on authorship—both current and historical trends—as well as the connections between information access, reading, and authoring. She developed the Utah Reading Census, an annual survey to determine Utahns’ attitudes towards reading and convened the France Davis Utah Black Archive in 2021. Allyson also serves as the policy liaison for the Academic Senate and runs a professional development book club. Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to Episode No.7 of All We Mean, a Special Focus of this podcast. All We Mean is an ongoing discussion and debate about how we mean and why. The guests on today's episode are Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, professors at the University of Illinois. In this episode of the Focus, our topic is This is what language means. It is text, and it is speech — but is not the two wholly as one. It is speech, and then it is text, or it is the other way around — but the two cannot be one, because between them opens a gulf of difference: Text is the one extreme — the other end of which is Speech. And neither makes — nor the two together can make what the digital is for us today. We read images as much as we do print. Music and sounds are louder than speech in many regions of the online. Video brings movement to life, while the moving body or the object in motion makes space visible. All this is called virtual reality for good reason. We call it all the cyber-social. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Discourse of Scholarly Communication (Lexington Books, 2023) examines the place and purpose of modern scholarship and its dialectical relationship with the ethos of Enlightenment. Patrick Gamsby argues that while Enlightenment/enlightenment is often used in the mottos of numerous academic institutions, its historical, social, and philosophical elements are largely obscured. Using a theoretical lens, Gamsby revisits the ideals of the Enlightenment alongside the often-contradictory issues of disciplinary boundaries, access to research, academic labor in the production of scholarship (author, peer reviewer, editor, and translator), the interrelationship of form and content (lectures, textbooks, books, and essays), and the stewardship of scholarship in academic libraries and archives. It is ultimately argued that for the betterment of the scholarly communication ecosystem and the betterment of society, anti-Enlightenment rules of scholarship such as ‘publish or perish’ should be dispensed with in favor of the formulation of a New Enlightenment. Patrick Gamsby is the Scholarly Communication Librarian and Cross-Appointed to the Department of Sociology at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He previously worked in scholarly communications at Brandeis University and Duke University. Patrick holds a MLIS degree from the University of Western Ontario, a MES degree from York University, and a Ph.D. from Laurentian University. He is the author of two books - Henri Lefebvre, Boredom, and Everyday Life and The Discourse of Scholarly Communication - and he lives in St. John's, Newfoundland with his wife and two daughters. Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program and Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this interview of Christopher Reddy, environmental chemist and Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. We talk about his book Science Communication in a Crisis: An Insider's Guide (Routledge Earthscan 2023). Christopher Reddy : "Communication definitely teaches us scientists things that we hadn't knows or appreciated, even in our own research. I mean, when you have to rethink about how and why you're doing something and what the outcomes mean, that is a series of mental gymnastics. And when we do gymnastics, we become fitter. We increase our longevity and have a richer and fuller quality of life. And that goes for science too: When you are challenged in the communication, you are putting yourself on a treadmill and you become fitter." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this interview of Prem Devanbu, Distinguished Research Professor in Computer Science, University of California, Davis. We talk about using cross-disciplinary pollination to interrogate ideas and also oneself. Prem Devanbu : "Science is a social process. You put some idea out, and other people try to figure out if it makes sense or if you've made some mistake with it, or whether you've asked the right question and gotten the right answer. And then you go from there." Here's the paper by Prem and coauthors which won the 2022 award Most Influential Paper at the International Conference on Software Engineering. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this interview of Katherine Firth, academic at, Australia. We talk about the necessary trouble that people have when they write new knowledge. We also talk about the unnecessary trouble that people have when they imagine that this first sort doesn't exist. Firth is the co-author of How to Fix Your Academic Writing Trouble: A Practical Guide (Open UP, 2018). Katherine Firth : "Most people write to the computer screen. They write perhaps to their supervisor. But they don't actually have a concept of an audience beyond that, or their concept is just so huge and diffuse — Everybody in the whole wide world! Well, I really don't think that everybody in the whole wide world is particularly interested in this very technical paper on, you know, electromagnetic radiation. But there are, of course, people who care about this. You just need to identify who those people are, and then write to them. Expect those people to listen to you. Maybe go, when you're at conferences — go and talk to those people and see how when you explain things in one way, they really get it, but when you explain it in another way, they really don't. Then use in your writing the way that works." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this interview of Christian Kästner, Associate Professor, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University. We talk about reading papers, and how to do that while balancing speed and accuracy, and we talk about writing papers, and how to do that for a reader going fast and moving with purpose. Christian Kästner: "I don't want my reader to be doing a lot of work synthesizing details across a paper of mine. I want to make it obvious what the key idea is. And honestly, I think we all have to, because otherwise, for example, the reviewers will not get the point, and if published, then the paper might just cause confusion or disagreement about the value of the work. So, I prioritize stating very explicitly the point." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to Episode No.6 of All We Mean, a Special Focus of this podcast. All We Mean is an ongoing discussion and debate about how we mean and why. The guests on today's episode are Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, professors at the University of Illinois, and today as well, Bradley Alger, Professor Emeritus, Department of Physiology, University of Maryland School of Medicine. In this episode of the Focus, our topic is How the hypothesis means. What does out knowledge mean after it’s been hypothesized and tested? And what can we claim to know by having tested it? Also, just how far into the scientific enterprise does hypothetical testing reach — in other words, why are scientists writing so much when the hypotheses they test seem to be testing so little? What's all the communication about? These questions — and many, many more — make the meat of this lively discuss about meaning and the hypothesis. Listeners might be interested in my interview with Bradley Alger about his book Defense of the Scientific Hypothesis: From Reproducibility Crisis to Big Data (Oxford UP, 2019). And if you want to buy the book, go here. You can learn all about the hypothesis at The Scientific Hypothesis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this interview of Natalie Aviles, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Virginia. We talk about how organizations shape people, and how people shape science. Natalie Aviles : "I think, in general, the more self-conscious that scientists can be about what motivates them, about what makes them happy, about what drives them — the more, then, they can try to imagine a future that satisfies not only their