LLLotW 2023.18
The ASCILITE conference will be in Christchurch, Aotearoa this year and the Call for Papers is open. Draft your ten-page paper or 500 word abstract about “People, Partnerships and Pedagogy” now!
The beginning of the end for academic publishers?
On May 23, the Council of the EU adopted a set of conclusions on scholarly publishing that, if followed through, would spell the end for academic publishers and scholarly journals as we know them. On the same day, the adoption was followed by a joint statement of support by the largest and most influential research organizations in Europe. At the heart of the goals spelled out in the conclusions and the statement of support is the creation of a “publicly owned and not-for-profit” infrastructure for scholarly publications.
I am generally very skeptical about statements like this because academia has so far shown very little appetite for fixing its self-inflicted system of transferring truckloads of public money to a small number of monopolies in exchange for an enormous amount of bureaucracy and access to its own research. But it's kind of true – there does seem to be a bit of movement from funding bodies like the EU which seem to finally be losing patience with how their money is wasted.
Florence Museum Wins Copyright Lawsuit Over Image of “David”
This headline really should read something like “Italy withdraws from Berne Convention, declares war on creativity” given the ruling flies the face of every international agreement on the extent to which states can arbitrarily restrict creative use of public domain art. In this case, the artist has been dead for five centuries, yet the state of Italy effectively claims copyright over representations of David. The legal precedent here is catastrophic for common sense and for anyone who wants more art and artists in their life.
Libraries and Learning Links of the Week is published every week by Hugh Rundle.
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