Archive for the ‘Books and publishing’ Category

Raising Steam

Friday, December 2nd, 2022

I just finished reading this–not for the first time, but for the first time in years.

It’s by Sir Terry Pratchett, if you didn’t recognize the title. And it’s the last Discworld book. I say that “last” with some assurance because Pratchett is no longer with us and, although he apparently left lots of ideas for more books in the series, it does not appear that his estate has any plans to commission or allow such books. Probably just as well…

I’ve read essentially all Discworld books–“essentially” being a tricky word, since I never purchased The Last Hero (a graphic novel) or any of the many auxiliary books. I own nearly all of them–for some reason, I never purchased The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, but I’ve read it.

I’ve read most of them twice–beginning a chronological read-through around five years ago, and filling in the five wonderful Tiffany Aching YA books I missed the first time around. Reading them more slowly, I liked them even better. Reading tastes are very much individual, and this individual loves Pratchett’s work. (The only two of “his” fiction books I wasn’t as fond of were the final two “The Long…” collaborations, which seemed to have less and less of Pratchett in them. Yes, of course I loved Good Omens, his collaboration with Neil Gaiman, and look forward to the second season of the Prime adaptation and re-watching the first.

Anyway, just a note at the end of the read–never reading two of the books one after another, never hurrying through them. Now what?

Now I’ve stacked the books in chronological order, and after I finish the current trio of library books, I’ll read The Colour of Magic for the third time (even if Harper left the “u” out of the title for the US paperback edition I own, it will always be The Colour of Magic).

Then I just need to stick around to complete the third read, say another five to eight years.

There will be a GOA6

Tuesday, October 27th, 2020

Thanks to SPARC’s continuing support, there will be a Gold Open Access 2015-2020: Articles in Journals appearing sometime in the summer of 2021 (barring health or other disasters).

The study will follow the same pattern as GOA5. I’ll download DOAJ metadata in late December 2020 to the first match and consistency checking, and will determine currency exchange rates to be used for the project (as with this year, they’ll be the median 2020 rate where that’s available, the rate on the December date I check them otherwise–and they’ll be on a tab in the freely-available spreadsheet). Then I’ll download data again shortly after midnight (GMT) on January 1, 2021, and process changes.

I currently plan two changes–neither major. First, I’m finishing the process of getting rid of “Miscellaneous” as a publisher category. (It accounted for considerably less than 1% of articles in GOA5.) Any publishers not categorized as university/college, society/government, or traditional publisher, will be marked as Open Access.

Second, I sense that a few subject-assignment errors crept in some years ago (due to quirks in Excel at the time). I’ve already rechecked subject assignments against the DOAJ-supplied subject information for all journals in GOA5, changing a few dozen in the process, and will complete that process in January. (The changes would only be significant in subject breakdowns for a few countries.)

Other than those changes, I’ll aim for consistency, and add a sixth row to graphs in a Six-Year Comparisons chapter. Once again, the data will be freely available at Figshare (or some other repository), the report will be available as a free PDF or a cost-of-publication color trade paperback, and there will be a Country of Publication report.

I won’t even begin to guess dates or volume. I’d love to see it emerge in July 2021, but won’t predict that. I’d love to see at least 15,000 fully-analyzed journals–and that seems fairly plausible. I’d guess there will be more than 900,000 2020 articles, but would be loath to project a million. We shall see.

Gold Open Access by Country 2014-2019 available

Thursday, July 16th, 2020

Gold Open Access by Country 2014-2019 is now available as a free PDF ebook or nominally priced trade paperback.

How nominally priced? The book costs $7. I get $0.02 of that. (There’s a 15% discount through Friday, July 17,2020: discount code PUBLISH15 — and Lulu frequently does offer such discounts.)

As always, links are available at the project page, waltcrawford.name/goaj.html

GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017

Monday, May 28th, 2018

I’m delighted to announce that GOAJ3: Gold Open Access Journals 2012-2017 is now available–as a $5 trade paperback, a free PDF download (identical to the interior of the paperback, with a cover page added), and as a dataset on Figshare.