intellectual curiosity but helps them navigate, too, the very sort of prosaic conditions that they find themselves in on a day-to-day basis." Works referred to in the interview: Natalie Aviles. An Ungovernable Foe: Science and Policy Innovation in the U.S. National Cancer Institute (Columbia University Press 2023) Natalie Aviles. "Environing innovation: Toward an ecological pragmatism of scientific practice." (Sociological Perspectives 2023) Robin Scheffler and Natalie Aviles. "State planning, cancer vaccine infrastructure, and the origins of the oncogene theory." (Social Studies of Science 2022) Natalie Aviles. "Scientific innovation as environed social learning." (In: Inquiry, Agency, and Democracy. Edited by Gross, Reed, and Winship. Columbia University Press 2022) Natalie Aviles. "Situated practice and the emergence of ethical research." (Science, Technology, & Human Values 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this interview of Wouter Lueks, faculty at the CISPA Helmhotz Center for Information Security. We talk about getting into the reviewer's mindset, and also about research collaboration outside the walls of the university. Wouter Lueks : "For first ideas, you don't need writing. You can stand in front of the whiteboard, make a couple of drawings, chat with people — and it's very engaging. But then at some point you somehow need to deal with all the nitty-gritty details — and all the nitty-gritty details typically means that your initial idea was wrong. And the only way that I have found that is reliable to figure out all the ways that you've got things wrong is actually to sit down and write out the details, you know, work on the proof or at least on an argument of how to convince somebody else that this thing you have just written down is actually secure or in the case of my research, private — in other words, just why your solution is a good solution. And it's here, I think, that the writing as a technical tool really shines." Here's the example of the scientific-societal collaborating which Wouter talks about at length in the interview. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to Episode No.5 of All We Mean, a Special Focus of this podcast. All We Mean is an ongoing discussion and debate about how we mean and why. The guests on today's episode are Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, professors at the University of Illinois, and also Gang Wang, Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois. In this episode of the Focus, our topic is what decision means. Decision is no simple matter, whether the decider in question is human or machine. In a sense, both are black boxes to us, and yet the urgency today to open the lid on A.I. is heightened because of how human-like the machine seems to be able to do decision. This is why, across disciplines, we need to convene and discuss and decide together on how to understand and use A.I. The alternative is grisly: Everyone using a tool that no one fully understands — no one using the tool in full understanding or for that matter, in any understanding at all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Academic Librarianship: Anchoring the Profession in Contribution, Scholarship, and Service (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023) by Marcy Simons is needed now as a response to how much has changed in academic librarianship as a profession (from the smallest academic libraries to large research libraries). Much has been written recently about the status of the profession of librarianship, i.e. whether or not it should still be considered a “profession,” are the same credentials still required/enough, should things change dramatically in SLIS programs in response to the new normal, and what is the impact of hiring PhD’s in disciplines outside of librarianship. Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program and Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can we have science without freedom of speech? Dr. Scott Atlas's professional work and personal experiences bring to light an important and often under-discussed element of speech: freedom of speech in the hard sciences. The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a host of new questions and concerns surrounding our medical system and government health agencies: as Special Advisor to the President and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force from July to December 2020, Dr. Atlas was at the forefront of such debates. In this conversation, he discusses the importance of debate not only to science itself but also to popular trust in and support of the sciences, which since the pandemic have suffered a steep decline. Dr. Scott Atlas, MD, is the Robert Wesson Senior Fellow in health care policy at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University and the co-director of the Global Liberty Institute. In addition to his role in White House he has served as Senior Advisor for Health Care to several numerous candidates for President, as well as counselled members of the U.S. Congress on health care, testified before Congress, and briefed directors of key federal agencies. Before his appointment at Hoover Institution, he was a Professor and Chief of Neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center for 14 years, and he received his medical degree from the University of Chicago School of Medicine. He is the author of numerous books, most recently A Plague Upon Our House: My Fight at the Trump White House to Stop COVID from Destroying America. Here is the Cochrane Library analysis on masking mentioned during the interview. Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program’s podcast, Madison’s Notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to Episode No.4 of All We Mean, a Special Focus of this podcast. All We Mean is an ongoing discussion and debate about how we mean and why. The guests on today's episode are Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, professors at the University of Illinois. In this episode of the Focus, our topic is whether A.I. can mean. The short answer is yes, A.I. can mean... whatever we make it mean. For instance, ChatGPT does has access to text on certain kinds of subject matter, like, for example, the assembly of explosives or specifications on suicide. This kind of stuff is on the web, so ChatGPT has “read it” these subjects into its corpus. However, human programmers have applied filters telling the A.I. not to speak about these things. Nonetheless, you may be able to get to what it “thinks” about these things with some clever prompts, called “jailbreaks” in the hacker trade. But does the A.I. really think, as we humans would associate with the act of thinking? Not really, because an A.I. like ChatGPT does not think about bombs or self-destruction. It just has words about these subjects which it doesn’t itself “understand.” And on top of that, its human-programmer masters have told it not to repeat them. But whose purpose is meant to be served here, the A.I.'s or our own? In our discussion in this instalment of All We Mean, we argue, of course, for the A.I. serving the purposes of us humans. But there the questions immediately arises, which of us humans will be served? It may be that only the big stakeholders in the large Internet companies get served, and who knows what purposes they have. Perhaps they're quite content to see A.I. create the illusion of fact and consciousness, if for no other reason than to increase profits. We, on the opposite side of that, say that the technology has tremendous potential for everyone, if used in everyone's interests. For example, people who want to learn can use A.I. technologies to improve their own performance, just as people who want to discover can use A.I. technologies to communicate their findings more effectively. These are the sorts of purpose we believe A.I. can be used to accomplish, by anyone, for everyone. But, we wonder, will purposes such as these also count when the technology rests firmly in the hands of the very few, because what if they don't really care what the rest of us want? Read Bill's and Mary's multimodal grammar of A.I. And read their work on using A.I. in education. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this interview of Rebecca Roache, coach and podcaster, and also Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London. We talk about the application of philosophy to the problems faced by every academic every day. Rebecca Roache : "I'd say that, for many of us, we got into our particular line of research because we were interested in and energized by the topics that we were researching. But at some point along the way, we started caring too much about the measurable outputs. So, we stopped caring about just being interested and drawn in to a topic for its own sake and we started thinking about things like, 'Well, I need to publish this. I need to be able to teach this course. I need to get this degree or this grant.' So, it becomes all about the outputs. And along with that — once you start caring about the outputs, you start worrying about whether your particular outputs are good enough and so on — and all this just sort of sucks the joy out of the process. So, for any academic or researcher, there's a lot of mileage in trying to reconnect with why we're doing what we're doing in the first place. You know, fall in love with the process again. Now, I know, that's really difficult, given how much pressure we're under to produce the right sort of outputs — but, you know, if you can find space in that to reconnect with your love of the process, your love of the topic, your love of just the experience of learning and writing about that topic — I think that that can solve a lot of problems." Rebecca's fantastic podcast is called Academic Imperfectionist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this interview of Cristiano Matricardi, Senior Editor at Nature Communications. We talk about just how closely tied are the research and the communication of the research. Cristiano Matricardi : "From my perspective, that is, as a professional editor, as someone who reads above 500 new submissions a year plus all the papers for due diligence — from my perspective, I see that too many of the submissions are trying to create good narratives to sell the work better — which is okay, sure, but we need to focus on results, and we need to ask just: 'What do you want to do with this paper? What's your reason for attempting to publish it? Is that reason to gratify or oblige the editors? Or is your reason to transfer a concept to your fellow scientists?' Because if you want really to transfer a concept to your fellow scientists, then you need to structure your narrative in a way that they'll be receptive to and in a way that will prove useful for them, that is, useful for these working scientists and not useful for just readers of journals." Of Interest: Cristiano's podcast: On Your Wavelength How Norway is rethinking impact for scientists: NOR-CAM And how the EU is too: CoARA Nature Communications offer ECRs both training and mentoring in scholarly peer review: Open Reviewers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this interview of Cassidy Sugimoto and Vincent Larivière, co-authors of Equity for Women in Science: Dismantling Systemic Barriers to Advancement (Harvard UP, 2023). Cassidy is Professor and Tom and Marie Patton School Chair in the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is also President of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics. Vincent is Professor of Information Science at Université de Montréal, where he also serves as Associate Vice-President of Planning and Communications. He is Scientific Director of the Érudit journal platform and Associate Scientific Director of the Observatoire des Sciences et des Technologies. We talk about how the science of science is advancing the work done by each and every scientist, by helping them to do work that is fairer, truer, and realer. Vincent Larivière : "Scientists are group leaders, reviewers, editors, administrators — I mean, we are mostly an autonomous community, so there's mostly no one else to blame for inequity in our science practice. The system that we're in is the one that we've created collectively. So, there is a responsibility in all of the actions we do and in all of the different roles that we have to actually make science better and to fight inequality. Because the inequality, as so much work now demonstrates, is bad. It’s bad from the point of view of the individual scientist, but it’s bad too for the science itself — we could do better science by being more inclusive in our science practice." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Editor Abigail Bainbridge and contributing author Sonja Schwoll join this discussion of Conservation of Books (Routledge 2023), the highly anticipated reference work on global book structures and their conservation. Offering the first modern, comprehensive overview on this subject, this volume takes an international approach. Written by over 70 specialists in conservation and conservation science based in 19 countries, its 26 chapters cover traditional book structures from around the world, the materials from which they are made and how they degrade, and how to preserve and conserve them. It also examines the theoretical underpinnings of conservation: what and how to treat, and the ethical, cultural, and economic implications of treatment. Technical drawings and photographs illustrate the structures and treatments examined throughout the book. Ultimately, readers gain an in-depth understanding of the materiality of books in numerous global contexts and reflect on the practical considerations involved in their analysis and treatment. Our conversations in this episode discuss how this book is a key reference text for the field, how it fuels important conversations about decision-making and ethics, and what approaches it encourages to learning the practicalities of book conservation. Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. Jen edits for Partnership Journal and organizes with the TPS Collective. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom and The Social Movement Archive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Privacy is not dead: Students care deeply about their privacy and the rights it safeguards. They need a way to articulate their concerns and guidance on how to act within the complexity of our current information ecosystem and culture of surveillance capitalism. Practicing Privacy Literacy in Academic Libraries: Theories, Methods, and Cases (Association of College and Research Libraries, 2023) edited by Sarah Hartman-Caverly and Alexandria Chisholm, can help you teach privacy literacy, evolve the privacy practices at your institution, and re-center the individuals behind the data and the ethics behind library work. Divided into four sections: What is Privacy Literacy? Protecting Privacy Educating about Privacy Advocating for Privacy Chapters cover topics including privacy literacy frameworks; digital wellness; embedding a privacy review into digital library workflows; using privacy literacy to challenge price discrimination; privacy pedagogy; and promoting privacy literacy and positive digital citizenship through credit-bearing courses, co-curricular partnerships, and faculty development and continuing education initiatives. Practicing Privacy Literacy in Academic Libraries provides theory-informed, practical ways to incorporate privacy literacy into library instruction and other areas of academic library practice. Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program and Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to Episode No.3 of All We Mean, a Special Focus of this podcast. All We Mean is an ongoing discussion and debate about how we mean and why. The guests on today's episode are Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, professors at the University of Illinois, and as well, Kit Nicholls, who is Director of the Cooper Union's Center for Writing and Learning. In this episode of the Focus, our topic is Learning happens where there's meaning. Bill Cope : "At root, what we're talking about in this conversation is some very old values. We wouldn't disagree much with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, we wouldn't disagree much with John Dewey, we wouldn't disagree much with Maria Montessori — if you want to take some of the greats of education — Paulo Freire, we wouldn't want to disagree with. So, we're talking about some old values, but the reality is, The values have not been realized. They might be in small spots of time, for some of us, sometimes, in moments of idealism and extremely hard work. But the question is then, Is there an opportunity for us now with these new media, these digital technologies, to build structures of participation. If our keyword is participation — which is, how to build certain kinds of collaborative, participatory environments — then, can the digital help us do that? Or will the technology make things worse?" Some related links: Common Ground Scholar — Learn and work with meaning! Here I talk to the authors of the book Syllabus And here's a link to Syllabus Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this interview of John Bond, founder and publishing consultant of Riverwinds Consulting. We talk about the breadth of services and resources now on offer to publishing scientists — while the industry only grows broader and broader. John Bond : "The one thing I would say helps specifically the middle-tier author (who'll, by the way, be most reluctant to try this) is this: Feel really comfortable sharing your early work on a more frequent and a wider basis. Because these authors tend to be quite shy about sharing work until they themselves think that it's absolutely perfect. And if we're really talking about the best quality ideas and the best quality work — well, sharing the concept with close ties early on, and then a draft or an outline with colleagues early on, and then the draft of it completely written, and then the final version — to do, so to speak, your own peer review early on, so that you head off rabbit holes you might be going down or poor expression of your ideas — that is really essential. Therefore, feel very comfortable with developing that network of people, in your institution, but most importantly, outside your institution." Of interest: John Bond is a Publishing Consultant at Riverwinds Consulting. To connect with on a proiect, see his website PublishingFundamentals.com. He is the author of a book series with Rowman & Littlefield including The LIttle Guide to Getting Your Journal Article Published: Simple Steps to Success. For the podcast, the publisher has offered the promotional code 4F23LG to save 30%. The rest of the series is also available. His YouTube channel contains over 100 short videos on academic publishing. Or connect with him on LinkedIn. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to Episode No.2 of All We Mean, a Special Focus of this podcast. All We Mean is an ongoing discussion and debate about how we mean and why. The guests on today's episode are Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, professors at the University of Illinois. We talk about TMC — Too Much Communication. In the 2000s, people complained about the demand to know more stuff. Not today. It's amazing if you stop to think — if you can find the peace to stop for anything — but such a short time ago, media were about information. Now it's just communicate — post, tweet, share, text, send, upload, access, retweet, like, promote, influence, watch, listen, follow... we do a lot of activity on that surface of our devices. Well, surface is what communication is. That's it. It’s, make available — that’s communicating. And whether there's too much of it or the wrong kind, one thing is for certain: There’s tons of it. Communication is spread everywhere. And what it's all about is not really the question. The pressing question right now is, What is it? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chris Hart, Director of Sales and Marketing, and Kim Walker, Director of Trade Publishing at Manchester University Press join Avi to discuss how MUP and other university publishers have changed their model over the last decade and put a major focus on trade publishing over the classic niche academic monograph. We also discuss how being the only academic publisher in Northern England forms a big part of the identity and content published by the press. Avi Staiman is the founder and CEO of Academic Language Experts . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do we currently preserve and access texts, and will our current methods be sustainable in the future? In From Handwriting to Footprinting: Text and Heritage in the Age of Climate Crisis (Open Book Publishers, 2023), Anne Baillot seeks to answer this question by offering a detailed analysis of the methods that enable access to textual materials, in particular, access to books of literary significance. Baillot marshals her considerable expertise in the field of digital humanities to establish a philological overview of the changing boundaries of ‘access’ to literary heritage over centuries, deconstructing the western tradition of archiving and how it has led to current digital dissemination practices. Rigorously examining the negative environmental impact of digital publishing and archiving, Baillot proposes an alternative model of preservation and dissemination which reconciles fundamental traditions with the values of social responsibility and sustainability in an era of climate crisis. Integrating historical, archival and environmental perspectives, From Handwriting to Footprinting illuminates the impact that digitisation has had on the dissemination and preservation of textual heritage and reflects on what its future may hold. It is invaluable reading for anyone interested in textual history from a linguistic or philological perspective, as well as those working on publishing, archival and infrastructure projects that require the storing and long-term preservation of texts, or who want to know how to develop a more mindful attachment to digitised material. This book is available open access here. Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. Jen edits for Partnership Journal and organizes with the TPS Collective. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom and The Social Movement Archive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this interview of Yang Zhang, faculty at the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security. We talk about the centrality of text to the research process. Yang Zhang : "Nowadays, especially when I talk with my students, you know, when I help them write papers, I can sorta estimate how many days or hours they'll need to finish a specific part of that paper. And if a student doesn't quite keep to that timeline, then I know I should check in with them to ask where they've gotten stuck and why. And this sort of ability is a skill a researcher gains with experience, having amassed experience at the act of writing. Because this is not something where there's a handbook — you know, like once you read the Magical Handbook on Writing you'll know the process." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to Episode No.1 of All We Mean, a Special Focus of this podcast. All We Mean is an ongoing discussion and debate about how we mean and why. The guests on today's episode are Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, professors at the University of Illinois. We talk about what meaning actually is. Meaning is form, and meaning is function. Meaning is made, for example, when a scientist sees the image of a celestial object which till that very moment has been unseen by human eye. But meaning is also made by the novelist who just narrates this same scene, because in truth, the celestial object in question is not really in our universe and doesn't actually exist at all. Meaning can be devious like that — but only if we make it so. Because that's the real idea here about meaning: It's human. Meaning is the one term which may truly describe the entire human project. But do not let me fool you. It's not like meaning denies or somehow escapes the physical world. Meaning does, for sure, occur in our inner consciousness and mind, but the fact of this reality has no priority over the reality of the world out there. No, much the opposite. The two realities condition and recreate one another. And it's here that we should really be looking for meaning, because this sort of intersecting is precisely the sort of work we humans excel at. Equally, we excel at grinding it all to halt, as for example when we deny a fact or we exclude a person or we destroy an image or a document or a statue. Perhaps — just think for a moment — perhaps that celestial object I mentioned really does exist and isn't the figment of some novelist. Perhaps it's the novelist who is the figment here. Perhaps the celestial object really is out there, only we can't prove it anymore because the image and the evidence have been shredded by an envious rival scientist. Where there is meaning, there too are humans. Thus, interest will always figure in. It would appear, then, that real neutrality was the figment here — but we'll leave that topic to a future episode of All We Mean. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Archive Everything: Mapping the Everyday (MIT Press, 2016; paperback edition, 2023), Gabriella Giannachi traces the evolution of the archive into the apparatus through which we map the everyday. The archive, traditionally a body of documents or a site for the preservation of documents, changed over the centuries to encompass, often concurrently, a broad but interrelated number of practices not traditionally considered as archival. Archives now consist of not only documents and sites but also artworks, installations, museums, social media platforms, and mediated and mixed reality environments. Giannachi tracks the evolution of these diverse archival practices across the centuries. Archives today offer a multiplicity of viewing platforms to replay the past, capture the present, and map our presence. Giannachi uses archaeological practices to explore all the layers of the archive, analyzing Lynn Hershman Leeson's !Women Art Revolution project, a digital archive of feminist artists. She considers the archive as a memory laboratory, with case studies that include visitors' encounters with archival materials in the Jewish Museum in Berlin and projects like heritage projects organized by the Exeter City Football Club Supporters Trust. She discusses the importance of participatory archiving, examining the “multimedia roadshow” Digital Diaspora Family Reunion as an example. She explores the use of the archive in works that express the relationship between ourselves and our environment, citing Andy Warhol’s time capsules and Ant Farm, among others. And she looks at the transmission of the archive through the body in performance, bioart, and database artworks, closing with a detailed analysis of Lynn Hershman Leeson's Infinity Engine. Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. Jen edits for Partnership Journal and organizes with the TPS Collective. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom and The Social Movement Archive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this interview of Dr. Miranda Vinay, full-time editor at Communications Engineering (a Nature Portfolio journal) and also currently Locum Associate Editor for electronics, photonics, devices, 2D materials, and applied physics at Nature. We talk about planning before writing, because it's the surest way to structure the arguments for the value of your research. interviewer : "And you know, one of the main things that I think that gets missed in research training is just that, logical argumentation. I mean, one reason is probably that most people focus in on the language. They're thinking, 'Science is in English. These scientists need training in English language.' But it's my experience that pretty much all scientists have the English they need to do their work, but what they often need is a grounded understanding of how they build an argument." Miranda Vinay : "Absolutely. I mean, the fundamental truth is that no reputable journal is going to reject your paper because of your strength in the English language. Some journals have staff for that, and there's plenty of services online that can help you with that. Oftentimes your coworkers can help you with that. But really what makes the science blurry and muddled is just not having a well-supported conclusion — and I mean well-supported in terms of the argumentation and the rational evidence to support that conclusion, even if all of the necessary data is there." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this interview, we talk with Stefan Tanaka, professor emeritus of UCSD and a specialist in modern Japanese history. He is author of two books on modern Japan, Japan's Orient: Rendering Pasts into History (1993) and New Times in Modern Japan (2004), and his most recent book is History Without Chronology (Lever Press, 2019) which we discuss here! The host, Sarah Kearns, was introduced to Tanaka's work at a Digital History and Theory Conference and became very interested in becoming a "mystic" of scholarly communications and how narrative and comic books could facilitate a different understanding of history and time. The 1884 project is here. A bit about the book, which is available open access: Although numerous disciplines recognize multiple ways of conceptualizing time, Stefan Tanaka argues that scholars still overwhelmingly operate on chronological and linear Newtonian or classical time that emerged during the Enlightenment. This short, approachable book implores the humanities and humanistic social sciences to actively embrace the richness of different times that are evident in non-modern societies and have become common in several scientific fields throughout the twentieth century. Tanaka first offers a history of chronology by showing how the social structures built on clocks and calendars gained material expression. Tanaka then proposes that we can move away from this chronology by considering how contemporary scientific understandings of time might be adapted to reconceive the present and pasts. This opens up a conversation that allows for the possibility of other ways to know about and re-present pasts. A multiplicity of times will help us broaden the historical horizon by embracing the heterogeneity of our lives and world via rethinking the complex interaction between stability, repetition, and change. This history without chronology also allows for incorporating the affordances of digital media. Sarah Kearns (@annotated_sci) reads about scholarship, the sciences, and philosophy, and is likely drinking mushroom tea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

University Press Week 2023 will provide an opportunity for presses and their supporters to shout to the rooftops about the value of the essential work of university presses: giving voice to the scholarship and ideas that shape conversations around the world. Through a variety of publications and platforms, university presses and their authors cultivate and amplify a diverse, inclusive, and exhilarating range of research and concepts. For a complete list of UP Week events, see here For the gallery of 103 publications, see here For the gallery as listed on Bookshop.org with buy buttons next to relevant titles, see here Some other news not discussed in the conversation: University of Georgia and Wesleyan University Presses have finalists for the National Book Award poetry prize, and Yale University Press has a finalist for the nonfiction prize. AUPresses Central Office will consult with an invited advisory group to conduct an environmental scan regarding AI. Jane Bunker is Director of Cornell University Press and President of the Association of University Presses. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this interview of Konrad Rieck, Professor of Computer Science at Technische Universitat Berlin. We talk about enthusiasm in research and about researching with enthusiasm. Konrad Rieck : "Personally, and as well for my research group, I can say that we try not to lose fun in the whole thing. Because, when a person decides to go for a PhD or for a master's, often there's something inside the person — they just really like the topic. For example, I really love computers. It's not that I do this to make money. Really, it's something personal. And it's fun for me. Of course, sometimes I just don't experience the fun, and I try to get it back — which is really difficult. But I think, the more we enjoy doing research, the better the research gets. This is my feeling. And I know from others that this is not always the case. In other groups, there is more pressure, more hierarchy, and other stress factors like that. So, my recommendation is less pressure, less hierarchy in research." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kicking off our new monthly series on freedom of speech, Keith Whittington and Donald Downs discuss the Princeton Principles for a Campus of Free Inquiry. These principles, outlined by a group of scholars convened by Professor Robert P. George here at the James Madison Program in March 2023, expand on the well-known Chicago Principles in ensuring campus free speech and institutional neutrality. Professors Whittington and Downs are both among the original fifteen participants and endorsers of the Princeton Principles, and played significant roles in drafting the document. Keith Whittington is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics in the Department of Politics at Princeton University, and the author of Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech (Princeton UP, 2019). He specializes in public law and American Politics, and will soon join the faculty of Yale Law School. Donald Downs is the Alexander Meiklejohn Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His areas of specialty include freedom of speech, academic freedom, and American politics. Since retiring, Downs has been the lead faculty advisor to the Free Speech and Open Inquiry Project of the Institute for Humane Studies in Washington, D.C. Princeton's governing document, Rights, Rules, and Responsibilities, referenced during the episode. The James Madison Program's Initiative on Freedom of Thought, Inquiry, and Expression. Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program’s podcast, Madison’s Notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this interview of David Evans, Professor of Computer Science, University of Virginia. We talk about what makes scientific reading different. David Evans : "Most scientific papers are making some claim. So, the real goal as a reader is to understand, Do I believe them? Have the authors done what's necessary to make that claim and make it convincing? But there's another goal, too, and that is to understand, What can I learn from this paper technically — have the authors done something that might inform work that we're doing — do they have something that might provide understanding or prove useful to projects that we are currently involved in or have had in the backs of our minds. Now, those are two quite different goals for a person's reading, but the structure of a paper — especially a well-written paper — that structure will help the reader figure out where to go to achieve which goal." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this interview of Andreas Zeller, faculty at the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security and professor for Software Engineering at Saarland University. We talk about essence — that part of your research left when you've boiled it all down to the meaning. Andreas Zeller : "I think of science as a social process. I think of scientists as social beings — as unsocial as we might sometimes appear to be. Because we scientists are all humans, and so we long for meaning in our daily work, which means too that indirectly, we long for recognition. So, our research is just another form of social activity, and therefore it helps to see science as a social activity where the scientist's job is, ultimately, to enrich the lives of other scientists with ideas that are useful, that give direction." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this interview of Bo Li, Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of Chicago and at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. We talk about how your writing can help you think, and about how it can help you collaborate too! Bo Li : "I think it's important to have a sort of research test to justify writing up and submitting a paper. So, I'll take the idea of the project and I'll write it down and check it against its story. So, that means, I'll check what the motivation is and what the impact might be. And I'll check, too, how the idea could be used mathematically for other analysis, and I'll also check the idea empirically, so, I mean, I'll check how the findings might be different from current related findings, or I'll check how the findings might be used to support existing observations which have, as yet, been only poorly explained. So, that's what I mean by the word story." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Greco-Egyptian syncretistic god Serapis was used by the 3rd century BCE Ptolemaic pharaohs to impose Greek cultural hegemony and consolidate political power. The Alexandrian Serapeum, sometimes referred to as The Great Library of Alexandria’s “daughter library,” may be seen as an archetype for institutions where religion and secular knowledge come together for the reproduction of ideologies. The Serapeum, however, is by no means unique in this regard; libraries have always incorporated religious symbols and rituals into their material structures. Very little research has been conducted concerning the sociocultural and historical impact of this union of temple and information institution or how this dynamic interrelationship (even if it may now be implicit or partially concealed) stretches from the earliest Mesopotamian proto-libraries to our present academic ones. Serapis explores the role of the historical and legacy religious symbols and rituals of the academic library (referred to as the “Serapian Library”) as a powerful ideological state institution and investigates how these symbols and rituals support hegemonic structures in society. Specifically, the book examines the role of the modern secular “Serapian” academic library in its historical context as a “sacred space,” and applies the theories of Karl Marx, Louis Althusser, Ivan Illich, and other thinkers to explain the ramifications of the library as crypto-temple. Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. Jen edits for Partnership Journal and organizes with the TPS Collective. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom and The Social Movement Archive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this book, Paul A. Thomas—a seasoned Wikipedia contributor who has accrued about 60,000 edits since he started editing in 2007—breaks down the history of the free encyclopedia and explains the process of becoming an editor. Now a newly minted Ph.D. and a library specialist at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, he outlines the many roles a Wikipedia editor can fill. Some editors fix typographical errors, add facts and citations, or clean up the prose on existing articles; others create new articles on topics they find interesting. In Inside Wikipedia: How It Works and How You Can Be an Editor (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), Thomas goes behind the familiar Wikipedia article page and looks at the unique brand of collaboration that is constantly at work to expand and improve this global resource. James Kates is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He has worked as an editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other publications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The sixth episode of the CEU Press Podcast Series is all about the peer review process. Our guests are Rabea Rittgerodt, senior acquisitions editor for social/cultural history (19th-20th century) at De Gruyter and Jen McCall, CEU Press’s acquisitions editor for the Press’s history list. They talk to host Andrea Talabér about the ups and downs of the peer review process, how peer reviewers can give constructive feedback to authors and how authors can take on this feedback on board. The CEU Press Podcast Series delves into various aspects of the publishing process: from crafting a book proposal, finding a publisher, responding to peer review feedback on the manuscript, to the subsequent distribution, promotion and marketing of academic books. We will also talk to series editors and authors, who will share their experiences of getting published and talk about their series or books. Rabea is happy to hear from people interested in submitting a book proposal in 19th-20th century social, cultural, and global history. She can be reached at [email protected]. Rabea tweets at @RabeaRi. Jen is keen to hear from people who would like to submit a proposal to the CEU Press. She can be reached at [email protected]. Follow Jen on Twitter @jennymccall22. Interested in the CEU Press’s publications? Click here to find out more Stay tuned for future episodes and subscribe to our podcast to be the first to be notified. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify and all other major podcast apps. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Procrastination. Writer’s block. Feeling stuck. Are you struggling with the blank page? Today’s guest shares her methods that help writers move past these blocks by turning inward to discover their own writing process, and become the writer they already are. Today’s book is Becoming the Writer You Already Are (Sage, 2022), by Dr. Michelle R. Boyd, which helps scholars uncover their unique writing process and design a writing practice that fits how they work. In it, Dr. Boyd introduces the Writing Metaphor as a reflective tool that can help you understand and overcome your writing fears: going from “stuck” to “unstuck” by drawing on skills you already have at your fingertips. She also offers an experimental approach to trying out any new writing strategy, so you can easily fill out the parts of your writing process that need developing. The book includes a number of helpful features: Real Scholars’ Stories provide insights into overcoming writing barriers; Wise Words from other scholars capture the trials of writing as well as avenues through those trials; and Focus Points highlight important ideas, questions, or techniques to consider. The book is ideal for dissertation writing seminars, graduate students struggling with the transition from coursework to dissertation work, scholars who are supporting or participating in writing groups, and marginalized scholars whose write struggles have prompted them to internalize the bias that others have about their ability to do exemplary research. Our guest is: Michelle Boyd, PhD, who is an award-winning writer, and a former tenured faculty member. Her book Jim Crow Nostalgia: Reconstructing Race in Bronzeville won a Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association. After earning tenure, Michelle focused her research and service on helping scholars better understand their writing process. In 2012 she cofounded and coached a dissertation writing retreat for graduate students studying race and ethnicity. Three years later, she left academia and founded InkWell, where she specializes in helping stuck, scared scholars free themselves from fear and build a satisfying, sustainable writing practice. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the producer and show-host of the Academic Life podcasts. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell. Listeners to this episode may be interested in: Becoming the Writer You Already Are, by Michelle Boyd Jim Crow Nostalgia: Reconstructing Race in Bronzeville by Michelle Boyd How We Do It: Black Writers Craft, Practice, and Skill edited by Jericho Brown This behind the scenes look at writing Shoutin in the Fire, with Dante Stewart This conversation about researching and writing a book, with Polly E. Bugros McLean Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey--and beyond! Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 175+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The third episode of the CEU Press Podcast Series is all about the book proposal. Our guests, Laura Portwood-Stacer, publishing consultant and developmental editor, and Jen McCall, CEU Press’s acquisitions editor for history titles, talk to host Andrea Talabér about how to put together a book proposal package. In the discussion, Laura and Jen touch upon all aspects of the book proposal from choosing the right publisher, what constitutes the book proposal package, to what happens after submitting it. The CEU Press Podcast Series delves into various aspects of the publishing process: from crafting a book proposal, finding a publisher, responding to peer review feedback on the manuscript, to the subsequent distribution, promotion and marketing of academic books. We will also talk to series editors and authors, who will share their experiences of getting published and talk about their series or books. Laura’s book The Book Proposal Book: A Guide for Scholarly Authors is available from Princeton University Press. Laura can also be found at Manuscript Works. Sign up to her newsletter, where she shares her tips on scholarly publishing. Follow Laura on Twitter @lportwoodstacer, for tips on scholarly publishing. Laura also regularly posts information about her courses. Jen is keen to hear from people who would like to submit a proposal to the CEU Press. She can be reached at [email protected]. Follow Jen on Twitter @jennymccall22. Interested in the CEU Press’s publications? Click here to find out more here. Stay tuned for future episodes and subscribe to our podcast to be the first to be notified. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify and all other major podcast apps. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the second Meet the Press episode of the CEU Press Podcast Series, Frances Pinter (Executive Chair, CEU Press) sits down with host Andrea Talabér (Managing Editor, CEU Review of Books) to discuss the Press’ home-grown Open Access (OA) initiative, Opening the Future. Frances explains how the model works, why it is sustainable and why it is beneficial for authors, presses and libraries. The CEU Press Podcast Series delves into various aspects of the publishing process: from crafting a book proposal, finding a publisher, responding to peer review feedback on the manuscript, to the subsequent distribution, promotion and marketing of academic books. We will also talk to series editors and authors, who will share their experiences of getting published and talk about their series or books. For more details on Opening the Future, go here. For more information on the Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM), go here. We support all routes to Open Access, see here. Interested in the CEU Press’s publications? Go here. Stay tuned for future episodes and subscribe to our podcast to be the first to be notified. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify and all other major podcast apps. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the first episode of the CEU Press podcast series! To start us off, Frances Pinter (Executive Chair, CEU Press) and Emily Poznanski (Director, CEU Press) sit down with Andrea Talabér (Managing Editor, CEU Review of Books) to talk about the beginnings of the CEU Press, its mission, how it has developed since its foundation and about the Press’s plans for the future. Ever wonder what goes into publishing an academic book? The CEU Press podcast series aims to delve into various aspects of the publishing process: from crafting a book proposal, getting peer review feedback on the manuscript, and the subsequent distribution, promotion and marketing of academic books. We will also talk to series editors and authors, who will share their experiences of getting published and talk about their series or books. Interested in the CEU Press’ publications? Click here to find out more here. We support all routes to open access, see here. And for more on our home-grown initiative see, Opening the Future. Stay tuned for future episodes and subscribe to our podcast to be the first to be notified. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Society and democracy are ever threatened by the fall of fact. Rigorous analysis of facts, the hard boundary between truth and opinion, and fidelity to reputable sources of factual information are all in alarming decline. A 2018 report published by the RAND Corporation labeled this problem "truth decay" and Andrew J. Hoffman lays the challenge of fixing it at the door of the academy. But, as he points out, academia is prevented from carrying this out due to its own existential crisis—a crisis of relevance. Scholarship rarely moves very far beyond the walls of the academy and is certainly not accessing the primarily civic spaces it needs to reach in order to mitigate truth corruption. In this brief but compelling book, Hoffman draws upon existing literature and personal experience to bring attention to the problem of academic insularity—where it comes from and where, if left to grow unchecked, it will go—and argues for the emergence of a more publicly and politically engaged scholar. The Engaged Scholar: Expanding the Impact of Academic Research in Today’s World (Stanford UP, 2021) is a call to make that path toward public engagement more acceptable and legitimate for those who do it; to enlarge the tent to be inclusive of multiple ways that one enacts the role of academic