Some of you will have seen this long article on digital preservation that appeared in Sunday's New York Times. It is quite interesting and certainly identifies some of the issues regarding the amount of and cost related to preservation and digitization of historic materials. The worrying thing to me however, was the seeming underlying suggestion that if materials are not digitized they will somehow become lost. Users/seekers/researchers may not know of the availability of some obscure article of research because if it is not digitized they will not know about it. Which is untrue of course, because the material will be catalogued and the catalog record will always be available on a network (such as WorldCat). So the slight hysteria of the article should be taken with a grain of salt, but what is important is the cost and effort involved in digitizing the archives.
This is a very real issue and the article does a good job of reflecting the issues. I am reminded of something I read years ago in relation to content digitization along the lines of 'only 10% of the content will be used in electronic form the problem is you never know which 10%'.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Friday, March 09, 2007
Barnes & Noble To Go Private?
That is the suggestion of David Scheck of Stifel Nicolaus on the basis that the publishing retail business really isn't suited to the expectations of Wall Street. Scheck went on to suggest that the fundamentals of the company are strong with good cash flow, significant retail presence and store productivity. My initial reaction to the general news coverage was a) things can't be that bad and b) are they trying to tap down expectations and the share price on purpose. Scheck's company views the news of depressed gross margin due to Harry P and the impact of their membership programs as a worse case scenario. By my calculation, they expect a $50mm decrease in net income which represents a 30% decrease compared to 2006.Stifel Nicolaus believe the company could perform better than management is suggesting and could be a PE target. Strictly speaking an MBO with management currently owning 20+% of the stock. Schecks' target price for the BN stock is in the low to mid $40's. After a dip early in the week, the stock is trading today at just under $38.00 and has a market cap of $2.5billion.
With the over-bearing requirements of financial reporting - evidenced by an on-going investigation at BN - the Riggio's may decide to bail out and indeed go private. While there are peaks and valleys in book retail, BN has been able to remain fairly consistent in delivering top line growth, strong operations and resulting good net income. Additionally, the capital requirements for this business wouldn't be onerous and as such it would make a safe place to put PE dollars for a decent return. Certainly one to keep watch of.
BN Press Release
On a less realistic note, George Gutowski on SeekingAlpha suggests that Jeff Bezos get out his check book and buy BN to consolidate the industry. He makes some interesting claims:
- Barnes & Noble has announced that its best customers are its worst financial problem. Most other industries make the most profit on their best customers, but not in this case.
- The book industry has not been able to sell itself other than through price competition. They all seem to offer the same book by the same author as their competitor (either retail or internet) and therefore have not been able to develop additional value added propositions.
- Acquisition allows the combination of best of breed in both the internet and retail categories. Barnes & Noble can entirely close down poorly performing internet distribution.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Ingram In Living Color
Perhaps it's just me, but when I saw this story earlier this week I yawned. Ingram Lightening Source has been a pioneer in POD and deserves huge credit for sticking with POD through some tough times early on, but this new initiative to go into color printing to support the photo market left me a little flat. What tipped the balance was that the news was reported in PW Daily and Publishers Lunch today (possibly because the news was on Joe Wikert's blog the day before...?) with nary a comment about the fact that there are many newcomers that are already doing color photo books.
I have mentioned my own experience with Blurb.com, but there are others including Shutterfly, Picaboo, Sharedink, Ipagz and Ourstory who are probably just as good. Each of these has established printing relationships with printers other than Ingram and are delivering thousands of units per week to happy customers. They are PUBLISHING. And more importantly they have already tapped into a massive (apparently $1.0bill market) which might not be readily apparent at least as the Ingram news was reported. The curious aspect of the Ingram publicity is that we seem to focus on the fact that it is Ingram and that this must be somehow revolutionary. Wags might ask why color wasn't already something Ingram were doing and why do they want to draw attention to the fact they don't. But that wouldn't be fair (or nice) since they are printing over a 1mm books a month in b/w which is just a phenomenal number.
Publishing is changing (if that isn't obvious) and I recently suggested to one of the traditional organs of the industry that they conduct a case study using several of the 'photo-book' printers (in quotes because they expand their capabilities all the time) and report on the experience in the magazine (ooops that gives it away). Evidently advice not taken. Like I said, perhaps it's just me.
I have mentioned my own experience with Blurb.com, but there are others including Shutterfly, Picaboo, Sharedink, Ipagz and Ourstory who are probably just as good. Each of these has established printing relationships with printers other than Ingram and are delivering thousands of units per week to happy customers. They are PUBLISHING. And more importantly they have already tapped into a massive (apparently $1.0bill market) which might not be readily apparent at least as the Ingram news was reported. The curious aspect of the Ingram publicity is that we seem to focus on the fact that it is Ingram and that this must be somehow revolutionary. Wags might ask why color wasn't already something Ingram were doing and why do they want to draw attention to the fact they don't. But that wouldn't be fair (or nice) since they are printing over a 1mm books a month in b/w which is just a phenomenal number.
