The death of the academic book and the path to Open Access

Roxanne Missingham discusses Is publishing academic books a dying trade? And if so, are free e-books from universities likely to deal the final blow?The future of book publishing in general is hotly contested, but particularly so for university presses.
  

Read more at http://theconversation.com/the-death-of-the-academic-book-and-the-path-to-open-access-19153

Gift of The Linnaeus Apostles to the ANU library

The Australian National University Library is delighted to receive the gift of The Linnaeus Apostles.

During the 18th century, the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) was to inspire 17 of his scholars to travel to distant corners of the world to document local nature and culture. They travelled on their own or with expeditions across land and sea - their travels covered every continent between the years 1745 and 1799.They were referred to as the Linnaeus Apostles (or disciples).

The publication is a major international series of eight volumes - in all 11 books and over 5,500 pages - which has been in preparation since the late 1990s under the overall title of The Linnaeus Apostles - Global Science & Adventure. All the accounts of the apostles' journeys to every continent have been published for the first time in English; those of the apostles who left no travel journals are described through their correspondence or other sources. In the introductory and concluding volumes world experts in various subject fields will provide accounts of the 18th century, of Linnaeus, of travelling and the hardships of field work, together with biographies and an index covering approximately 5,500 indexed printed pages, resulting in around 150,000 specific search terms and a considerable number of cross references or references to modern biological nomenclature.

Roxanne Missingham

University  Librarian

Australian National Universtiy