My Modern Classics

Niche publishers like The Folio Society have been re-purposing publishing content into finely re-worked books for many years. These titles have expressly designed covers, often come slip cased and contain commissioned illustrations that were never in the original versions. They are beautiful objects but they are also one person's representation of design and manufacturing and other than the high quality there is only minimal uniformity across the titles. On a different level other titles from series such as Everyman's Library are similar in format but not of the unique quality as The Folio titles.

With not too much work you could create your own collection of titles. It would be one of my goals to work with my own editor and book designer to select titles, design a look for the exterior and interiors of the books and start publishing my own Modern Classic collection. With the costs of publishing one title through sites like blurb and Lulu.com it isn't an idea that is too far fetched. In the short term the content would likely be limited to public domain works but I believe over time more publishers will allow 'be-spoke' versions of their content where the consumer pays for the right to 'publish' the material for private use.

For someone like me who values the book as an object, creating my own title list of classic books with covers and interiors designed by me could become a viable avocation and source of deeper engagement in reading.

Victoria Departs

Without prior knowledge I was caught out as the Queeen Victoria floated down the Hudson around 8:45 this evening. Hence the blurriness. Oh well.

EBSCO Releases Discovery Product

In last weeks media round-up I mentioned the new federated search product from EBSCO. Here is a sample from a deeper review of the product from Information Today:

EDS (www.ebscohost.com/discovery) harvests metadata from both internal (library) and external (database vendors) sources and creates a preindexed service of impressive size and speed. Although the resulting collection is massive in size and scope, Sam Brooks, senior vice president of sales and marketing, says the fact that it is indexed directly on the EBSCOhost servers allows for exceptionally fast search response times and for the ability to leverage the familiar powerful features of the EBSCOhost user experience across all resources.

Content in EDS can include the following:

• Detailed metadata (e.g., author-supplied abstracts, keywords, subjects, etc.) from content providers and publishers
• Complete indexing from EBSCOhost databases to which an institution subscribes (e.g., Academic Search, Business Source, CINAHL, Historical Abstracts, etc.)
• Complete indexing from non-EBSCOhost databases (to which a customer subscribes), including resources from Alexander Street Press, LexisNexis, NewsBank, Readex, etc.
• Complete OPAC loaded directly into EDS (and searched along with all other EDS content); includes real-time availability checks and daily updates
• Book jacket images, book records, entertainment records, annotations, family keys, subject headings, demand information, awards, review citations, etc., for hundreds of thousands of publications
• Institutional archives/repositories directly loaded into EDS and searched as part of the overall experience

BISG Webinar: Book Server from the Internet Archive

BISG has a few webinars coming up, and the first is one featuring Book Server from the Internet Archive.

Following is a description of the presentation and here is the registration link.

The high-volume digitization efforts of many, in concert with an increasing number of e-book reading devices, has accelerated reader desire to find, buy or borrow digital books in a way that is web-based, user-friendly and transparent.

In October 2009, The Internet Archive, in concert with O'Reilly Media, Threepress, Feedbooks, OLPC, Adobe, the Book Oven, and many others, announced development of an open specification that provides a web-based, mobile-friendly mechanism for distributing digital books.
The specification is called "BookServer"...and it's really shaking things up.

For the first time, BookServer's open architecture makes it possible for anyone to make digital book content available in online search independent of which search engine the reader uses and regardless of which e-book reading device he or she prefers.

During this presentation, two of the those closest to the BookServer project will explain its genesis and vision, discuss the components of the BookServer architecture, and highlight opportunities for publishers, distributors, and aggregators to expand the reach of their digital content in today's burgeoning mobile and e-book landscape.

To learn more about BookServer, visit: http://www.archive.org/bookserver

MediaWeek (Vol 3, No 1): Libraries, EBSCO, EBrary, UBM, Prognostications

Martin Amis is profiled in the Observer this morning (Link):

And last year, Amis drew criticism when he noted of the public interest in Katie Price that "all we are really worshipping is two bags of silicone" – though it probably says more about the dislocation of feminism than about Amis that mocking the cult of Jordan is deemed worthy of rebuke.

