Join SSP | Contact Us | Sitemap | RSS
Books
This section features reviews of recent books of interest to SSP members. SSP earns up to 10% from the purchase of any book featured on these pages. Click on the cover art or title to access the book on Amazon.
Please contact Liz Blake with suggestions and book recommendations.
What People are Reading . . .
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers 7th Edition
Modern Language Association
List price: $22.00 (Paperback)
Book Description
"Widely adopted by universities, colleges, and secondary schools, the MLA Handbook gives step-by-step advice on every aspect of writing research papers, from selecting a topic to submitting the completed paper. For over half a century, the MLA Handbook is the guide millions of writers have relied on.
The seventh edition is a comprehensive, up-to-date guide to research and writing in the online environment. It provides an authoritative update of MLA documentation style for use in student writing, including simplified guidelines for citing works published on the Web and new recommendations for citing several kinds of works, such as digital files and graphic narratives.
Every copy of the seventh edition of the MLA Handbook comes with a code for accessing the accompanying Web site. New to this edition, the Web site provides the full text of the print volume of the MLA Handbook; over two hundred additional examples; several research-project narratives — stories, with sample papers, that illustrate the steps successful students take in researching and writing papers; searching of the entire site, including the full text of the MLA Handbook; and continuous access throughout the life of the seventh edition of the MLA Handbook."
See the The Scholarly Kitchen for a blog post on this new edition of the MLA Handbook.
Scholarship in the Digital Age: Information, Infrastructure, and the Internet
Christine L. Borgman
List price: $35.00 (Hardcover)
Book Description
"Scholars in all fields now have access to an unprecedented wealth of online information, tools, and services. The Internet lies at the core of an information infrastructure for distributed, data-intensive, and collaborative research. Although much attention has been paid to the new technologies making this possible, from digitized books to sensor networks, it is the underlying social and policy changes that will have the most lasting effect on the scholarly enterprise. In Scholarship in the Digital Age, Christine Borgman explores the technical, social, legal, and economic aspects of the kind of infrastructure that we should be building for scholarly research in the twenty-first century.
"Borgman describes the roles that information technology plays at every stage in the life cycle of a research project and contrasts these new capabilities with the relatively stable system of scholarly communication, which remains based on publishing in journals, books, and conference proceedings. No framework for the impending 'data deluge' exists comparable to that for publishing. Analyzing scholarly practices in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, Borgman compares each discipline's approach to infrastructure issues. In the process, she challenges the many stakeholders in the scholarly infrastructure — scholars, publishers, libraries, funding agencies, and others — to look beyond their own domains to address the interaction of technical, legal, economic, social, political, and disciplinary concerns. Scholarship in the Digital Age will provoke a stimulating conversation among all who depend on a rich and robust scholarly environment."
Scholarly Publishing Practice Third Survey 2008
John Cox and Laura Cox
ALPSP members: Print copy only @ £60/$115/€80 each (online version free to download)
Non-members: Print copy + PDF @ £250/$480/€330 each
Book Description
"This is the third in a series of ALPSP surveys undertaken to establish current scholarly publishing practices, designed to track changes in policy and practice since 2000, as online publishing has matured. The survey was conducted of 400 journal publishers, both commercial and not-for-profit, consisting of ALPSP and other major association members. A response rate of over 65% was achieved including the majority of major journal publishers. The full report provides a vast array of evidence about the current policies and practices of scholarly journal publishers, but it also shows how these practices have changed over time with comparisons with the survey results from 2003 and 2005. It will be invaluable to those who wish to dispel some of the misunderstandings that have been voiced about journal publishing and to show how publishers' policies have changed in response to advocacy groups and funding mandates."
The SSP Books page mentions and reviews books about information and publishing. Please contact Books Editor Liz Blake to contribute a review.
All reviews reflect the opinions of the reviewers and not the membership, management, or leadership of the Society for Scholarly Publishing.