The project is sponsored by SPARC. The book, ebook and dataset are all covered by Creative Commons BY 4.0 licenses: any reuse is legal as long as attribution is provided. (You can redistribute, but if you send links instead, I can count uses, which can help determine whether to do another year.)

As always, you’ll find links at https://waltcrawford.name/goaj.html

Coming soon:

Expect a very different Countries version in a week or two, and a subject supplement some time this summer.

Last year in books read

Sunday, January 1st, 2017

Given the sheer amount of research I did in 2016–Gold Open Access Journals 2011-2015 and Gray OA 2012-2016–it’s a miracle I managed to get through any books at all. But I did.

As usual, my goal was 39 books: three books for each 4-week library circulation period. As usual, I did better than that, although nowhere near as well as in 2015: Looks like I started 49 books and finished 45 of them. Abandoned, for various reasons: Reinhart & Rogoff: This Time is Different; Graydon Carter: Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers & Swells; Peter Carey: Amnesia.

Books I thoroughly enjoyed:

The Days of Anna Madrigal Armistead Maupin
When Christ and the Saints Slept Sharon Kay Penman
The Truth According to Us Annie Barrows
Strip Tease Carl Hiaasen
School Days Robert B. Parker
Sixkill Robert B. Parker
Walking Shadow Robert B. Parker
Ring of Fire III Eric Flint
1635: A Parcel of Rogues Erik Flint &c.
1636: The Viennese Waltz Erik Flint &c.

Books I enjoyed a lot but which weren’t quite as good:

Saint Mazie Jami Attenberg
Maybe the Moon Armistead Maupin
The Devil’s Bones Jefferson Bass
I Don’t Know How She Does It Allison Pearson
All Our Yesterdays Robert B. Parker
Lucky You Carl Hiaasen
Time and Chance Sharon Kay Penman
Sick Puppy Carl Hiaasen
Thin Air Robert B. Parker
Trouble in Paradise Robert B. Parker
Small Vices Robert B. Parker
Playmafes Robert B. Parker
Hard Drive James Wallace & Jim Erickson
Service Included Phoebe Damrosch
1635: The Dreeson Incident Erik Flint &c.
Ring of Fire II Eric Flint
1635: The Papal Stakes Erik Flint &c.
1636: The Saxon Uprising Eric Flint
1636: The Kremlin Games Erik Flint & c.

Those are the “A” and “A-” grades; another nine were also enjoyable but B+ at best.

Of course, I also wrote three books, but that’s another story.

[If you looked at this and saw two identical tables: brief problem…]

The Man Time Forgot: a semi-contrarian semi-review

Friday, July 8th, 2016

The book: Isaiah Wilner, The Man Time Forgot, HarperCollins, 2006.

I read most books long after they’re published, borrowing them from Livermore Public Library after (usually) browsing the shelves. That was the case this time;  I find both business history and media/publishing interesting, so this was a natural.

It’s well-researched and fairly well written. It’s about Briton Hadden and Henry Luce–and the title of the book pretty much clarifies who’s supposed to be the wronged hero. (Well, that and a caricature of Hadden on the cover).

The story is supposed to be about how Hadden created Time Magazine and the whole Timespeak approach–and how Luce did Hadden wrong after Hadden’s early death. And if you pay attention primarily to pages 216-260, and read the previous chapters with one set of assumptions, that’s how this comes out.

But I found myself reading a different story than the one Wilner was writing, at least through most of the first 14 chapters; thus, my “semi-contrarian” heading.

Here’s what I saw–based entirely on what Wilner wrote:

  • We have Character A, wealthy, extroverted, party-hearty, the life of every group. Apparently drunk most of the time as an adult.
  • We have Character B, the son of a missionary, extremely bright, awkward, with a stammer, a “scholarship boy” who doesn’t quite fit in.
  • Somehow, in their many dealings, Character A is always The Winner and Character B is, at best, The Sidekick. Not surprising: A’s a natural In-Crowd person and B’s a, well, charity case.
  • Character A even uses a derogatory nickname for Character B, not only in school but in adult life–“Chink” because he was born in China.
  • When they work together, agreeing to alternate editorial and business, somehow it’s almost always Character A’s turn to do editorial. When Character B makes a decision that makes it possible to sell Time outside the East Coast, but inconveniences Character A’s round of parties, Character A not only takes it badly, he reverses the decision as soon as Character B is out of the country.
  • Even on his deathbed Character A tries to make sure Character B can never actually have control of the magazine they co-founded, writing a will that would hamstring Character B.