In one way or another, Amis's subject has always been sex, particularly the male view of sex, and therefore of women. At the same time, his method has remained extravagantly and grotesquely comic. In novels like Money, he pioneered a baroque-pornographic style to depict the sexualisation of the contemporary world. It was one of the aspects of Amis writing that his father, Kingsley, found unappealing.

"Sex is a fascinating area," Amis senior once explained, "but it's harder than he thinks. Nobody says that fiction should be able to discuss everything; he thinks he can do it, but I wonder if he can."

New blogger Dan D'Agostino (no known connection) at Teleread takes a look at why libraries may be ill advised to buy eBooks: No one will read them (Link):

With a vigorous, searchable Google Books on the horizon, could academic libraries suddenly find themselves and their e-book collections completely bypassed by their students and faculty? The New Year finds both academic libraries and the big commercial publishers that serve the academic community in a state of paralysis, on the one hand knowing that their onscreen e-books are not reaching potential readers and on the other unable to embrace the exploding popularity of e-readers and smart phones as platforms for their content.

How did it come to this? In order to explain it’s first necessary to understand that the world of academic publishing and academic libraries, probably the single biggest sector of the current e-book market, is a strange parallel universe in relation to the rest of the e-book world. And in this strange universe, two fundamental laws currently govern all activities.

NPR looks at How To Work Your Social Network To Find Jobs (Link)

Some burgeoning social networks not only target specific professions but also authenticate people's real-life identities to create secure networks that aren't searchable on the Web. The goal is to let people be comfortable sharing information and get advice without all of the information coming up the next time someone runs a Google search.

A case in point is Martindale-Hubbell Connected from LexisNexis. Michael Walsh, the chief executive officer for LexisNexis U.S. Legal Markets, describes it as "a combination of LinkedIn and Facebook for the legal community."

The service, which has about 24,000 members, provides a way for attorneys to search for future business, get legal advice and find a job. One feature allows users to cross-reference contacts they may already have established on LinkedIn. Each profile shows the law school a person attended and any articles they might have written. Users also can connect with Martindale-Hubbell's career center.

Walsh says LexisNexis' research found that 70 percent of lawyers use social networking tools. He says this number is extraordinary given how busy lawyers are and the extent to which they often keep information close to the vest.

EBSCO announced the launch of an enhanced version of their federated search tool EBSCO Discovery Service (link):

EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) provides much deeper indexing than any other discovery solution, as well as access to all of the library’s full-text content (both electronic and print resources)—an integrated one-stop search experience for a library’s journals, magazines, books, special collections, OPAC and more.

In addition to the most comprehensive and robust collection of metadata from the best content sources, EDS also provides full indexing from EBSCOhost database subscriptions, as well as many non-EBSCOhost partners, including: NewsBank, Readex, LexisNexis, Alexander Street Press and more. Superior relationships & licenses with academic publishers make EDS the most comprehensive service for searching the complete full text of journal articles and other sources. Nearly every major academic publisher is included in EDS.

Ebrary is doing market research into patron driven acquisitions (Link):

“As usage plays a key role in determining the value of electronic products and services, patron driven acquisition is quickly evolving as a model of choice,” said Leslie Lees, ebrary’s Vice President, Content Development. “We are proud to report an outstanding response to the first phase of our PDA pilot, and look forward to gaining even more invaluable input that will help shape our final product.”

ebrary’s PDA pilot participants are given access to a selection of approximately 100,000 e-books and other authoritative titles from the world’s leading publishers such as Wiley, Elsevier, and McGraw-Hill. Purchases are automatically triggered based on usage measured by page views, copies, and prints.

Titles purchased through the PDA pilot, integrate with other ebrary products and services including Academic Complete, ebrary’s flagship subscription product that provides cost-effective, multi-user access to a growing selection of more than 45,100 titles. Additionally, all ebrary titles include rich functionality for quickly and easily discovering and managing information online such as InfoTools, which turns every word into a portal to other online resources of the library’s choice; highlighting and annotating; multiple search options; and personal bookshelves.

Bowker has licensed the print versions of their Books In Print line to Grey House. (Press Release). The agreement is effective January 1, 2010 and I understand both companies are very happy with the agreement.

