Author: drdorch

Poisonous books

By Jakob Povl Holck, Bertil F. Dorch,, Bjarke Jørgensen, Alexandra Alvis, Vanessa Haight Smith, Gwenaelle M. Kavich, Kimberly A Harmon, Thomas Delbey, Kaare Lund Rasmussen

Efforts to read medieval manuscript waste recycled as bookbinding material in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have resulted in the chemical analysis of four books housed at the University Library of Southern Denmark and the Smithsonian Libraries in Washington DC. Four green coloured book bindings have been investigated by optical microscopy, micro X-ray fluorescence, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, mass spectroscopy, and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. … Continue reading Continue reading →

Open access: everyone has the right to knowledge

By Bertil F. Dorch

Traditionally, knowledge breakthroughs and scientific discoveries are shared through publication in academic journals. Peer-reviewed and highly competitive, careers are made and broken on the number and impact of these publications. With the complex, long-standing hierarchy of journal ranking, scientific publishing is … Continue reading Open access: everyone has the right to knowledge →

Merry work: libraries and citizen science

By Bertil F. Dorch, Thomas Kaarsted, Anne Kathrine Overgaard, Tiberius Ignat , Paul Ayris, Ignasi Labastida i Juan, Susan Reilly

This article highlights important new opportunities for libraries by analysing the roles they could potentially play in citizen science projects. Citizen science is one of the eight pillars of open science identified by the Open Science Policy Platform, an EC Working Group. The authors of the article suggest that roles for libraries wishing to support or engage in citizen science could include contributing to specific skills development; building and maintaining collections of protocols, data forms and educational materials; contributing to making data FAIR; supporting new communication roles; participating in recruitment and helping volunteers to participate in projects; … Continue reading Continue reading →

The Cost of Astronomy: Publishing fees in astronomy: Is something rotten in the case of Denmark?

By Bertil F. Dorch

Using Scopus and national sources, I have investigated the evolution of the cost of publishing in Danish astronomy on a fine scale over a number of years. I find that the number of publications per year from Danish astronomers increased by a factor of four during 15 years: naturally, the corresponding potential cost of publishing must have increased similarly. The actual realized cost of publishing in core journals are investigated for a high profile Danish astronomy research institutions. … Continue reading Continue reading →

Applying Bourdieu’s Field Theory to Analyze the Changing Status of the Research Librarian

By Charlotte Wien & Bertil F. Dorch

Research librarians no longer need to perform as many of the traditional the chores of the research library. This is due to many factors like digitalization, changing research policies and changes in researchers’ behaviour. With these changes also comes a demand for new skills.… Continue reading Continue reading →

Contraditing Incentives for Research Collaboration

By Charlotte Wien, Bertil F. Dorch & Asger V. Larsen

This study describes the Danish publication award system (BFI), investigates whether its built-in incentives have had an effect on publication behavior at the University of Southern Denmark, and discusses the possible future implications on researcher incentives should universities wish to measure BFI on the individual level.
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