Character A is Briton Hadden. Character B is Henry Luce–or “Chink Luce” as Hadden pretty consistently referred to him. It’s pretty clear that Luce didn’t care for that nickname; if Hadden had actually regarded Luce as an equal rather than a Sidekick, he would have used his actual name.

To me, most of the book read as a “friendship” where Hadden was pretty consistently taking advantage of Luce–and Luce had to realize that after awhile. Was it appropriate for him to remove Hadden’s name from the masthead after Hadden’s death? Probably not–but I can certainly appreciate why he might have done so.

One book, two stories.

[No, I’m not a great fan of Luce either.]

The Countries of OAWorld 2011-2015: out now

Wednesday, July 6th, 2016

cntcvr6x9I’m pleased to announce that The Countries of OAWorld 2011-2015, the last piece in the Gold Open Access Journals 2011-2015 trilogy, is now available as an $8 trade paperback or a free PDF.

Details and links to the two PDF versions and single print version are at the project page, waltcrawford.name/goaj.html

The paperback is $2 more expensive because the book is more than 100 pages longer. (Each purchase nets me two cents, if you’re wondering.)

Yeah, I know. I thought it would take longer to prepare the two Lulu versions.

 

Psst…Countries of OAWorld is out, sort of

Wednesday, July 6th, 2016

I won’t announce Countries of OAWorld 2011-2015 formally until the Lulu print paperback and free PDF are ready, but the “alternate version”–the one on my website, which seems to be where almost everybody’s going, is now available.

You’ll find it on the project page (or, you know, here).

This is one where I think the print book is especially nice for comparison and navigation, but experience suggests that doesn’t matter a lot. I don’t know yet what the paperback will cost; it’s much longer and up to the next dollar. $8 looks like a good possibility.

86 chapters in all, most chapters four very full pages. An alphabetic index of country and region names (123 countries, if I’m counting right–including a few that aren’t always recognized as countries)cntcvr6x9.

Oh, and there’s a heatmap of OAWorld activity on the cover…

Gold Open Access Journals: end of June wrapup

Thursday, June 30th, 2016

I’m posting this wrapup today so that I can add to it later–my own websites, including the domain hosting PDF ebooks of GOAJ and the subject supplement (for those not wishing to use Lulu), get statistics every day at 5:30 a.m., but the statistics only cover the current month (so 18.5 hours of downloads and copies of Cites & Insights on the last day of each month are invisible…)

This follows up on the one-week update.

  • The paperbacks: I have copies of both, and they’re lovely. Nobody else has purchased either one so far. (OK, so I have two copies of each, one with defective growth/shrinkage labels, which I’ll recycle.)
  • The PDF–GOAJ: 29 copies through Lulu, an increase of 19 over June 7; some of those are probably replacement copies fixing the growth/shrinkage label problem. Also 2,363 downloads, some probably not complete, from waltcrawford.name–an increase of 1,192 from June 7. Assuming everybody’s replaced old copies, that’s a minimum of 1,211 copies to date.
  • The PDF-Subject: 10 copies through Lulu and 60 copies through waltcrawford.name
  • The dataset: 678 visits and 63 downloads, up from 330 and 32–an increase of 31 in the relevant number.
  • The site: 330 visits, an increase of 169.
  • Impact? I’ve seen one or two tweets based on the book. I have no idea whether the figures are being used (and credited) in OA presentations, but it’s early yet (and I wouldn’t necessarily know).

Countries of OAWorld: an update and question

Tuesday, June 21st, 2016

When I announced the subject supplement to Gold Open Access Journals 2011-2015, I said this:

As for the second supplement, The Countries of OAWorld 2011-2015? Despite the tumbleweeds that have so far greeted my request for feedback on interest in this book, I may still do it–but it’s going to take a while longer than the first supplement did.

