I don't like to be defensive, but I get pretty annoyed when people harp on about a lack of innovation in scholarly publishing; the latest being Chris Armbruster in a post to the liblicense list-serv.
I really, truly, believe that this is a complete fallacy.
In little more than a decade:
* the vast majority of journals (according to the latest ALPSP Scholarly Publishing Practice survey 96.1% of STM journals and 86.5% of HSS journals) are available online
* many publishers have completely digitized their backfiles
* we have seen the emergence of new business models, both for author-side payment and evolution of the subscription model
* we have seen the implementation of online submission and peer review processes and systems
* we are now publishing audio, video and supplementary data sets alongside research articles
* publishers are linking primary research to underlying data
* publication times have decreased dramatically
* cost per page and per article are also generally decreasing
* publishers have made great use of outsourcing and other business strategies to minimize costs and maximise service
* we are seeing the emergence of data and text mining
* access to scholarly material has never been greater or more convenient
* we have seen any number of experiments linking scholarly communication with 'web 2.0' technologies
* we are seeing experimentation and even early implementation of semantic web technology...
the list literally goes on and on and on!
At the same time, the scholarly communication system is serving ever greater numbers of researchers publishing more and more material.
We should not rest on our laurels, of course, but what possible justification can there be for the assertion that innovation in scholarly publishing is slow and what on Earth more could the publishing industry be doing?
Answers on a postcard please!
The ALPSP Blog has now moved to our main website. This page remains up as an archive of all of our previous posts.
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
Tuesday, 6 January 2009
Wikipedia reaches fundrasing target... until June at least...
I've just spotted the announcement by founder Jimmy Wales that Wikipedia has met its fundraising target of $6 million to secure its operational expenditure for the fiscal year to June 2009.
The funds are made up, apparently, of $4 million from ~125,000 private donors with the balance of $2 million coming from 'foundation support'.
This announcement prompted a couple of observations / questions...
1) This reaffirms that [electronic] publishing - even in wikis - costs real money.
2) Is it only me that finds Wikipedia's mission 'to bring free knowledge to the planet, free of charge and free of advertising' slightly ironic since it isn't free at all?!
3) I thought at first that it was quite impressive to run such a goliath enterprise with only 23 employees... but now I am not so sure. Surely the idea was to provide the infrastructure (i.e. one website) and let us users get on with it...
4) I have no idea how Wikipedia's costs pan out... but if (and I admit it is a big if) their salary bill if half of their expenditure then the average salary for a Wikipedia employee woule be over $250,000...
5) $4 million from 125,000 donors equates to an average of $32 per donor. Not a lot, I guess...
6) So this secures them financially until June 2009. But even at a relatively modest average of $32 per donor, are people really going to put their hands in their pockets year in, year out to continue funding Wikipedia?
7) I wonder if they'll end up selling it to Walmart....
Wednesday, 31 December 2008
ALPSP group on LinkedIn
A month or so ago we set up an ALPSP group on LinkedIn... and a few weeks later I actually figured out how to confirm people as members of the group (d'uh!).
Since then, the group has grown to 100 and counting! The intention is not really to push much ALPSP specific stuff via LinkedIn - we'll still do that via the e-newseller, ALPSP Alert, this blog and our e-mail discussion lists - but rather to provide another place where members can network...
Of course, if you do spot an interesting publishing related news item then feel free to share it with colleagues in the LinkedIn group, and similarly if you have a topic for discussion that you want to share then go right ahead!
Ian
Since then, the group has grown to 100 and counting! The intention is not really to push much ALPSP specific stuff via LinkedIn - we'll still do that via the e-newseller, ALPSP Alert, this blog and our e-mail discussion lists - but rather to provide another place where members can network...
Of course, if you do spot an interesting publishing related news item then feel free to share it with colleagues in the LinkedIn group, and similarly if you have a topic for discussion that you want to share then go right ahead!
Ian
Monday, 1 December 2008
2009 ALPSP International Conference - date and venue confirmed!
We're pleased to announce the date and venue for the 2009 ALPSP International Conference!
When: 9-11 September 2009
Where: The Oxford Belfry, Oxfordshire, UK
Details are on the Conference website www.alpspconference.org.
In a credit-crunch busting move, we've held the registration fees to last year's level and we've managed to negotiate a special rate for the Conference overnight accommodation of just GBP 86 per night.
Online booking will open shortly.
The 2009 program proper will start late afternoon on Wednesday 9 September but we will be running a number of free pre-conference workshops throughout the afternoon.
We were delighted with the success of the 2008 Conference - next year's will be even better!
Ian
When: 9-11 September 2009
Where: The Oxford Belfry, Oxfordshire, UK
Details are on the Conference website www.alpspconference.org.
In a credit-crunch busting move, we've held the registration fees to last year's level and we've managed to negotiate a special rate for the Conference overnight accommodation of just GBP 86 per night.
Online booking will open shortly.
The 2009 program proper will start late afternoon on Wednesday 9 September but we will be running a number of free pre-conference workshops throughout the afternoon.
We were delighted with the success of the 2008 Conference - next year's will be even better!
Ian
JISC Board
I've just heard that my application to join the Board of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has been successful! I'll join the Board from next year...
JISC is funded by the UK HE and FE funding bodies to provide leadership in the innovative use of ICT to support education and research. They fund national services like JANET (the joint academic network) and a range of programmes and projects.
