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August 2018

Today's my last day h̶e̶r̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶c̶a̶t̶s̶ as chief and managing editor at the OLHJ, which I've been managing over the summer. Excited to have @helenksaunders joining us on Monday to take over this role!

My day is 8 hours straight of admin followed by two MRAs (Magnetic Resonance Angiograms) and an MRI of my head. Who said that life isn't full of fun?

not "men's rights activists" TF.

I worked out the rate that UK universities pay for PhD examinations. I reckon, *at minimum wage*, you have about 4 minutes per page. This doesn't include travel time or write up or admin forms.

Of course, I regard it as part of my academic job to examine PhDs elsewhere, but it is odd that since compensation is offered, it's not commensurate to the role.

"Thanks for this. I am afraid I cannot conduct this review in this time and I am not willing to do so for Taylor & Francis, with £85.5m profit last year, for £40 after tax."

Today I have almost begun two discussions/arguments with People Who Are Wrong on the Internet. Better stay off social media for the rest of the week.

The problem with Ben Wishaw playing Q in Bond films is that it now sounds as though 007 gets his weapons from Paddington.

Lost 5kg since I last went climbing and today I absolutely flew up the problems I'd been unable to finish before. Pretty solid on the 6a scale now.

Cambridge needs to be held accountable for this crap. "'Open competitions' may not really be open" / "Some interviewers may have decided in advance that they are not interested in certain candidates". Zero accountability + implicitly (or even explicitly) biased gatekeeping. https://x.com/timsquirrell/status/1031983764883349505

By the admission of their own careers service, these prestigious fellowships are only available on the whim of hidden agendas. No wonder staff diversity in HE is so terrible in the UK.

Galling writing references for such processes too. Why should I have to waste my time writing references for great candidates who apply, only to have some hidden agenda mean they never stood a bloody chance in the first place.

Interesting the angles that different media entities take on lies, damn lies, and statistics. BBC: "A-Level results: rise in top grades". Guardian: "A-levels: proportion of students in England getting C or above falls".

Ha. Just found out that @scholasticahq are trying to poach @openlibhums journals. Good luck with that at $10 per submission, then $99 per month, then typesetting fees. Or $0 under our model thanks to supporting libraries. "May the best idea win" is one of their "corporate values"

@scholasticahq Interesting what it looks like to be a "supporter of the open access movement". Why work against an active OA publisher? And also, aren't you Scholastica, a for-profit publisher with VC funding? Putting out white papers decrying the corporate control of journal publishing...

Ouch, PC World: "Our investigation, which is now nearing completion, has identified that approximately 10 million records containing personal data may have been accessed in 2017"

As we get closer to the HE spending review outcome, the only upside I can see is that I can make a pun about the grim future... It doesn't... Auger well.

I think I've come up with the best way of explaining what having an audio processing disorder is like. It's akin to hearing a foreign language at which you're not very good. Working out where word breaks are and parsing vocal noise into language is very difficult.

Mandatory selfie with the dinosaur at Pittsburgh Airport. I'm looking a little worse for wear after 17 hours of travel and acute travel sickness on the last leg...

CrossRef offered a $50 fee waiver last month to smaller members to encourage deposit and reduce admin. Was meant to be ongoing. Email from finance director just now saying it cost them $30k and it's unsustainable. Didn't they model this beforehand?

I mean, not all costs and outgoings are easy to model, but surely this must have been possible - date I say, easy - to predict? They know member base, bandings, and average deposit quantity...

Just seen a letter from a publisher who will only send out review copies of books bound in custom blank covers with the word REVIEW stamped on every page to prevent resale. Ok... But they also make reviewers agree not to criticise the price of the book.

They claim their prices are so high because only 30-40 copies will be sold worldwide because titles have a niche audience. Seriously, if my book publisher said it had a market of 30, I'd say "stuff it" and just put a PDF online instead.

I mean, in this age, getting an audience (because people are poor at knowing where to focus attention without a frame) is one of the only things a good publisher can now claim to do - even if you don't think that should, in theory, be the case. (Call it lazy discoverability.)

Since Edwin Mellen threatened a librarian with a lawsuit a few years ago when he questioned their reputation and processes, I wouldn't publish with them anyway, but hey.

Went to a great wedding of my sister-in-law in Lewes. Trip home on the train was made slightly more difficult by attempting to carry 14 pints' worth of lovely beer from the excellent Harvey's brewery.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Part 1 verdict: good staging, good effects, good acting. Diabolically clunky script. Somewhat disappointing after the hype.