The publisher of Building Research & Information, Taylor & Francis, has recently decided to terminate Richard Lorch’s contract as Editor-in-Chief at the end of 2018. This action has sparked grave concern amongst the members of BRI’s editorial board. What follows is an open letter written by the board to the publisher. It details the concerns of the editorial board, the action that they took to try to dissuade Taylor & Francis, and the subsequent response from the publisher. All of the signatories of this letter have tendered their resignation from post.
Blake
The Problem of Fake News Is Not Recent, But Our Current Internet Ecosystem Is
There were Internet communities at the time, though they did not much resemble the social media of today – Slashdot, for example. MetaFilter was in its infancy, I believe, and I’m pretty sure Reddit wasn’t born yet. I didn’t spent a lot of time in those communities but as I recall it was fairly open – that is, you did not have a social media group of people with whom you could communicate exclusively. Therefore if you went to a community and tried to get people on board with your Venusian unicorn theory, you might get some interest – but you might also get stomped by astronomers and mythology experts.
From The Problem of Fake News Is Not Recent, But Our Current Internet Ecosystem Is – ResearchBuzz
The Internet Isn’t Forever
Because history is a fight we’re having every day. We’re battling to make the truth first by living it, and then by recording and sharing it, and finally, crucially, by preserving it. Without an archive, there is no history.
Interlibrary loan system failure tying up librarians’ time
But starting late last year, processing requests to borrow material from other libraries has been significantly more time-consuming, and as of last week, about 150 requests were unfulfilled, Fabian said. That’s because a component of the state’s interlibrary loan system – a vast information highway that allows the state’s 234 public libraries, as well as several university and public school libraries, to loan resources to one another – has been down.
From Interlibrary loan system failure tying up librarians’ time
The Best Things Found Between the Pages of Old Books
WHAT SECRETS HIDE AMONG THE pages of old books? There might be a lock of George Washington’s hair, the story of an forgotten luminary of American literature, or a centuries-old manuscript full of mystery. We asked Atlas Obscura readers to send us their stories about the most amazing items they found in books, and you sent us hundreds of responses—from the gross and macabre to the utterly charming and deeply surprising.
From The Best Things Found Between the Pages of Old Books – Atlas Obscura
Stephen King ‘horrified’ by loss of his manuscripts in bookstore flooding
Gerald Winters’ bookstore, which specializes in rare and limited edition copies of King’s books, was among the handful of businesses damaged by flooding from the broken pipe in front of 46 Main St.
“I’m horrified. As a book lover, my heart goes out to him,” King told the Bangor Daily News on Wednesday. “I will eventually reach out and see if I can help in any way.”
University of Rhode Island Library Opening Artificial Intelligence Lab
In the fall semester of 2018, a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lab will be accessible to all University of Rhode Island students on the first floor of the Robert L. Carothers Library. Funded by a $143,065 grant from The Champlin Foundation, the AI Lab is believed to be the first in the nation to be located in a library.
From Artificial Intelligence Lab to be Accessible to All URI Students
Life Lessons From Chinese Children’s Books Differ From Those In The U.S.
They created a list of “learning-related” values and checked to see how often the books promoted them. The values included setting a goal to achieve something difficult, putting in a lot effort to complete the task and generally viewing intelligence as a trait that can be acquired through hard work rather than a quality that you’re born with.
The results — published in the Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology: The storybooks from China stress those values about twice as frequently as the books from the U.S. and Mexico.
From Life Lessons From Chinese Children’s Books Differ From Those In The U.S. : Goats and Soda : NPR
Germany vs Elsevier: universities win temporary journal access after refusing to pay fees
The Dutch publishing giant Elsevier has granted uninterrupted access to its paywalled journals for researchers at around 200 German universities and research institutes that had refused to renew their individual subscriptions at the end of 2017.
From Germany vs Elsevier: universities win temporary journal access after refusing to pay fees
The illiteracy-promoting interior design abomination called “backwards books”
The rationale is that the pages of books provide a more neutral backdrop than those pesky spines, which detract from the look that the designers are going for, which seems to be a bland uniformity.
A quick search revealed that there are a number of designers who think this is a good idea.
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