Other news items posted on the twitter last week: Interview w/ David Levin at United Business Media. Acquisitions get the attention but "divestitures are very important" http://bit.ly/6GdiXq The FT looks at Informa and the possible frustrations of the company's CEO Peter Rigby: How can Informa grow and provide shareholders with a decent return? http://bit.ly/7as6lF The Dallas Morning News looks at Textbook rental programs. These articles are often amusing and informative for the questions. Students often don't hold back. (DMN) All the prognoticators prognostications - and a big thanks for George for putting this schedule together. (Link)

• Also: David Worlock: Ten Things That Won’t Happen In 2010 http://bit.ly/8ZZLgf

The Bookseller tells us that the Administrator working on the Borders UK wind down has been able to sell the Books Etc brand which will in turn be revived, but only online. (LINK) As an aside it was quite depressing to see the Borders store on Charring Cross Road completely gutted as of December 24th. If I remember correctly that used to be an old Books Etc location. More on the opportunities for media investment in China. http://bit.ly/4Sqqrh and a related item on China publishing: http://bit.ly/4VJE9N Financial information companies are seeing significant expansion in the Gulf. http://bit.ly/7C7YFz. Over the next few years, this growth is likely to cover the softness in the European and North American marketplace. Christ, is it 2010 already...? I just got over Y2K. Speaking of which Gary A is now on the back nine as of this week.

Digital Book World Conference: January 26/7th

Tickets for the Digital Book World conference are going like hot cakes and there are rumors the organizing group may have to close registration early so get your tickets now. No one wants to be the one left out at the next publishing cocktail party when you can't join the conversation about sessions like the following:

Getting Comfortable in Niches
The shift from horizontal paths to audiences to vertical ones is a hard concept for people who have grown up in book publishing to accept. This panel features publishers from niches as diverse as Mind Body Spirit, Sustainable Living, and Science Fiction, who have made the shift and will talk about how to build a sustained relationship with a vertical audience.

Speakers: Rebecca Smart, President & Managing Director of Osprey Publishing Brent Lewis, Harlequin Reid Tracy, President & CEO, Hay House Margo Baldwin, Co-Founder, President & Publisher Chelsea Green Publishing. Time: Tuesday January 26th 1.00pm


Teaching Authors to Fish: Empowering Authors to Market Themselves
One thing is sure about the new digital age: publishers know that that author marketing is among their most important tools. All sorts of efforts are being made by publishers to make authors more effective as their own advocates. A collection of publishers and an outside service provider that gives authors free web tools will discuss how publishers can make authors their most effective marketing allies

Speakers: Peter Clifton: Founder, President & CEO, Filedby Matt Schwartz: Director of Digital Strategy & Business Development, Random House Cecelia Tan: Founder, Circlet Press Christina Katz: Author Time: Wednesday January 27th 1.00pm

(I'm moderating both).

Use my courtesy discount code (DBWadvisor) to get $200 off the fee.

See you there.

Publishing Futurist: REPOST

Continuing my effort at regurgitation, here is a post from 1/8/2007 where I think about changes in education.

During an interview a few weeks ago, I was asked if I were to look at one segment of the publishing industry 10 years from now what would be my most radical forecast? It is a hard question because the rate of change in publishing is so rapid and all segments of the industry will see significant change in different ways over the next decade. Technology is fundamental and what often makes predictions like this difficult is to anticipate how technology can open new applications which are not immediately apparent on first exposure. For example, cameras on cell phones - have become widely used because they addressed a need in an unanticipated way.

Many people, myself included, thought that a camera on a cell phone was a worthless extravagance but because we never had access to this technology we couldn't understand where or under what circumstances it would be used. Now taken for granted, I take pictures with my phone all the time and soon I will be reading barcodes with it enabling me to access to product information as I browse through a store.

In publishing, social networking, wikis and blogs etc. will become the primary publishing platform for educational publishing. Currently, the environment is anarchic and it is hard to see how the formula heavy education market could leverage this technology to produce a better product. I think it is inevitable.

My answer to the question posed to me was that I envisioned an environment where there were no set textbooks, content or a curriculum for particular courses. Courses would have learning objectives both general and specific and the students would be required to obtain and/or demonstrate their understanding of the core material against these objectives. The student could obtain this knowledge and understanding via any means they wanted. In addition to demonstrating a mastery of the course objectives they would also have to justify the reference material and methodology they used to obtain their knowledge.

