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OpenAlex: Features, advantages and limitations of an open database

https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.16434

“The results reveal numerous records lacking abstracts, affiliations and references; deficiencies in identifying document types and languages; and issues with authority control and versioning. Although OpenAlex has been adopted in important initiatives and has yielded results comparable to those obtained with commercial databases, gaps in its metadata and a lack of consistency point to a need for intensive data cleaning, suggesting it should be used with caution. The study concludes by identifying three lines of action to improve data quality: increasing publishers’ commitment to completing metadata in primary sources; creating coordination structures to channel the contributions of institutional users; and endowing the project with sufficient human resources and reliable procedures to address internal quality control tasks and user support requests.”

Fake dissertation

“In 1958 Maria Hermina Nederburgh (1872-1963) donated four copies of the thesis Eenige beschouwingen over transportatie en relegatie vooral in verband met kolonisatie (‘Some thoughts on penal transportation, in particularly in relation to colonosation’) to the Academisch Historisch Museum (AHM-1958-169 to AHM-1958-171). The dissertation was defended almost seventy years earlier by her brother, Herman Gerard Nederburgh (1864-1935) in Leiden in 1890. ‘Four copies’ is a bit misleading, because whereas one of the copies is indeed the thesis, in the other three the title page of the dissertation is followed by a novel. In 1958, Miss Nederburgh provided the following explanation: ‘Since the content of the actual dissertation held no appeal for the ladies, it was replaced by a novel or history, which was presented in the same cover and with a gilded edge.’ She herself, her sister Sophia Clementia Nederburgh-Nuhout van der Veen (1862-1925) and Hermans’ fiancée Anna Apollonia Salverda (1866-1958) each received such a “fake” dissertation.”

https://www.leidenspecialcollectionsblog.nl/articles/judging-a-book-by-its-cover