tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4254957763085555183.post5827857219728061528..comments2024-03-23T10:16:15.764+00:00Comments on ALPSP blog: at the heart of scholarly publishing: O’Reilly TOC Frankfurt fails to deliverALPSPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11838567073548666766noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4254957763085555183.post-67165313009004351152009-10-22T17:13:27.820+01:002009-10-22T17:13:27.820+01:00I personally believe that TOC was a good event and...I personally believe that TOC was a good event and a good place to meet to talk about different ideas. It could be that the downbeat mood was apparent because publishers who were speaking were not speaking about anything particularly new because they are sitting on a range of innovative projects which they are waiting to release on their customers but were unable to speak about. <br /><br />As a digital product design consultancy, we know that there are new solutions coming through from us for clients soon to release to the market but no one is ready to talk about them yet! <br /><br />Next year might be quite different as the wave of new digital products comes through.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4254957763085555183.post-54444243389728236542009-10-22T08:48:27.484+01:002009-10-22T08:48:27.484+01:00You might have a point Andrew.
Clearly DRM isn...You might have a point Andrew.<br /><br />Clearly DRM isn't such a huge issue in scholarly and academic publishing, but it is for the trade publishers. My personal views are pretty close to yours but it seems like there did need to be an opportunity to debate this at TOC. My disappointment was that there was no real discussion about anything.<br /><br />It did make me realise just how clued up the STM publishing industry is. I honestly think that the trade publishers could learn a lot from us...Audrey McCullochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04655785415121299103noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4254957763085555183.post-9652549589135262142009-10-22T08:03:39.562+01:002009-10-22T08:03:39.562+01:00Many thanks for this summary, Ian. I did not atten...Many thanks for this summary, Ian. I did not attend, but did follow the back channel on Twitter. The tweets that came out of #tocfrankfurt became increasingly downbeat as the day progressed, and it was obvious that all was not well at the event in terms of its failure to meet the presumably rather high expectations of a proportion of the attendees.<br /><br />Part of the reason for this is that things are moving on. If any given attendee felt that the utility of DRM still needs to be debated, I suspect that their disappointment would have been significant.<br /><br />Surely the point is that this doesn't *need* to be debated any more, does it? Continuing to defend the perceived value of DRM from the PoV of publishers as a hypothesis for the purposes of a theoretical debate does nothing to change the fact that 1) DRM does not work; 2) DRM denies rather than facilitates access; 3) supporting DRM serves to push publishers further into a corner where they will end up doing nothing other than talking to themselves and hiding the information they publish from the audience they would like to reach out to. Invisibility is equivalent to irrelevance.<br /><br />Those large, inflexible, resolutely myopic elements of the industry that are hell-bent on continuing to 'defend' the indefensible will do nothing other than increase the velocity and trajectory of their decline.Andrew Sponghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02978439990983958861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4254957763085555183.post-5480004548743553352009-10-19T15:36:05.586+01:002009-10-19T15:36:05.586+01:00Thanks, Andrew, for engaging. I'm sorry to hea...Thanks, Andrew, for engaging. I'm sorry to hear about Tim's accident (and sorry for questioning his absence, too! - I hope he is set for a speedy recovery).<br /><br />You're right that we don't always recognise the future crossover potential of current developments - I'll hope to come along next year and judge for myself. (I should have added that I've always heard good things about previous US TOCs!)Charlie Rapplehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07895412965855832650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4254957763085555183.post-43282546843653510582009-10-18T14:29:33.480+01:002009-10-18T14:29:33.480+01:00@Ian -- thanks for the feedback, and I'm sorry...@Ian -- thanks for the feedback, and I'm sorry to hear you were disappointed in the event. Many people came to me personally during and after the conference to say how much they enjoyed it and how pleased they were with the speakers. But we appreciate and value critical feedback, and do use it to plan future programs. I welcome you to submit a proposal for the next conference.<br /><br />I'm also sorry to hear you were disappointed with my keynote. Tim's shoes are big ones to try and fill, and much of the material covered came directly from exchanges with him about things that excite him about what's happening in the industry from his perspective.<br /><br />@Charlie -- Tim injured himself while on holiday in Italy, and as of two days before the event we'd still hoped he'd be able to attend. But he simply wasn't in a condition to continue his travel, and returned home on advice of a doctor.<br /><br />While it's true that some of what we see and do may not apply to other disciplines, it's also true that the same could have been said in 1993, when we launched the first commercial web portal at a time when there were about 200 web sites. Personal computers, the Web, online forums, blogging, Facebook, Twitter, wikis, cloud computing, and even open-source software were all once roundly dismissed as irrelevant to "mainstream" firms.Andrew Savikashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03328878619427694248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4254957763085555183.post-41428734395604085492009-10-16T15:42:13.768+01:002009-10-16T15:42:13.768+01:00Really interesting, thanks Ian. I didn't make ...Really interesting, thanks Ian. I didn't make it to TOC and have also never been to the US TOCs - have you? Have they typically been any better, if so?<br /><br />Most of what I've read / heard is along these lines - that the O'Reilly experience just isn't quite applicable to other publishing disciplines, and that overall the day did not add anything useful or thought-provoking to the existing debate.<br /><br />What a shame that Tim O'Reilly didn't go. Did he have a good excuse? otherwise it does look like a bit of a snub, and doesn't help them to get the buy-in they need for this event off the ground long-term.<br /><br />I wonder if they'll be back next year (probably, since attendance was so high) - and if so, whether attendance will tail off dramatically as delegates revert back to their previous pre-book fair commitments (STM, Supply Chain, etc).Charlie Rapplehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07895412965855832650noreply@blogger.com