My comments are not unique and in a recent CNET interview, John Seely Brown (former chief scientist at PARC) suggested that,

"rather than treat pedagogy as the transfer of knowledge from teachers who are experts to students who are receptacles, educators should consider more hands-on and informal types of learning. These models are closer to an apprenticeship, a further-reaching, more multilayered approach than traditional formal education."

He also discussed a number of current examples of collaborative/social learning including a site at Brown University that brings together experts on Boccaccio.

Educational content will still be vitally important in any futurist vision of learning and education but it will not be delivered or published in forms we are currently familiar with. In my view, it is the current publishing paradigm that is slowing the development of online/ elearning methods. Publishers publish traditional book products and most of what they do is dictated by the format of a print product which does not travel well in the online world. The tasks publishers support for scoping, editing, veracity, testing, etc. will gain in importance as some other (non-value add) functions are eliminated.

Teaching methods will also change as educators spend more time and effort on critical thinking, research techniques and collaboration/mediation. Flexible teaching methodologies will allow students to learn more effectively. For example, for a student that learns by doing perhaps simulations will feature more with this student versus the student that learns by reading.

Who knows if my idea is relevant but without a doubt change comes rapidly to the manner in which children are being taught. As this gathers steam the children themselves could have more influence on the methodology and the supporting material than the traditional school, academic, publisher triumvirate.

Agatha Christie

A visit to Hatchards on Piccadilly is always an expensive one. A narrow crowded space with creaky floor boards and a wide curved set of front windows it looks right out of central casting as the quintessential representation of what an old victorian bookstore might have been like. A complete nonsense of course but Hatchard's remains one of the few constant destinations in our infrequent trips to London. The store has a very well curated collection of books and their buyers go deep into categories despite the small location.

Had it not been for Hatchards I wouldn't have seen the collection of Agatha Christie titles that began to trickle out from Harpercollins in 2008 (I think). These 'new' hardcover titles recreate the original published covers and trim size and are now a wonderful 38 volume set. There are more to come I think but he lies a frustration. As far as I can tell the no one is offering to sell the entire set: A consumer has to buy them individually - gambling somewhat that they have them all. Now really, with an author that maybe the world's most popular wouldn't it make some sense to market to this expansive audience a bit more aggressively. These titles are even hard to find on the HC web site. Here would be some examples:

• a complete boxed set
• a mail order version - a new title delivered by mail each quarter from the publisher
• individually boxed titles (sold as a set or separately)
• inscribed editions that allow you to gift the books with an inscription

These are books that are read and re-read and there is no question that some one who buys one of these titles couldn't be induced - without too much difficulty - to buy all of them. Interestingly, I intended to write this post last year after I visited Hatchard's but this year I was again reminded of the continued frustration at not being able by buy all of the titles in one go and the obvious lack of creativity on behalf of the publisher.

Hughenden Manor

UK09087, originally uploaded by Personanondata - Michael Cairns.

The UK is in the grip of a winter storm unlike any they have had for a long time. In December we visited Hughenden Manor the home of Queen Victoria's Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. As you will note, there was already a lot of snow about even before Christmas and it made for a very pretty scene. Hughenden Manor is in High Wycombe just off the M40 and north of the M25. If you've driven to Oxford you will have passed this house.

Click on the image or click here for the rest of the set.

MediaWeek (Vol 2, No 53): Television, Amazon, Libraries, And a book about running.

Wasn't sure if I was going to do one of these this weekend but what the hey. Next week we start back at week one. I will be posting my 2010 predictions on Tuesday and I hope you find them interesting. The Independent gives us a heads up on some of the TV adaptations that may be coming our way. (As I mentioned last week a second series of Cranford is on its way here in January). Independent:

Book publishers have fallen on hard times but a new crop of festive television adaptations is luring in new readers and boosting sales. .... "A TV adaptation can be the best free advertising a book can get," said a spokeswoman for Waterstone's, which saw sales of John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps treble in the week after a festive screening in 2008. "Frequent Jane Austen adaptations garner remarkable sales and reintroduce new generations of readers to her books. Where the effect is most obvious, though, is with relatively obscure classics and with contemporary novels."