For one thing, I plan to write a non-OA issue of Cites & Insights (possibly trying to use Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking for parts of it, since my hand still isn’t back to normal).

For another, it’s a bigger effort–either 54 or 69 country chapters (depending on whether I use 25 journals or ten as the lower limit for full chapters), plus six chapters with brief coverage for other countries in each region (Pacific/English doesn’t have any other countries). Even with some trimming to make chapters shorter, it’s likely to be a much larger book.

Best guess? Some time in July or August.

It’s time for an update…

Yes, I’m planning to do it

I tried a couple of chapters to see how they’d go, and I think the country chapters tell interesting stories–even though, at this point, readers will pretty much write their own narrative.

To wit:

  • It looks as though there will actually be 83 chapters so there’s some context–an OAWorld overview, seven region overviews, 69 country chapters, and six “other countries in region” chapters.
  • So I had to make the chapters more compact than the seven pages of region chapters in GOAJ. After some experimenting, I arrived at this:
  • I’ve combined the first two tables (journals & articles), combined APC levels & revenues, simplified growth & shrinkage, and made the two graphs smaller vertically (and moved the legend to the side from the bottom to keep proportions reasonable).
  • All of the subheadings are now Heading 3 rather than Heading 2, which saves a lot of space.
  • I’ve eliminated captions, since they’re pretty much redundant.
  • The net result: the standard region or country chapter is now four pages long (“other countries in region” chapters might be a page or two longer), as long as I don’t add much commentary.
  • Trying out a couple of countries, I find that the compact form doesn’t require much textual commentary–zero to two lines is usually enough.
  • The result should be a big but manageable book, somewhere around 340-350 pages.

The sample chapters are what uncovered the label problem with growth & shrinkage tables, since these were now small enough groups (in the first country tested, Nigeria) to allow direct manual checking. (And the small groups also have wider variations, of course.)

I’m interleaving Cites & Insights and the new supplement…

Given that nobody has yet expressed interest in the new supplement, I was going to set it aside until the probably-small July C&I was done…but the country chapters turn out to be fast & interesting, so much so that I keep returning to them. So I’m working on both.

Haven’t started using NaturallySpeaking “for real” yet; someday soon…but, unfortunately, even with six-fingered typing it’s more natural for me to type what I have to say than it is to say it…

Right now (in a day that’s generally gone south), I’m probably about halfway through the C&I draft, and have done 14 chapters of the book, with the fifteenth just needing “bookification” (I’ve done and checked the template-driven tables and figures and copied them to a separate country page; just have to move them into Word).

Best bet…

Some time in July, depending in part on how many other crises arise.

And the question (if anybody cares)…

I have a new third-order measure, but I’m not sure whether it’s explainable or useful, or how to describe it.

Here’s how it works–I’ll use one Asian nation as an example:

  1. I take the percentages of journals that either grew or shrank by 25% or more between 2014 and 2015, separating delisted journals (Gray OA) and those still in DOAJ. For India, those figures are:
    Gray OA: Up 19.0%, Down 44.8%
    DOAJ16:  Up 23.8%, Down 37.2%
  2. I take the up/down ratio for each side: Gray 0.42, DOAJ 0.64
  3. I divide the DOAJ16 ratio by the Gray OA ratio: 1.5

That’s the measure. In short, Indian journals still in DOAJ are 50% more likely to have grown significantly rather than shrunk significantly, as compared to delisted/gray OA journals.

(Choosing a different Asian country, the up/down ratios are 2.89 and 2.00–journals are much more likely to be growing–but the ratio’s 0.7.)

So the multipart question is:

  • Is this a meaningful metric?
  • If so, how can I describe it in a few words, augmented by an explanation in the preface?

At this point, “damfino” is the best I can do on both.

If there are no responses, I’ll eliminate the metric. (It would appear as text, not as a table.)

Comments are open or you can email me at waltcrawford@gmail.com