Amazon announces Kindle Library Lending Program

Press relase from Amazon and from Overdrive, digital distributor of eBooks for many libraries, and Amazon's partner in this program.

The release is planned for later this year in the US.

Annual Reviews white paper

A white paper from Annual Reviews publisher:

"The paper draws on a survey of early-career researchers to examine their approach to academic literature, such as how and why they read it, how much time they dedicate to it, what informs their reading choices, and how they assess quality. "

Click to read

AAUP Faculty Salary report – 2010/2011

It’s Not Over Yet: The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2010–11

Per the press release, the results of the latest AAUP survey:

“…are only marginally better than last year and represent the continuation of a historic low period for faculty salaries. For the second consecutive year, the overall average salary level increased at a rate less than inflation, and this is the fifth of the last seven years in which overall faculty salaries declined in purchasing power.”

Top Private Universities in Faculty Salaries for Full Professors, 2010-11

University	Average Salary
1. Harvard University	$193,800
2. Columbia University	$191,400
3. University of Chicago	$190,400
4. Stanford University	$188,400
5. Princeton University	$186,000

Top Public Universities in Pay for Full Professors, 2010-11

University	Average Salary
1. New Jersey Institute of Technology	$158,700
2. University of California at Los Angeles	$153,700
3. University of California at Berkeley	$149,100
4. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor	$146,900
5. University of Maryland at Baltimore	$144,800

Adapated from Losing Ground on Salary (Inside Higher Ed. article)

SciVal Strata: new tool to measure academic performance

Elsevier announces a new tool to "measure individual or team performance using customizable indicators."

See this article from ReadWriteWeb: Strata Allows You to Play Fantasy Football - With Scientists

Another study questions the impact of open access journals

Mr. Philip M. Davis, a researcher in the department of communication at Cornell University, publishes a study in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology journal and concludes that "open access publishing may reach more readers than subscription access publishing, although additional readership may not translate into more citations."

Open access, readership, citations: a randomized controlled trial of scientific journal publishing