Sales of Elizabeth Gaskell's "lost classic" Cranford soared by more than 500 per cent at Waterstone's in the four weeks during and after its BBC airing in 2007, compared with the four weeks before the serialisation. The bookseller expects another, albeit less dramatic, sales rise after the bonnet drama's recent return.

Reuters suggests that Amazon's 'coyness' with respect to full disclosure of eBook and Kindle sales could come back to bite them if they begin to see a softening in the numbers. Currently, all good news but what if things backtrack and what will that do to their share price. I wonder if Bezos cares. (Reuters):

But investor patience with the lack of details has begun to wear thin, particularly as Amazon shares hit an all-time high in early December on expectations it will be one of the biggest winners in overall sales growth this holiday season.

That benefit of the doubt could be further tested in 2010 as more e-readers enter the market and challenge the Kindle.

"As long as Amazon continues to have the right margins and the right profit numbers at the end of every quarter, they can probably get away with that," said James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research.

But if the Kindle's streak goes cold and Amazon continues to keep investors in the dark, they could turn on the stock.

"You may suffer a 10 to 15 to 20 percent correction because the uncertainty factor would be so high," McQuivey said. "It ensures that if there is bad news, people imagine the worst."

John Naughton at the Observer picks up the same theme on Sunday:

But the combination of the two "facts" has further ratcheted up speculation that 2010 will be the Year of the Kindle and the end is nigh for the printed codex.

If you detect a whiff of what philosophers call "technological determinism" in this, you're in good company. I have on my shelves a (printed) copy of The Myth of the Paperless Office by Abigail Sellen and Richard Harper, a wonderful antidote to the irrational exuberance of Kindlemania. The authors conducted an ethnographic study of how people actually use paper in order to reach an understanding of which of those uses might conceivably be eliminated by electronics, and which might not. It should be required reading for anyone showing the early symptoms of Kindlemania.

Do you think you've got the autobiographic goods? If so, your life story could become a bestseller in a competition to be run by the BBC and the Daily Mail:

As many as 15 true life stories will feature in a new five-part TV series called My Story, to be broadcast on primetime BBC1 next year. And every week, after each programme, one person's story will be published, with an advance of £20,000 from a leading publisher.

There's going to be some stiff competition if Petty Officer Parton is anything to go by. More from the Observer that suggests UK readers may be talking about India's Abraham Vergese's stunning story of Siamese twins in Ethiopia which will be getting a boost from a TV tie-in (Observer):

A novelist, even a well-reviewed one, may sell just a couple of thousand books. It is no way to make a living, unless of course you catch the attention of Britain's biggest literary star-maker, the television producer Amanda Ross.

Novels that find favour with Ross can be expected to achieve much, much more. The film The Lovely Bones, to be released at the end of this month, is based on the novel of the same name by Alice Sebold which shot up the bestsellers list after it was featured on the programme Ross devised, Channel 4's Richard & Judy. Cecilia Aherne's PS I Love You followed the same route to the cinema, while Victoria Hislop's The Island was plucked from relative obscurity by the show's regular book review slot.

The Guardian Blogs that playlists could do for books what they have done for music sites like Spotify (Guardian):

But perhaps there is more to the notion of the playlist than first meets the eye. Not long ago, I was mucking about on Spotify when a thought occurred me. The online music library's extensive catalogue impresses for obvious reasons, but what genuinely recommends the service is the public playlist facility, allowing individual users to curate and publish groupings of songs based on whatever criteria take their fancy. It's a fascinating way to discover music, to expand one's tastes, and the only limitation is the imagination of the curator. And I wondered: why not a similar facility for books?

Librarians in Aberdeen - and now online - are learning to combat information overload (Press & Journal)

This enormous mass of information (often conflicting) requires organising and managing in order to make some sense of it, and to enable others to make best use of it. These skills of information organisation go to the heart of what it means to be an information professional: a role found in a huge variety of different types of organisation.

It is a dynamic and challenging career path to follow, but one which is very rewarding. The department of information management at Aberdeen Business School at The Robert Gordon University delivers full-time and online master’s degrees in information management and information and library studies accredited by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP).