scholar in today's world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How can writing for the general public help scholars to democratize education? Today, The Conversation editor Emily Costello takes us behind the scenes of a “typical” day at her editor’s desk, and shares how The Conversation partners with academics to help them communicate their expertise to a general audience. More about The Conversation: They publish articles written by academic experts for the general public, and edited by a team of journalists. These articles share researchers’ expertise in policy, science, health, economics, education, history, ethics and most every subject studied in colleges and universities. Some articles offer practical advice grounded in research, while others simply provide authoritative answers to questions that spark curiosity. The Conversation U.S. is part of a global group of news organizations founded in Australia in 2011 by a former newspaper editor who wanted to encourage academics to engage with the public. Their main US newsroom is in Boston, with editors working remotely in cities across the country. There are also editions in Africa, Australia, Canada, France, Indonesia, New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom. Through a Creative Commons license, all articles are distributed – at no charge – to news organizations across the geographic and ideological spectrum. More about our guest: Emily Costello is the managing editor of The Conversation US, a non-profit newsroom with the mission of bringing academic expertise to the public. The Conversation's content and newsletters are free to read and free for other media to republish. Emily is responsible for directing coverage by the newsroom's 22 editors, making sure The Conversation's articles are of consistent high quality and working with external media partners. She hosts a weekly Sunday newsletter featuring the most read stories of the week. Emily has a professional interest in nonprofit journalism models, greening of news deserts and brainstorming best practices. She has worked in many types of media, including local newspapers, public television and radio, and childrens' books and magazines. Emily is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Barnard College. She is a member of the first journalism cohort for Take the Lead: 50 Women Can Change the World. ore about our host: Dr. Christina Gessler holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell. She is a freelance book editor, and has served as content director and producer of the Academic Life podcast since she launched it in 2020. The Academic Life is proud to be an academic partner of the New Books Network. Listeners to this episode may be interested in: Becoming the Writer You Already Are, by Michelle Boyd Revise, by Pamela Haag How Writing Works: A Field Guide to Effective Writing, by Roslyn Petelin Writing with Pleasure, by Helen Sword Subatomic Writing: Fundamental Lessons to Make Language Matter, by Jamie Zvirdoin Listeners may be interested in these Academic Life episodes: Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bookshop.org is an online book retailer that donates more than 80% of its profits to independent bookstores. Launched in 2020, Bookshop.org has already raised more than $27,000,000. In this interview, Andy Hunter, founder and CEO discusses his journey to creating one of the most revolutionary new organizations in the book world. Bookshop has found a way to retain the convenience of online book shopping while also supporting independent bookstores that are the backbones of many local communities. Andy Hunter is CEO and Founder of Bookshop.org. He also co-created Literary Hub. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ownership of Knowledge: Beyond Intellectual Property (MIT Press, 2023) provides a framework for knowledge ownership that challenges the mechanisms of inequality in modern society. Scholars of science, technology, medicine, and law have all tended to emphasize knowledge as the sum of human understanding, and its ownership as possession by law. Breaking with traditional discourse on knowledge property as something that concerns mainly words and intellectual history, or science and law, Dagmar Schäfer, Annapurna Mamidipudi, and Marius Buning propose technology as a central heuristic for studying the many implications of knowledge ownership. Toward this end, they focus on the notions of knowledge and ownership in courtrooms, workshops, policy, and research practices, while also shedding light on scholarship itself as a powerful tool for making explicit the politics inherent in knowledge practices and social order. The book presents case studies showing how diverse knowledge economies are created and how inequalities arise from them. Unlike scholars who have fragmented this discourse across the disciplines of anthropology, sociology, and history, the editors highlight recent developments in the emerging field of the global history of knowledge—as science, as economy, and as culture. The case studies reveal how notions of knowing and owning emerge because they reciprocally produce and determine each other's limits and possibilities; that is, how we know inevitably affects how we can own what we know; and how we own always impacts how and what we are able to know. Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. Jen edits for Partnership Journal and organizes with the TPS Collective. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom and The Social Movement Archive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Avi Staiman, CEO of Academic Language Experts discusses the how advancements in artificial intelligence are shaping academic publishing. Avi offers various solutions and remedies to concerns around misuse, in addition to offering several tools that can support academics in their writing and research. Sci Writer Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the library profession, and in the world as a whole, the experiences of trans and gender diverse people often go unnoticed, hidden, and ignored. Trans and Gender Diverse Voices in Libraries (Library Juice Press, 2021) is entirely written and edited by trans and gender diverse people involved in the field: its fifty-seven authors include workers from academic and public libraries, special collections and archives, and more; LIS students; and a few people who have left the library profession completely. Editors Kalani Adolpho, Stephen G. Krueger, and Krista McCracken share in this interview how this book is not intended to be the definitive guide to trans and gender diverse experiences in libraries, but instead to start the conversation. This project hopes to help trans and gender diverse people in libraries realize that they are not alone, and that their experiences are worth sharing. This book also demonstrates some of the reality in a field that loves to think of itself as inclusive. From physical spaces to policies to interpersonal ignorance and bigotry, the experiences recounted in this book demonstrate that the library profession continues to fail its trans and gender diverse members over and over again. You cannot read these chapters and claim that Safe Zone stickers and “libraries are for everyone” signs have done the job. You cannot assume that everything is fine in your workplace because nobody has spoken out. You can no longer pretend that trans and gender diverse people don’t exist. Find the table of contents for Trans and Gender Diverse Voices in Libraries as well as open access chapters online here. Learn about the Trans and Gender Diverse LIS network here. Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. Jen edits for Partnership Journal and organizes with the TPS Collective. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom and The Social Movement Archive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Niko Pfund joins the podcast to discuss the value of scientific content for building out Large Language Models and some of the challenges around tracking the quality and ownership of aggregated content from unknown sources. We also discuss potential avenues for collaboration between Generative AI companies and scholarly publishers. Niko Pfund is Academic Publisher at Oxford University Press and President of Oxford’s US office. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices