ALPSP Conference Day 2: Discovering the needle in a haystack

Ann Lawson introduces the panel

Chaired by Ann Lawson from EBSCO, this session is designed to help publishers understand how they can help academics and professionals to navigate quickly and seamlessly to the trustworthy content they need.

Ann's colleague Harry Kaplanian, Director of Discovery Services at EBSCO Publishing, kicked off with an overview of discovery services as well as the features and benefits for the publishers. 

He began by reminding us of the first discovery system is a library catalogue system in the early 1900s. He then went on to outline the pros and cons of subsequent systems. 

The Integrated Library System OPAC (1980-1995) 

Pros: users can search the entire physical collection quickly; tight ILS integration; one place to search. 

Cons: users can only search catalogue; metadata searching only.

In the 1990s, the first electronic databases began to appear. They aren’t part of the physical collection; change often; multiple tools needed for searching content; students and faculty no longer know where to look; and the e-content just keeps on coming...

Federated search

Pros: single search box for all content; currency of content.

Cons: speed; many indexes; multiple ranking algorithms; larger result sets in complete; internet traffic; content provider traffic.

Web scale discovery

Pros: single search box; search all content, single index and complete result sets

single relevance ranking; speed and bandwidth; no local hardware or software to install; eliminates traditional list problems; drive usage and lower traffic.

Cons: not tightly integrated with ILS.

Usage impact

Longwood University

5000 students

09/10 to 10/11 205% increase in usage in text

He classifies content providers as:

• Primary publishers
• Aggregators 
• Subject Index Providers
• What do they need to do?
• What should they watch out for?

Primary Provides - journals & books:

Now standard to provide full text and metadata to discovery services for searching. In most cases content is presented by publishers. The user is guided to full text by link resolver. You have to make sure highest quality metadata and content provided and that active updates to databases are provided.

Aggregators - full journal databases

Most don’t have the right to submit the full text so content presented by aggregator or publishers. The user is guided to full text by link resolver. Make sure highest quality metadata and content is provided, that discovery vendor accurately states if aggregator is actively taking part or not, and active updates to databases are provided

Subject index providers

Powerful subject indexing based on controlled vocabularies, no full text, but a big impact on full Discovery. Make sure the Discovery service is capable of properly searching, merging, ranking and securing entitled access. Consider what happens when a customer cancels subject index subscription, renews, adds it, doesn’t have it?

Make sure Discovery vendor accurately states if subject index provider is actively taking part or not - check the vendor’s claims.

Simon Inger provided an overview of key findings from the Survey on Reader Navigation which is due to be published shortly. Read about the project here. 

Main recommendations for publishers are:

• Publishers need to support all of the discovery channels that their clients (libraries and readers) want to use
• Publishers need to understand how different reader types discover and access their content so that they can target readers and authors more effectively
• Potential to expose more sophisticated discovery information to key channels
• Potential to differentiate through which discovery channels to make subscriber offers.

The summary report will be published for free later this month. The full report will be published at the same time. All supporting publishers receive these items in return for their help. Full results set and analysis framework will be available for a fee shortly afterwards. 

Robert Faber, Director, Discoverability Program at OUP, concluded with an overview of the Introducing the Oxford Index.

Why does discoverability matter to publishers and librarians? Traffic and use are the lifeblood of digital scholarship. use of subscriptions shows the value of the content. Discovery reveals interest and demand for new content. Customer and user behaviour is changing. If you can’t find it, you won’t use it. People are searching for a topic, not book - 80% of traffic to Oxford Journals is direct to article. There are many search systems and rapid evolution. It's about free content outside the paywall for some products - abstracts, keywords, Oxford Journals, Oxford Scholarship.

The MARC program has been improved and expanded. Linking: some in place, mainly in close neighbourhood. Some editorial linking between products. Some partnerships with other publishers and institutions have been set up. New mobiles sites for Oxford Journals and future products are set up. Library discovery services have been developing new partnerships. SEO is at the centre of product evolution.

Discovery happens in Open Web Search, library services, research hubs, through content links, opt-in services, viral awareness and via OUP web features.

What is the Oxford Index? It’s free discovery from OUP: a standardised description of every item of content, in one place. It incorporates external search partners, an Oxford interface - landing pages: quick pathways to full text, web-searchable; and cross searchable - but they recognise that the website might not continue to be very important. It provides a way to create links and relationships across content with meaningful links that add value and traffic. There are overview pages for quick view of topic links embedded in products. This is a free service integrated with existing products.

What does this mean for search rankings and usage?

• No change to existing SEO or rankings
• OI is supplemental route to primary full-text content
• OI gives Google a super-site map across OUP content
• Highly-trusted network reinforces destination full-text sites
• Aim is additional traffic, monitored and reported

What does it mean for library integration? Library visibility? Bring in users from general web search. OI can interact directly with library search. OI identifies library’s provision of full content which highlights the benefits of library services. Visibility through other library, A&I, research services? OI metadata routinely supplied to library systems.

The benefits include i) traffic: sustaining and widening sales, ii) consistent methods - for users and systems, and iii) evolving grid of options to connect content.

Faber finished with trends and predictions that included:

• importance of india, china and the non-western world
• differences between journals, book and reference content defined by role/task within the research journey
• sites that can qualify general users will become a larger focal point of discoverability activity e.g Google Books
• shift from focus on entrance-point to linking: related content, related services
• scholarly/research communities play bigger role in academic discoverability.

ALPSP Conference Day 1: Global Consortia and Library Markets overview

News of the World panel

Thomas Taylor from Dragonfly Information Services provided a packed overview of global consortia and library markets as part of the News of the World session on day one of the conference.

He observed that access to research is becoming a ‘right’. Open Access movement is a disruptive business model and there is an evolution of traditional subscription models for consortia. 

The advantages for publishers include protection for subscription revenue, access and usage explodes, the impact factor goes up and you can integrate Open Access journals into consortia deals.

Global trends in consortia markets include:

• Library budget constraints in all economies – from dire (in Ireland) to selective (China)
• Large national closed consortia with less/no central funding (DFG, NSTL, CRKN, CAPES)
• Mature (penetrated) consortia acquiring less
• Budgets plus time constraints (renewals) (CRKN, China, JISC)
• Newer (less penetrated) consortia proceeding cautiously and in increments (Mexico, Japan)
• Renewals still strong, the default setting
• Consortia as purchasing model still healthy

China

Has a strong economy showing signs of slowing down. There is a commitment to invest in education in short and long term and to indigenous publishing (including journals). Local marketing, sales and brand are a necessity for language, laws, social media (they have their own versions of twitter and google). Consortia had aggressive purchasing until two years ago, but are now more selective and subject area specific. They are showing sign of mature consortia and purchasing has been slowed down by politics and bureaucracy. There are two very well know consortia: NSTL (closed, centrally funded, 600 institutions with 9 member board) and CALIS (open with no central funding, 700 to 1400 institutions).

India

They have a strong economy with no signs of slowing down as well as the third largest HE system in the world. Major investment in recent years appears to be continuing in both new institutions, R&D spending and new consortia. With 10 to 15 major consortia this is still an immature market.

Middle East/North Africa

This is a diverse region with many markets. There has been an economic slow down since 2009. They are thinking about how to invest in post-oil economy, education is one of the key factors. The Arab Spring has created political uncertainty and instability in some countries (but hope as well!). There are immature consortia who are increasing spending on e-journals, databases and ebooks, especially in STM. It is anticipated that 2013-2015 library budgets will be flat or increasing modest.

Europe

Economies continue to be challenged and uncertain. Europe is a diverse market (north vs south?). Library budgets are decreasing or remain flat. Very little new content is being purchased. Renewals of deals still the default in most cases. Main policy impact is through Open Access mandate from EU in support of UK mandates.

UK

The economy is in recession. JISC is one of the oldest and mot mature consortia (Open). There is little acquisition of new content (ISPG purchased this year). Renewals of deals is the default (two big deals renewed last year amid much noise). Government mandated Open Access most aggressive in the world.

Brazil

Strong economy (6^th largest in the world, overtaking Britain). CAPES a national, closed, mature consortium, is one of the oldest. It has deals with most commercial publishers. There are 350 libraries (all of Brazil academic market and then some). The new government has created an uncertain future and there has been very little new content acquisition in last two years.

Mexico

This is a growing economy with an unstable political situation with new government and drug wars. Mexico has a three year old government funded consortium.

Canada

The economy is growing. CRKN is a mature national closed consortium that no longer has government funding, but is funded by member libraries now. Budgets for new content are uncertain. Renewals only in 2012 for 2013. There are regional consortia (four, open) buying some new content, but budgets will continue to be uncertain until CRKN renewals are confirmed.

United States

Elections in US could effect consortia in a big way. If Obama is re-elected he has promised to invest in education and research. EBSCO Community Plus is a new open North American consortium. There are 250+ research libraries and 50 ARL libraries. ISPG and several other content providers are participating with tentative plans to expand into Europe.

In summary:

• Consortia deals continue to be healthy and renewed
• Most consortia adding little new content when compared to the past
• Centrally funded consortia are challenged
• Addendum scientific research is increasingly global
• Implications for libraries, consortia, publishers and purchasing models
• Addendum 2: Open Access mandates and how they affect the consortia world.
• If you are’t a large commercial publishers, join forces with other like minded publishers.

ALPSP Conference Day 1: News of the World

Adrian Stanley, CEO of The Charlesworth Group chaired the last session of day one of the ALPSP International Conference titled ‘News of the World’.

It was billed as ‘a satirical and informative overview of important and dramatic global, technological and social news impacting the future of professional and scholarly publishing’. Adrian was joined by Sian Harris, Editor of Research Information, Mark Ware from Outsell and Thomas N Taylor from Dragonfly Sales and Marketing Consultancy. 

The session was jam packed with statistics, facts, advice and recommendations. Highlights from Mark Ware's session are below.

Mark Ware presented data from Outsell on the sector:

• Information industry $462 billion 2011 roughly  same GDP of Malaysia
• STM is nearly $30billion  total STM information
• STM much less cyclical so affected much less than rest of information industry by economic slowdown
• Core library market very flat but some bright spots including emerging markets, mobile, ebooks, databases and tools
• World’s biggest market still the US, but not for much longer
• Largest growing market is Asia
• Transition to fully digital revenues

10 trends that are shaping the information industry:

1. mobile social and rise of GAFA (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple)  - 25% spent on mobile devices
2. big data and extreme analytics
3. focused scale – companies that are dominant and compete on scale but do so with deep emphasis on a topical area of areas (e.g. McGraw Hill, Pearson, Gartner, Thomson Reuters, etc) – bump up against their own clients and suppliers. More competition is becoming the norm.
4. M&A, value chains and convergence
5. Aggregation’s persistent call
6. Fun, gamification, philanthropy
7. Human assistance – service and culture – the more digital our world will become, the more important human experience matters.
8. Sales 2.0
9. Open vs closed
10. New interfaces

We are moving from a product-centric to service-focused approach.  Publishers will become more like platform providers. Publisher strategies should include:

• An in-depth understanding of user workflows (critical to adding value)
• Building a mobile strategy
• Simplifying users’ lives
• Getting closer to end-users
• Re-aligning the sales and marketing organization
• Avoid disrupting their own markets

Mark's final insights for the future in 2020 include:

• All services are digital, mobile, customizable, 
• High in-built intelligence factors
• Relevant at point of reference/care/decision
• Multiple revenue sources
• Interoperable

ALPSP International Conference: Day 1 - Forty Years in Scholarly Publishing

And we're off! The fifth annual ALPSP international conference is underway, brought to you in short, blog bursts, (almost) live, from The Belfry, near Birmingham.

Mary Waltham opened the conference this afternoon with an overview of 'Forty Years in Scholarly Publishing.' It was, she claimed, an eclectic view of what has gone on in the period that corresponds with ALPSP's own existence. 

Here are a few highlights to whet your appetite.

Tracking trends is what good publishers do to see what is going on. When looking at the growth of researchers between 1973-2008, the number of researchers in the US life sciences shows massive growth, yet computer sciences are at the bottom. A lack of interest in doctoral study? Or maybe they were being snapped up by tech start-ups... (Source: Science and Engineering Indicators (SEI) 2012) 

The culture of publishing has been transformed. Nature in 1966 were approached with courtesy, if not deference, and had a polite - sometimes savage - editing of articles. In 2012 journals are competing with service and brand. There has been a massive attitudinal change.

Authors are doing more… and they often don’t like it. Wrestling with the online submission of an article is traumatic. All publishers should go through their own submission process. It may prove to be a salutary experience.

When publishers behave badly: it can backfire. Suing authors is messy, horrible and no one wins.

Mergers and acquisitions began to be mentioned in 1981. The study by Munroe: The Academic Publishing Industry: A Story of Merger and Acquisition (2007)  provides a who’s who to who owns who.

Technology changes everything. In 1997, a survey of 51 UK based publishers of 1344 journals funded by the PA found that there was:

• continued downward spiral declining subs & increased prices
• average price full sub £240
• average number of full rate subs/journal 466
• Income from all online formats = 1% or less
• many publishers had a web site ‘designed and developed in-house’
• 25 publishers owned and maintained the hardware and software systems
• customers: UK & EU = 50%, US & Can 29%;  Pacific Rim 10%
• conflict between academic pressure to publish papers and capability.

Read the paper ‘Technology: what could online enable?’ (Source: Mackie-Mason & Jankovich 1996) and it sounds visionary. But is very different to the publisher world view. The authors enthuse about perfect price discrimination, distinguishing user type and quality, and extracting value from new services. Hyperlinks – some research working papers embed references to other papers… making it possible to simplify.  Marvellous!

Business models – where does the money come from? Open access is the completely logical next step from these...

• subs
• advertising
• display/product
• classified/job
• rights and translations
• member fees
• page charges and reprints
• sponsorship
• 'freemium'. 

When Harold Vamus, Director of NIH, mooted the idea of E-Biomed in April 1999 (changed to PubMedCentral in August 1999), he was met with fierce opposition from publishers who were “apopletic”. He emerged again in 2003 and launched PLoS with funding. An illustration of poor communication on both sides in over 40 years.

The importance of a journal article: there are numerous measures now made possible by technology at article and journal levels. Includes citations such as Scopus, Cross Ref, PMC, ISI and Google Scholar. Also profile on social networks, in blogs and media coverage as well as Eigenfactor, Journal Usage Factor and H-index.

Access is key and there is an imperative for publishers to do more. The upload speed of a simple tropical health research agency home page varies enormously. Need to do more to support universal access for human development.

What are society and association publishers’ strengths?

• Membership = direct link to unique resource
• Size – nimbleness
• Mission driven

And their weaknesses?

• Slow
• Short-sighted
• Weak marketing and market research
• Weak sales
• Weak business development
• Risk averse
• ‘Political’

The features of scholarly publishing have not changed: the accuracy offered by peer review to avoid time cost of reading bad articles and help with information overload.What authors want:

• prompt and professional communication
• objective peer review
• speed of publication
• peer recognition, citations and impact leading to increased visibility
• all their ideas to be published in full and widely disseminated.

What can we learn?

1. Know your customers well – academics are slow to get upset with publishers, but once wound up, they are vocal and effective. 
2. Avoid cases that invoke the law – you will lose in a number of ways.
3. One-way communication between stakeholders is doomed to falter – develop dialogue to anticipate and resolve difference.
4. Always consider alternative scenarios – change is constant and inevitable.
5. Be open to new approaches – experiment in the margin and beware the echo effect.

ALPSP 5th International Conference

It’s finally here! The fifth ALPSP International Conference and we’re off to The Belfry, the “Spiritual Home of the Ryder Cup”, set in 500 acres of stunning countryside.  I’m hoping that delegates won’t be side-tracked by such a spectacular setting as we’ve got an excellent line up of sessions and social events.

2012 is ALPSP’s 40^th year and we look forward to celebrating.  Our opening Keynote on Tuesday afternoon is Mary Waltham, who will take a very honest view of the last 40 years of scholarly and professional publishing and ask ‘how did we do?’  It may not be as good as we might think.  Arend Welmers is our second keynote on Wednesday morning.  If we got a poor grade from Mary, then perhaps Arend may be able to direct us along the right path.

Our plenary sessions start with an entertaining look at the global issues affecting scholarly and professional publishing.  Then we address the thorny issues of just how scholarly communication is going to cope with reducing attentions spans and whether any of us will survive having to give it all away.  Our final plenary on Thursday has a slightly more positive slant: “It’s the end of the world as we know it…and I feel fine!”

In amongst all that, there are six parallel sessions to choose from.  Before lunch on Wednesday, we’ll be getting the low-down on proposed changes to copyright legislation and their potential effects, finding out what text mining actually is and how it may impact you, or gaining insights to app development.  After lunch there’s the tricky choice between making content discoverable, dealing with unethical behaviours or finding out about the latest product initiatives. 

Unable to make it?  We have a dedicated band of tweeters to keep you up to date (#alpsp12), and we’re also hoping to have regular blog updates.  In addition, we’re videoing all the sessions, so you can catch up with what you missed after the conference.

I would like to say a huge thank you to all of our sponsors:

Gold             Oxford University Press

Silver              QScience.com

                   SAGE

Copyright Clearance Center

Atypon

Thomson Reuters

Bronze           Publishing Technology

                   SWETS

                   DataSalon

                   Cambridge University Press

Nature Publishing Group

                   Turpin Distribution

                   Wiley-Blackwell

                   RSC Publishing

Reception Sponsors            Publishing Technology (Opening Reception)

                                      Highwire (Dinner Reception)

         

I look forward to seeing those of you making your way to the conference.  I hope you enjoy it and leave feeling reinvigorated and ready to tackle the next 40 years!

Audrey McCulloch

Chief Executive

The Royal Society of Chemistry completes organisation-wide roll-out of business insight service

MasterVision comes of age – The Royal Society of Chemistry rolls out DataSalon’s web-based MasterVision across the entire organisation, making it their first port of call for business insight.

Cambridge, UK and Oxford, UK, 1 August, 2012 – The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) announced today that DataSalon's MasterVision service has now been rolled out across the whole organisation. It now plays a key part in all business planning and operational activities, and is used on a day-to day basis within every department of the RSC.

The RSC have been working with DataSalon since 2009, when they first adopted the MasterVision system to join together all of the RSC’s customer data relating to members, subscribers, authors, usage, and more into a single customer view. Initially the RSC saw MasterVision as a key tool for the sales and marketing teams, but it since became clear that the scope was more far-reaching and that MasterVision could provide considerable benefits to the entire organisation.

Following the recent roll-out of MasterVision, there are now over 200 end users from across the organisation who are actively using the system. The initiative was led by staff within the RSC with support from the DataSalon team, with the system’s user-friendly web interface making it very easy for ‘non-technical’ staff to become hands-on users.

MasterVision is now used within every department, including Sales, Marketing, Commissioning, Business Development, Business Intelligence, Admin, Publishing Services, IT, Membership, and Books. It remains vital to the marketing and sales departments, but other departments now gain valuable insights from the single customer view in different ways. For example, MasterVision is used extensively by the editors in the Commissioning department who use it to find potential authors, research new topics for commissioning, and analyse author activity. It’s also used to produce management reports for business planning, to monitor the performance of new journals, and to audit and improve data quality.

“MasterVision is now central to our entire organisation, and provides vital insight to all of our staff in many different ways.” said Richard Crouch, Marketing Director, RSC “We saw the huge potential of a complete single customer view for the whole company, and are thrilled that the roll-out has been such a success.”

“We’re delighted that the RSC have realised the full potential of MasterVision.” said Nick Andrews, Managing Director at DataSalon. “Customer insight is so much more than just a marketing aid, and it’s great that the RSC have embraced our service with such enthusiasm as a central business planning tool.”

Notes for editors

·         The Royal Society of Chemistry is the largest organisation in Europe for advancing the chemical sciences. Supported by a worldwide network of members and an international publishing business, our activities span education, conferences, science policy and the promotion of chemistry to the public. Our website is at: http://www.rsc.org.

·         DataSalon is the leading provider of customer insight solutions for academic publishers. Our core product MasterVision integrates all of a publisher’s customer data into a complete 360º view for every individual and institution, creating business insight for the whole organisation and high-value intelligence for leads, cross-selling and renewals. MasterVision is fully managed and hosted, and is backed by first-class service and support. We're pleased to count many of the most innovative publishers among our clients, including the American Institute of Physics, BMJ Group, IOP Publishing, and Oxford University Press. Our website is at: www.datasalon.com

For further information about this press release please contact Nick Andrews (Managing Director, DataSalon). Email: info@datasalon.com. Phone: +44 (0)1865 321353.