"Open, reproducible hardware for microscopy" - A special issue in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society

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Following a meeting in Glasgow last year organised by @rbowman, @jarancio, @beniroquai and others there hase been a special issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society published on ‘Open, reproducible hardware for microscopy’.

:rotating_light: SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION ALERT :rotating_light:

I am very happy that one of the articles published is an opinion piece that I have wanted to write for some time. I was lucky enough that the Royal Society was willing to waive the open access fee as I have no institution to pay, but this article would make no sense behind a pay wall.

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thanks for sharing! Great read, many interesting views and insights, as well as fascinating history lessons!

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Nice!!! Thank you @julianstirling for saying what is so needed to be said. :wink: :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Silly questions, but is there a way to download the whole issue as PDF? If not, I can combine the articles.

Thanks for sharing, @julianstirling!

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I doubt there is a way to download the whole issue. Journals tend to be super paranoid about people archiving all their content, even when it is open. I think also, the journal itself is “gold” open access, so each article individually had to pay for it to be open. As such, I assume that a “download all” button wouldn’t make sense as certain articles would normally be behind a paywall. In this specific case, every article has paid for it to be open.

If you are on Linux (or on windows via WSL) I use pdftk to combine PDFs together, but it is still annoying to have to download each.

We also have another paper in the issue on the OpenFlexure, which Joe lead the writing of. Really focussing on how we transition something open into the medical world.

There is also a paper on the EnderScope which turns a 3D printer into a microscope in a way that you can easily swap back and forward between microscopy and 3D printing. It can be used to look at microplastics in the water. @hikinghack this seems like your kind of thing.

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neat! i haven’t heard of the Enderscope! sounds like it could be an even more low cost Jubilee

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I wonder what everyone considers to be their main “market segment” for OScH? For instance, it could be grad students. And having identified the market segment, what would you say their especial needs are, could be low cost, or tech support, etc.

If an overall market map could be drawn up I think that would be instructive. Or if such a map already exists, I’d appreciate being pointed to it.

For instance, my not-necessarily-representative experience is that while grassroots enterprises are usually interested and supportive, they cannot take a beta and certainly not an alpha release; and they need the iphone-like consumer experience, or if not then they want to sub out the operation.