Not including family, who has had the most impact on me?

Who's had an impact on me? Well the only people I can think of is family. Without my family no one has really made an impact on me. My bowling coach is the only other person that has made an impact on me. All the other people are part of my family.

Do I think the country would elect an ugly person as president?

I don't think the country would elect an ugly person as president. MOst people only care about looks of a person. If the person is ugly no one will vote for him. It doesn't matter what he will do no one will give him a chance if he is ugly. It doesn't matter how they look in my opinion. It is about what he will do for the country. Most people are only worried about looks of a person. I don't think the country would elect an ugly person.

Journal Entry

I had a good day yesterday. I used a few new tool in photoshop. In language arts we wrote in our isn's and watched a play. In spanish we did a listening activity. In American history we read our documents with ur partner. In forensics we took notes and did book work. In math we took notes and did a work sheet. After school I got most of my Forensics book report done. I had a pretty good day. today after school I'm  going t pick up a few applications.,

Interview with BioOne’s Mark Kurtz

Historically, peer-reviewed journals were published by scientific societies on a non-profit basis. Today scholarly publishing is dominated by a handful of large commercial publishers focused on maximising their profits. This has left small society publishers struggling to survive and libraries unable to afford all the journals they need. Unable to compete with commercial publishers, many societies have given up and sold or outsourced their publishing activities to them—a decision that inevitably leads to a rise in the price of their journals.

Some, however, have sought survival by banding together and creating online collections of their combined journal portfolios. This is the objective of the Learned Journals Collection; and it is the aim of BioOne, which currently provides online access to 167 titles from 126 different non-profit bioscience publishers. I spoke recently with BioOne’s director of business development Mark Kurtz. The conversation was a further reminder for me that while the Open Access (OA) movement now looks set to solve the access problem, it is far from clear that it will solve the more fundamental affordability problem confronting the research community.

 Background

Writing in D-Lib magazine in 2000 Rick Johnson—then enterprise director for The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)—pointed out that until the end of World War II scholarly publishing had operated somewhat like a gift economy. As he put it, “For nearly 300 years—since 1665, when the Royal Society of London published the first modern journal, Philosophical Transactions—societies satisfied the need for scholars to communicate among themselves and so maintained their role as the principal scholarly publishers. Research articles were ‘gifted’ to societies by authors and returned to the community in low-cost journals.”

Following the explosion in research funding after the war, however, societies increasingly struggled to cope with the ensuing flood of papers. Spotting a market opportunity, commercial companies quickly filled the vacuum. In doing so, these profit-hungry corporations quickly realised that the demand for scholarly journals is remarkably inelastic. So they did the rational thing, said Johnson, “they raised institutional prices of journals dramatically and relentlessly to exploit the elasticity curve.”

Given this inelasticity, Johnson added, the traditional “circle of gifts” between scholars and their society was replaced not with a real market economy, but a “dysfunctional hybrid.”

Unsurprisingly, the new entrants were soon engaged in an orgy of acquisitions and consolidation—aided by the alacrity with which some societies rushed to outsource their publishing activities to them when they saw how easy it is to generate large sums of money from scholarly journals if your goal is to maximise revenues rather than simply communicate research. By collaborating with commercial companies, these societies realised, they could not only ensure their own survival, but also make a healthy surplus that would allow them to subsidise their other activities.

As a result, today a few large commercial companies own thousands of journals apiece, and are generally able to set their own price.

Serials crisis

Thus was born the serials crisis, which has had the research community in its grip now for several decades. Unable to keep up with the constant increase in subscription prices, libraries began to cancel journals. Publishers responded by increasing their prices further, hoping to make up the lost revenue. This simply triggered further cancellations, and each time the price of a journal was increased a few more libraries cancelled their subscription. It was a vicious cycle that seemed likely to destroy the scholarly communication system.

Determined to staunch the bleeding, publishers came up with a new strategy: they put all their journals online and invited libraries to buy their entire journal portfolio on an all-or-nothing, multi-year basis—a business model that came to be known as the Big Deal.

