In late November, I read with interest an announcement from Wiley. This publisher has begun requiring as part of their manuscript submission process, that the submitting author register for and provide his/her ORCID iD.  By now, many of our authors should be familiar with ORCID as we launched ORCID@MSK in March of this year. Our goal regarding ORCID was, and still is, to proactively support our authors by facilitating for them the process of obtaining their universal digital identifier.

In browsing the ORCID website, I was able to view other journals and publishers that have made the same move as Wiley.  Journals/publishers such as PLoS, eLife, Faculty of 1000, Rockefeller University Press, and the American Chemical Society have signed the ORCID open letter in support of the inclusion of the ORCID iD in the publishing process for their journals. Through their manuscript submission systems, publishers are in an exclusive position to encourage widespread adoption of ORCID. Continue reading →

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend “Bibliometrics & Research Assessment: A Symposium for Librarians and Information Professionals”, held at the National Institutes of Health, Clinical Center, Bethesda, Maryland.

One of the keynote speakers was Katy Börner, Distinguished Professor of Information Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, whose intriguing talk focused on the world of big data and translating this data into information visualizations. She shared several examples of where enormous data sets were transformed into visual pictures that tell the story of the data in a way that is more easily digestible by the viewer. Continue reading →

The Ninth International Open Access Week will be held October 24-30. This event and this year’s theme encourages all interested individuals to move from discussing what Open Access is, to taking action and making a conscious commitment to work in an environment that promotes and makes research transparent and accessible to all.

Open Access week began in 2007.  It continues to be an important event aimed at raising awareness of the benefits of an open access environment, as well as, demonstrating the value open access content provides to interested readers (from both the research community and the general public). The open access model has the potential to increase the exposure of research work and augment the overall advancement of scholarly communication around the World. Continue reading →