Ian
JISC is funded by the UK HE and FE funding bodies to provide leadership in the innovative use of ICT to support education and research. They fund national services like JANET (the joint academic network) and a range of programmes and projects.
Ian
Friday, 7 November 2008
More on the Google settlement...
It was good to get some firsthand news of the Google settlement from Pat Schroeder (the first woman elected to Congress from Colorado and now President and CEO of the Association of American Publishers).
Pat explained that the settlement - which only covers material with US rights - will mean that Google will pay $60 per in-copyright book that it has digitized without permission (doesn't sound a lot does it!) to those rightsholders that choose to be party to the agreement and that rightsholders then have two choices:
(1) they can take the sixty bucks and then walk away (their books will then be removed from the Google Book Search service) or (2) they can agree to have some or all of their books included in Book Search and potentially earn revenue from sales of the books, from subscriptions to collections and from advertising appearing around the book...
Pat was at pains to point out that the content of books cannot be messed with (so there won't be any advertising or product placement inside the works...)
One thing I hadn't previously appreciated was that the settlement deal does not include rightsholders of images, photographs, etc and so these will be BLACKED OUT from the digitized content.
Pat also mentioned that rightsholders would be compensated for print copies made from content in Google Book Search and that Google would be helping libraries to collect and distribute payments - in the short-term Google will itself anti-up these fees to rightsholders...
Meanwhile, the Federation of European Publishers has issued a statement on its website outlining some areas of concern it has with the proposed settlement. Basically, these are:
(a) a concern that the Google programme will constitute a de facto monopoly on distribution
(b) that there are already better mechanisms to make available out of print books and orphan works (for example Libreka and the ARROW project)
(c) that Google cannot use a 'fair use' argument for content owned by EU rightsholders and that their activities are still violating the 2001 Copyright Directive and various national copyright laws, and
(d) it is unacceptable that Google continues to use an 'opt-out' arrangement for a programme that rightsholders have never agreed to be part of instead of an 'opt-in' where rightsholders participate if, and only if, they explicitly wish to.
Some of these points are mute since the proposed settlement does only cover the US, but the more general points - and particularly the opt-out arguments - are pertinent.
Pat made it pretty clear that there is still an awful lot of detail to work out so more on this, I am sure, in the future as things develop...
Pat explained that the settlement - which only covers material with US rights - will mean that Google will pay $60 per in-copyright book that it has digitized without permission (doesn't sound a lot does it!) to those rightsholders that choose to be party to the agreement and that rightsholders then have two choices:
(1) they can take the sixty bucks and then walk away (their books will then be removed from the Google Book Search service) or (2) they can agree to have some or all of their books included in Book Search and potentially earn revenue from sales of the books, from subscriptions to collections and from advertising appearing around the book...
Pat was at pains to point out that the content of books cannot be messed with (so there won't be any advertising or product placement inside the works...)
One thing I hadn't previously appreciated was that the settlement deal does not include rightsholders of images, photographs, etc and so these will be BLACKED OUT from the digitized content.
Pat also mentioned that rightsholders would be compensated for print copies made from content in Google Book Search and that Google would be helping libraries to collect and distribute payments - in the short-term Google will itself anti-up these fees to rightsholders...
Meanwhile, the Federation of European Publishers has issued a statement on its website outlining some areas of concern it has with the proposed settlement. Basically, these are:
(a) a concern that the Google programme will constitute a de facto monopoly on distribution
(b) that there are already better mechanisms to make available out of print books and orphan works (for example Libreka and the ARROW project)
(c) that Google cannot use a 'fair use' argument for content owned by EU rightsholders and that their activities are still violating the 2001 Copyright Directive and various national copyright laws, and
(d) it is unacceptable that Google continues to use an 'opt-out' arrangement for a programme that rightsholders have never agreed to be part of instead of an 'opt-in' where rightsholders participate if, and only if, they explicitly wish to.
Some of these points are mute since the proposed settlement does only cover the US, but the more general points - and particularly the opt-out arguments - are pertinent.
Pat made it pretty clear that there is still an awful lot of detail to work out so more on this, I am sure, in the future as things develop...
Blog from the Charleston Conference
The Charleston Conference opened on Thursday November 6 with a quite excellent keynote from Derek Law.
In a funny, articulate and engaging talk Derek examined the issues around collection development in today's world. One of his central messages was that there is too much focus on the formal research literature and not enough on all the other stuff out there.
Of particular note, Derek described 'digital crossover strategy' (also known as crossing your fingers!) but the serious message was that scholarship needs a robust mechanism by which to preserve and curate the rapidly expanding born digital outputs... and it doesn't have one.
As an aside, a takeaway sound bite was that King's college saved $1 million per year in heating bills alone by closing four floors of it's library. Golly.
In a funny, articulate and engaging talk Derek examined the issues around collection development in today's world. One of his central messages was that there is too much focus on the formal research literature and not enough on all the other stuff out there.
Of particular note, Derek described 'digital crossover strategy' (also known as crossing your fingers!) but the serious message was that scholarship needs a robust mechanism by which to preserve and curate the rapidly expanding born digital outputs... and it doesn't have one.
As an aside, a takeaway sound bite was that King's college saved $1 million per year in heating bills alone by closing four floors of it's library. Golly.
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