The Shiny Digital Future

Exaptation is just a ten-dollar word for unintended consequences.

The raison d’etre of the blog is, no surprise, sauropod vertebrae,  but we also care very much about open access and are not above using the blog as our digital soapbox. Also, our paper-related blogging in the wake of Taylor et al. (2009) set off several rounds of discussion, both here and elsewhere online, about the role of blogs in science. Although the increasing overlap between blogs and journals is not precisely or only a matter of open-vs-closed access, neither is it unrelated. Both issues are part of the ongoing revolution in how science is communicated, both among researchers and with (with, not to) the general public.

The following SV-POW! articles deal with these subjects:

• Off-topic: non-open academic publishing is dead
• Choosing a journal for the neck-posture paper: why open access is important
• Blog posts, papers, and the brave new digital world: your thoughts are welcome
• Blogs, papers, and the brave new digital world: Matt’s thoughts
• Blogs, papers, etc.: some more random thoughts, from Mike this time
• Yet more uninformed noodling on the future of scientific publishing and that kind of thing
• Right, that’s it — time for the revolution
• Ornithischian Limb-Bone Project Of The Decade
• Electronic publishing is inevitable and even the ICZN is beginning to accept it

And don’t forget that plenty of biology and palaeontology papers are already freely available, whether from open-access journals, individual researchers’ pages,institutional repositories or elsewhere.  Our list collecting these:

• Open Access Bio and Paleo

Comments are open; let us know what you think.