Em Johnson (she/her)

A graph of database connections, showing a massive spike at around 18.30.

This is what AI scrapers are doing to our platform. Our database capacity is just being ruined every time they initiate a fresh scrape and our tech team has to scramble, taking radical measures, to keep the platform up.

Rick offers predictions: 'the broader systemic conflict between competing business models will not be resolved by libraries, authors or publishers, but rather by institutions and funders', and 'end result will be a system characterized by coexisting models of pay‑access and open‑access publishing.'

Ten years of a ‘quiet culture war’: where does it stand now? | Insights

Thank you Eleanor Colla for finding this - Rick Anderson writes 'Ten years of a ‘quiet culture war’: where does it stand now?' #academiclibraries #priorities #open #scholarlycommunications | doi.org/10.1629/uksg...

This seems like a maliciously put headline to make people feel a certain way.

Wikipedia is not partaking in generative AI. They are making AI companies and scrappers having to pay for training their modules off wikipedia texts. And having an AI (not that ai) tasked with updating dead links.

Latest OASPA data shows dramatic growth in OA articles from past decades is plateauing - OASPA https://www.oaspa.org/news/latest-oaspa-data-shows-dramatic-growth-in-oa-articles-from-past-decades-is-plateauing/

Building a Sustainable Commons: Why community governance is the bedrock of Open Scholarly Infrastructure Simply being open is not enough; infrastructure must also be enduring. The Open Science movement stands at a critical juncture. While the principle of making research outputs open is now widely accepted as a prerequisite for progress, the true challenge remains: achieving long-term sustainability for the core infrastructures that make this openness...

Building a Sustainable Commons: Why community governance is the bedrock of Open Scholarly Infrastructure - OpenAIRE Blog https://www.openaire.eu/community/blogs/sustainability-holy-grail-building-a-sustainable-commons

The 5 stages of the ‘enshittification’ of academic publishing Academic publishing now shows the same decline that has hit social media and online marketplaces.

theconversation.com/the-5-stages... #academicpublishing #enshittification @profcarlrhodes.bsky.social and Martina Linnenluecke, Jan 6 2026

Oh I hear you

*tiptoing quietly back into my work socials* shhh

Dublin-based nonprofit lays off 80 central Ohio workers, cites AI and federal cuts DUBLIN, Ohio (WCMH) — A Dublin-based organization that manages the Dewey Decimal System and partners with libraries worldwide has laid off dozens of central Ohio employees, citing the rise of…

OCLC has laid 80 people off, not just because of IMLS cuts but explicitly because they're trying to use AI to do the work of library professionals.

Ready to admit AI is a huge labor problem yet?

📚

www-nbc4i-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.nbc4...

stand by for announcements into the CoP :) Anna and Bron will need help with convenorship

I am taking 5 months of uninterrupted long service leave at full pay Aug-Dec this year!
Why have I got such an appalling accrual, I hear you ask? Well indeed, and therein lies the irony of librarian burnout. #VocationalAwe #IdentityAsProfession #WorkLifeBalance #ReframeAndReset

The N8 Research Partnership has today released a landmark statement urging fundamental reform in the way scholarly research is published

Open Access Toolkit for Aotearoa New Zealand Researchers | Open Access Australasia

With open access conferences happening on the other side of the globe, we thought we'd celebrate OA in the lands down under with a link to the OA Toolkit for Aotearoa NZ Researchers. While only a basic tool, it's completely customisable for individual institutions oaaustralasia.org/open-access-...

Gender pay gaps and inequity at science publishers

The world's largest science publishers - which enjoy huge power & profits - consistently pay men more than women

We analysed 8 years of #genderpaygap data & contrast staggering pay inequities w/ the warm glow publishers often get for #EDI #genderequality

Pls share our new paper & Call to Action

Faster science is sloppier science. Don't we already have more than enough useless studies, retracted papers, and junk journals floating around?

The last thing we need is AI enabling people to produce more.

We need a slow research movement and we need it yesterday.

Beyond provocation: Reimagining systems through care, critique, and community - Emilia C. Bell Keynote at ANZREG Conference 11th June 2025 Slides | Recording [when available] Licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY-4.0), except for any content quoted from ...

I had the pleasure of giving a keynote for the ANZREG conference earlier this week titled 'Beyond provocation: Reimagining systems through care, critique, and community.'

🔗 Talk and slides: www.emiliabell.com/2025/06/13/b...

I'm engaging less with my work/professional social media these days. It's a bit overwhelming out there, and I'm pulling in my antennae while I seek an acceptable balance for work/life

As we say on the internet, "some personal news."

After 39 years on the job I am retiring as an NYU professor.

In this thread I will take a few moments to reflect on my academic career.

Spoiler alert: I am not leaving the field, or the fight for a public service press. 1/

Defining quality in peer review reports: a scoping review - Knowledge and Information Systems This study examines the challenge of defining quality in peer-review reports, a crucial yet underexplored aspect of academic publishing. Reviewers are vital gatekeepers of scientific knowledge, but un...

Journal Article: “Defining quality in peer review reports: a scoping review” link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Feels like a perfect storm of ignorance at my end, I've never had a good technical grasp of data exchange and integrations in EN and I'm not a library licences manager. Now AI. It's all coming at us so fast these days

This support.clarivate.com/Endnote/s/ar... ? Summarization feature Publishers are making libraries sign terms that say you can't upload their content into public ai clouds so yes technically this would be violation if user puts in full text and it gets Summarized

We're really concerned about AI in bibliographic tools such as EndNote. They appear to be in breach of vendor/publisher licencing? We've asked our IT team not to push out the new version until we've got some better information in place

A Librarian’s Guide to AI in Academic Search Tools As Katina covers the integration of AI into academic search tools and other library products, this guide offers useful background information on the technology.

A Librarian’s Guide to AI in Academic Search Tools katinamagazine.org/content/arti... - I was asked to write this rather than bloat out a review article I was doing for Katina. I struggled a lot with this, trying to keep it concise, vs technically accurate while handicaped by my limited knowledge

CREEPY: Academia.edu has generated an AI podcast for my paper:

Kingsley, D.A. and Kennan, M.A. (2015) “Open access: the whipping boy for problems in scholarly publication”, aisel.aisnet.org/cais/vol37/i...

It is *kinda* OK, but the asides are slightly off putting (an emphasise the wrong points)

I would love to see this kind of graph for the academic publishing sector

200+ scientists are in the middle of a marathon livestream to show why weather and climate science is so important and needs all our help to continue.
Share, boost, join and show them love.

It is here: wclivestream.com/watch

They were planning on streaming from the NASA GISS building on the last day it was a NASA building. However, NASA officials are preventing speakers from entering the building.

Join the stream and show your support!

unless subject to a funder policy, but that's a thin edge of wedge

IEEE now assert specific licenses and Copyright ownership over accepted manuscript versions now too.