In January, Karin Wulf, a history professor at William and Mary, wrote an installment for her blog, Vast Early America, that promised to teach “How to Gut a (Scholarly) Book in 5 Almost-easy Steps.” ...

The numbers tell the story: In 1980, when China’s economic reform had just kicked off, its academic community produced no more than 85 journals. Today, that number has ballooned to more than 8,000.

BOOK IT was (and still is, actually) a reading incentive program that many in my age group were enrolled into during grades K-6. You’d do some reading, chart it, and get star stickers to paste onto a ...