Why, given their straitened circumstances, would libraries agree to buy even more journals? Why, moreover, would they agree to lock themselves into multi-year contracts? Because if they did so publishers promised them access to a much greater number of electronic journals than they had had print subscriptions to—for the same price.

At first, everyone seemed happy with the Big Deal. When the contracts came up for renewal, however, libraries were confronted with a stark choice: Pay the publisher’s new asking price (inevitably higher) and renew the contract; or go back to buying on a title-by-title basis and face the painful task of telling faculty that they were about to lose access to many of the journals they needed to keep up with developments in their discipline. In the circumstances, most librarians opted to renew the Big Deals.
Soon the Big Deals were devouring most of a library’s budget, forcing it again to start cancelling journals. This time, however, it was the journals of those publishers who did not offer their own Big Deal that were targeted—these were invariably the journals of smaller publishers, and usually those of society publishers.

As a result, more and more societies decided that, if they wanted to survive, they had no option but to fall into the arms of a commercial publisher. This further distorted the market, putting those societies that remained independent under great pressure to partner up too.

Meanwhile, the on-going struggle to pay for journals meant that libraries faced a mounting affordability problem; and as libraries cancelled more and more titles, so researchers were confronted with a growing access problem.

SPARC

Unsurprisingly, libraries began to search around for solutions to these twin problems. In 1998, for instance, a group of libraries founded SPARC—to “correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system”. And Rick Johnson was recruited as executive director of the new organisation.

Several new initiatives were launched as a result, including SPARC Leading Edge, SPARC Alternative and SPARC Scientific Communities. It was from the latter that BioOne emerged, conceived as an “aggregation of the full-texts of high-impact bioscience research journals.”

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If you wish to read the interview with Mark Kurtz please click on the link below. 

I am publishing it under a Creative Commons licence, so you are free to copy and distribute it as you wish, so long as you credit me as the author, do not alter or transform the text, and do not use it for any commercial purpose. 

To read the interview (as a PDF file) click here.

Journal Entry

Yesterday I had a pretty good day. I learned a few new things in photoshop. I had a test in Language arts which was easy so after we watched a movie. In spanish we did work out of packets then we got homework which I finished in class. In history we did a group project which I present today. In Forensics we did book work. In math we took notes then got to start our homework. I had a pretty good day yesterday.

Weekend

I had a pretty good weekend. On Friday I went to the store and got a new game. On Saturday morning I went down to the bowling alley to thow a few games. After I went out to lunch with my Grandpa. After I went to my cousins to swim and babysit. It was a pretty good night. Come Sunday I had to wash my car. It turned out okay. Later on I went to Gamestop to get a few new games. After I just played them till it was time to go to bed. I had a pretty good Weekend.

TED Talk 2

The speaker who gave the talk was Niall Ferguson.
The subject was that he was talking about things that have killed society. There were 6 of them competition scientific revolution property rights modern medicine consumer society and work ethic. He called them apps like on a phone. Each meant something elese
I learned that society has changed. With each of the "apps" things have nchange over the years. The economic crisis has caused a lot of change.
The talk made me change the way I think about society and how other nations are. It changed how I tink of people.

What I think of School Spirit Week?

I think they come up with some cool ideas for school spirit. I would dress up but i always forget what day is what. If I knew I would probably dress up more. Blue out day is my favorite. I wear all blue. I sometimes paint my face too. Most of the spirit days are cool to see what people will come up with.  I like the spirit week ideas.

Test 2

1. The main purpose of the spot healing brush tool is to fix smudges or blurs in an image. It takes blemishes of of skin too.
2.opacity means how much a color saturates. It is not see through.
3.photoshop
4.photoshop
5.photoshop
6. The tool most similar is the magic wand tool.
7.photoshop
8. photoshop
9.photoshop
10.photoshop
11.photoshop
12.photoshop

13.I think the test went well. I thought that I had plenty of time to learn the various tools. The test seemed pretty easy I like doing the test on the computer.

Journal Entry

Yesterday was pretty good. I got to just watch a play in language arts. In spanish I fell asleep watching a movie. In american history I had to write a summary on a document so it was an easy day. In forensics I had to retake a test then I had the rest of the period to do what I want. In math we took notes.

