The Times, They are a-Changin’ …

My President’s Letter reflected on the milestones of 2012. I truly appreciate everyone’s feedback and am almost caught up in my replies. What I didn’t emphasize was the conversation we had about reaching the 60 million download milestone.

When I received the alert that we crossed 60 million I was on a conference call with a group of scholars. I sat back and thought about SSRN’s role in scholarly communications and how things have changed in the last several years. We discussed the significance of the number and hypothesized how many researcher days have been saved using SSRN. After the call, I started thinking about what else we could do. We’re continually improving the site’s functionality, expanding the capacity, adding non-English content, and updating our iSSRN App, but there needs to be more.

Then I got it. I can share more. I spend a LOT of time at universities and conferences listening, talking, and listening some more about scholarly communications. The contrast across (and within) disciplines and researchers can be very interesting and informative. Over the next year I’m committed to sharing more of these experiences, interdisciplinary differences such as STM vs. SS&H, and emerging topics like altmetrics and innovative business models.

Stay tuned for reflections from my 2013 Scholarly Information Super Highway …

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