Recently, the department has also developed a new and innovative course, the Access Foundation (Graduate Certificate) Information Studies (GCIS), to provide flexible access routes into its master’s degrees. The GCIS course is delivered entirely online over a period of nine months. It provides a new access route for students with experience of information work, but without the necessary educational qualifications for entry to postgraduate courses.

Several librarians take issue with how library's role in the Google Book Settlement has been characterised by Harvard's Robert Darnton (NYRB):

In his recent article criticizing the Google settlement ["Google and the New Digital Future," NYR, December 17, 2009], Robert Darnton fails to acknowledge the significant role that libraries have had in the creation of Google Book Search as well as the concrete steps they are taking to address the sorts of concerns he raises. Libraries are using Google-digitized volumes to create the "truly public library" that he seeks, and these same libraries are taking responsibility for the preservation of Google-digitized volumes. ... Libraries are much further ahead in the game than Darnton would have readers believe. Although there are disappointments for Google partner libraries in the settlement agreement, libraries have worked to secure important privileges, including significant influence over the commercial pricing of Google's Book Search product. The settlement also sanctions important uses of digital volumes, including those that are in copyright. These include providing access to content to users with print disabilities and using libraries' digitized volumes in large-scale computational research. Opening the enormous body of Google-scanned content to new user populations and methods of inquiry will have a transformative effect on our ability to produce and analyze knowledge about our society, our heritage, and the world. We invite Harvard to join us in this endeavor!

UK Libraries are in a mess and all kinds of suggestions are being offered. "Why shouldn't libraries sell books," asks minister Margaret Hodge raises prospect of libraries expanding role beyond lending books in major reconsideration of policy (Guardian)

A report on 2008 library statistics: The Academic Libraries: 2008 First Look summarizes services, staff, collections, and expenditures of academic libraries in 2- and 4-year, degree-granting post-secondary institutions in the 50 states and the District of Columbia (link). Tim Spalding from LibraryThing on a boon doggle to Christchurch, New Zealand in this video on social cataloging (Vimeo). A book about running (Observer)

Even though running is the world's most popular hobby, the running bookshelf is curiously empty. Of the few books on the subject in print, nearly all fall into one of two categories: either how-to tips or personal accounts of one man's perseverance against pain. Both share one weird feature: as celebrations of running they make running seem pretty awful. It comes across like performing home surgery – it'll hurt, require expensive equipment and leave scars. ... Gotaas combs the world for true running tales, and comes up with some beauties. Who knew that naked running was the vogue in 18th-century England, with men and women racing separately and thousands of spectators lining the race course? Or that in ancient Egypt, Ramses II legitimised his hold on the throne by performing a long-distance run every few years, a ritual he performed until he was over 90?

I ran a lot in 2009 and had some good race times. That's not a bad collection for the end of the year.

The year's top 10 PND articles

The top ten articles read this year (no surprise on the first one).

ISBN is Dead
Border's Store Closings
Digital Concierge
Five Questions with Bondi Digital
580,388 Orphans Give or Take
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Loose Credit Rating
Predictions 2009: Death and Resurrection
Anderson News Folds Tent
Presuming No Book
Harcourt Houghton Mifflin in Anti-Trust

Works Progress for Scanning

Carl Malamud blogging on the Radar O'Reilly blog speaks eloquently about the need for a coordinated approach to digitizing the nations print content and one that doesn't "lien on the public domain, preventing the public from accessing these vital materials." He concludes (O'Reilly):

If the government invested a mere $100 million of our stimulus package (we've already spent over $72.6 billion), that means 2 billion pages of paper or microfiche would get scanned. For $500 million, we're talking a huge chunk of our national backlog being digitized, a task that would result in an enduring digitial public work for our modern era, something that would prove immense use to future generations, and would also save the government tremendous amounts of money in storage costs and other facilities expenses.

What would it take to get the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the Government Printing Office, the National Archives and Records Administration, and the National Technical Information Service all singing off the same page and working together? There is a tremendous opportunity for White House leadership here, bringing the parties together and creating a compelling case on why we should launch and fund a 5-year $500 million effort to create a National Scan Center. Both the CIO and the CTO in the Executive Office of the President have talked about the tremendous "moral authority and convening power" of the White House, and I believe that this issue is of sufficient importance that it would be worthwhile to pursue.