Shape drawings

This was an excersise we did in school for a character design class.  First you would draw some random shape with nothing really in mind, just let the pencil flow.  Then you take a look at the shape, you turn it around, swuint your eyes at it, until you saw somehting in the shape, and then you draw.  It's a great excersise in creativity, in finding new shapes to play with and new approaches to subjects that might be getting a bit stagnant.  I was feeling the ned to stretch myself and so I did these.  I put up the shapes first and then the drawing I did based on that shape.  Enjoy.

Weekend

My weekend was pretty good. On Friday I went to my favorite pizza place Grande Pizza. They have the best deep dish pizza ever. On Saturday I drove my mom around to different places. That night I went out for japanese food. It was really good. Sunday rolled around and I went to my Aunt's to go swimming. After that I went out to Macayos for some great food for a different Aunt's birthday. I had a pretty good weekend.

Where is my Favorite place to eat?

My favorite place to eat is Outback Steakhouse. They have great food. Everytime I am in there I always get great customer service. They food is always warm. Everything I have ordered is delicous. It is simply the best place to eat.

Wednesday

Yesterday was a good day. I got to mess around with photoshop a little.  In language arts we watched a movie and took notes. Spanish was boring we had to work in a Packet. In US history we had a court case on Columbus. That was my favorite class yesterday. I had a pretty good Wednesday.

Do I have any plans after high school?

I do have plans for after high school. I am either going to join the military or be a motorcycle mechanic. Both careers have great benefits and make great money. I would rather be a motorcycle mechanic because i will always make good money. In the military I would make okay money but not as much as I would want to make. But both careers would be fine with me.

Journal Entry

So far school has been pretty good. Yesterday I found out I have a d in language arts. I hope my parents don't find out cause then I can't drive to school. Other than that school has been pretty good. I have met a few new friends. All of my teachers are pretty cool. And the homework has been pretty easy. I hope that my junior year will stay like this. People have told me this is the hardest year in high school. As long as I pass all my classes, next year I will only have 4 classes.

Painting Practice

I was teaching an art lesson yesterday and we were just having some fun painting.  This is what I came up with in the 45 minutes we had.  I was pretty happy with it.  Working on cardboard turned out to be alot of fun.  I may have to do some more art on it.  Enjoy.

The Big Deal: Not Price But Cost

The September issue of Information Today has published an article I have written on the Big Deal.

The article is available in full here. Below are a few extracts from it: 

What is the issue?

First introduced by Academic Press (AP) in 1996, the Big Deal—in which publishers sell online subscriptions to large bundles of electronic journals—is now the principal means by which academics access research literature.

When it was introduced, the Big Deal was widely seen as a solution to the so-called serials crisis, and both publishers and librarians embraced it enthusiastically.

However, the Big Deal today is the biggest bugbear for librarians and currently the focus of a face-off between U.K. librarians and publishers.

How did an initiative that was once viewed so positively become an object of dislike and derision? What is the solution? 

What is the Big Deal?

A Big Deal “may consist of hundreds of titles—often the publisher’s entire journals’ list—sold in a bundled package to a consortium of libraries on a one-price, one-size-fits-all basis,” according to Ingenta’s Mark Rowse in 2002.

In other words, research libraries combine to buy a single all-you-can eat subscription for a set fee and for a set number of years (usually 3). This fee is invariably based on the cost of the member institutions’ historical print subscriptions.

As Rowse explained, “A publisher might supply a whole list for the price of the sum of the original print subscriptions of a library consortium, with an electronic premium added, generally in the range of between 5 and 15 percent.”

In addition, a built-in percentage increase of around 6% per annum became standard. 

What was the Big Deal’s attraction?

For libraries, the perceived benefit of the Big Deal was “access to a greater number of journal titles and a stronger negotiating position through the purchase of a greater volume of content by large consortia,” says Fred Friend, honorary director scholarly communication at University College London. 

Why has the Big Deal become librarians’ greatest bête noire 15 years after its introduction?

Ivy Anderson, director of collections at California Digital Library points to three issues, concerns that only actually became apparent over time. These she characterizes as budgetary concerns, policy concerns, and systemic concerns. 

What is the nub of the problem?

[L]ibrarians have never denied that the Big Deal increases usage and lowers per-article costs. Says Anderson, “It has to be acknowledged that the large publisher journal licenses have expanded access and lowered the unit cost of much journal content relative to what the cost of those journals might have been without those deals, particularly when publishers have been willing to cap price increases in exchange for multi-year revenue guarantees.”

However, she points out that the problem is that lower per-unit costs do little to help librarians grapple with the more fundamental affordability problem confronting them.

To understand this problem, Anderson wrote on the liblicense mailing list earlier this year one has simply to juxtapose two well-known charts, “one from ARL documenting the long decline in the proportion of research university funding allocated towards libraries, and another reproduced by STM documenting the equally steady increase in journal publication over time. These trends have long been on a collision course.”

The relative decline of library budgets

What is the publisher’s perspective?

For their part, publishers rightly point out that if the scholarly publishing system is to continue functioning (in its current form at least), they have to be paid for the services they provide. Speaking to me last year, Derk Haank pointed out that journals are currently growing in volume by 6% to 7% per year. As a consequence, he said prices must inevitably go up.

“We have been doing all that is possible over the last couple of years, and will continue to do so to ensure that our price increases are lower than the volume increases. But not increasing our prices is not an option in the long term,” he said.

One can argue about the level of profits publishers ought to be making from the public purse, but Haank’s general point is hard to gainsay.

He added, “I agree that there was once a serial pricing problem. I have never denied there was a problem. But it was the Big Deal that solved it.” For that reason, he suggested, “The Big Deal is the best invention since sliced bread.”

[Haank also said]:“Librarians need to accept that if they want access to a continually growing database, then costs will need to go up a little bit … We try to accommodate our customers, but at a certain point, we will hit a wall.” 

UK librarians confront publishers

But librarians can hit walls too and ... some already have. Many are simply no longer able to pay publishers’ asking prices. And nowhere is this discontent more evident right now than in the U.K., where the Big Deal first saw the light of day.

Frustrated by the insupportable cost of the Big Deals and angry at what they see as publisher recalcitrance, U.K. librarians have decided that enough is enough.

Two years ago, Research Libraries UK (RLUK), which represents the so-called Russell Group of universities, and whose membership consists of 30 major institutions, including Oxford, Cambridge, and Manchester universities, Imperial College, the London School of Economics, and The British Library, made a decision. With its Big Deal contracts with both Elsevier and Wiley-Blackwell due for renewal in January 2012, RLUK instructed JISC Collections (which acts on its behalf in content licensing matters) to take a firm line in renewal negotiations.

Specifically, RLUK is insisting that in future its member institutions are billed in sterling rather than euros, that the bills are staged rather demanded upfront and—most striking of all—that prices are rolled back to where they were in 2007 (with an allowance for RPI).

In practice, says Deborah Shorley, director of library services at London University’s Imperial College (who is chair of the RLUK group leading the revolt), this would effectively amount to a 15% reduction in current prices. 

What can RLUK’s strategy achieve?

RLUK’s strategy would appear to be the biggest challenge to the status quo for 15 years. But is it a potential game-changer?

Let’s put the question another way: If it succeeds in its objective, what will RLUK have achieved? If the fundamental problem faced by the research community is long-term affordability then how can a temporary price reduction resolve the deeper problem? After all, prices will doubtless creep back up again. And librarians will still be handcuffed to an inflexible system.

It is striking that most discussion about the Big Deal too often fails to examine the underlying questions raised by the serials crisis. Questions such as: Can the research community still afford the scholarly communication system it has inherited, or has the cost become too great?

And even if the traditional system is still theoretically affordable, could it be that those who ultimately pay for it (universities, research funders, governments, and ultimately taxpayers) are no longer willing to foot the bill as the costs go higher and higher?

The signs are that the answer to both questions is no. If that is right, then RLUK’s strategy can surely only provide short-term relief. Is there no way out of the impasse? 

A possible answer is mooted in the full 9,000-word article, which is freely available here.