The Publisher’s Association has commissioned a report that seems to be their latest attempt at painting open access to research as economically damaging to the publishing sector.

The Publisher's Association has [commissioned a report](https://www.publishers.org.uk/publications/economic-impact-assessment/) that seems to be their latest attempt at painting open access to research as economically damaging to the publishing sector.

Today I have written to the University of Leicester tendering my resignation as an external examiner. The text of resignation is below: Dear Professor Canagarajah, I write, following my previous correspondence of the 22nd January, to tender my resignation as an external examiner in the department of English at the University of Leicester. I wish to reiterate the concerns that I made in that email, to which I have had no response.

This morning I had to have a call with our accountants that I was somewhat dreading: does Brexit have tax implications for the Open Library of Humanities, a company limited by guarantee with charitable objects (a UK charity)? An important point about our model: OLH is not a supply.

This morning I had to have a call with our accountants that I was somewhat dreading: does Brexit have tax implications for the Open Library of Humanities, a company limited by guarantee with charitable objects (a UK charity)? An important point about our model: [OLH is not a supply](/2015/04/24/gearing-up-for-olh-in-the-uk-and-the-resolution-to-the-vat-question/). Because, in our model, we do not charge anybody for a direct service provision,

This week opened with the distressing news that Lord Sumption, supposedly someone whose judgement is entirely sound, having been a Supreme Court justice, had told a cancer sufferer live on air that her life was less valuable than others. Pretty disgusting stuff that, to me, seems to show a type of thinking that is similar to eugenics;

I am due up for vaccination in the very near future. This is good news. But it’s tempered.

I am due up for vaccination in the very near future. This is good news. But it's tempered.

A discourse of ‘fairness’ has emerged in open-access circles in recent years. It has come from a sense that big, for-profit publishers have not played ‘fairly’ with libraries over the past 30 years. It is unsurprising. These large publishers make margins of 35%+ on billions of dollars of revenue, even while library budgets stagnate.

There was some research earlier this year that I thought was apt for the pandemic, showing that realism is key to being happy, not optimism or pessimism.

There was some research earlier this year that I thought was apt for the pandemic, showing that [realism is key to being happy](https://theconversation.com/why-realism-is-the-key-to-wellbeing-new-research-139717), not optimism or pessimism.