Publishing is changing (if that isn't obvious) and I recently suggested to one of the traditional organs of the industry that they conduct a case study using several of the 'photo-book' printers (in quotes because they expand their capabilities all the time) and report on the experience in the magazine (ooops that gives it away). Evidently advice not taken. Like I said, perhaps it's just me.
Proquest Guidance
Clearly as a result of the garage style sell off, Proquest are undergoing a significant restructuring and this morning they released an update. The story so far:
The company had a lot of debt, began selling off assets, were hit with accounting irregularities, became embroiled in a subsequent SEC investigation, before they closed the sale to CIG the company announced that the Chairman (Aldworth) was leaving and some pundits said they sold the wrong business. This is were we pick up the story.
The company had a lot of debt, began selling off assets, were hit with accounting irregularities, became embroiled in a subsequent SEC investigation, before they closed the sale to CIG the company announced that the Chairman (Aldworth) was leaving and some pundits said they sold the wrong business. This is were we pick up the story.
- The company is moving all operations to Dallas where the Education division is located which should be completed by the end of 2007. Most staff functions will be eliminated in Ann Arbor with the exception of staff for transition and (presumably) accounting staff needed to deal with legacy issues (like SEC reporting and the investigation)
- Corporate functions transferred to the education unit are expected to be $4-5mm per year.
- They have two buildings with long term leases in Ann Arbor which will soon be surplus to their needs. It is assumed that they will attempt to buy-out the remain lease term but that will be discussed in a subsequent update.
- The company had a significant capital gain on the sale of the business solutions segment to Snap-On tools resulting in capital gain taxes of $60-65mm.
- The company had a significant capital loss on the sale of the information and learning segment to CIG and they will carry-back this loss against the gain in 2005 and they think that $40-45mm will come back as a refund in 2008.
- There is some class action suit stuff going on related to the accounting issues.
- Proquest Education includes Voyager Expanded Learning (acquired 1/31/05), Explore Learning (acquired 2/25/05) and LearningPage (acquired in 2004). Partial year 2005 revenues for the segment are expected to be $91million, EBIT of $7.4mm and EBITDA of $27.7mm.
- Education segment results for 2006 are projected to be Revenues of $117.3mm, EBIT of $12.0mm and EBITDA of $34.5mm.
- Guidance for 2007: Education segment revenues of $116-124mm, EBIT of $10-13mm and EBITDA of $32-35mm.
- 2007 Corporate expenses are expected to be between $30-32mm excluding taxes and interest. They note interest income of $4-5mm but don't project taxes and interest expense.
- There is no note about any subsequent debt repayments, write-downs, or other mitigating factors (like rent buy-outs) that could influence the 2007 results.
- The company still has a lot of financial reporting to do and risks being delisted if they miss an April 2, 2007 due date.
That's the update so far. Stay tuned for more.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Google Books Experienced
Via Lorcan Dempsey and as he did this is best left told by the author, Peter Brantley of the California Digital Library (error: he is with the Digital Library Federation). Astounding writing. Link.
Google Print: A Numbers Game
The following post is written by Andrew Grabois who worked with me at Bowker and has (among other things) compiled bibliographic stats out of the Books In Print database for a number of years. His contact details are at the bottom of this article.
On February 6th, Google announced that the Princeton University library system agreed to participate in their Book Search Library Project. According to the announcement, Princeton and Google will identify one million works in the public domain for digitization. This follows the January 19th announcement that the University of Texas libraries, the fifth largest library in the U.S., also climbed on board the Library Project. Very quietly, the number of major research libraries participating in the project has more than doubled to twelve in the last two years. The seven new libraries will add millions of printed items to the tens of millions already held by the original five, and more fuel to the legal fire surrounding Google’s plan to scan library holdings and make the full texts searchable on the web.
The public discussion has been mostly one-sided, with Google supporters trying to hold the high moral ground. Their basic argument goes something like this: The universe of published works in the U.S. consists of some 32 million books. They argue that while 80 percent of these books were published after 1923, and, therefore, potentially protected by copyright, only 3 million of them are still in-print and available for sale. As a result, mountains of books have been unnecessarily consigned to obscurity.
No one has yet challenged the basic assumptions supporting this argument. Perhaps they’ve been scared off by Google’s reputation for creating clever algorithms that “organize the world’s information”. This one, though, doesn’t stand up to serious scrutiny.
The figures used by supporters of the Library Project come from a 2005 study undertaken by the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), the largest consortium of libraries in the U.S. According to the OCLC study, its 20,000 member libraries hold 31,923,000 print books; the original five research libraries participating in the Google library scanning project hold over 18 million.
OCLC did not actually count physical books. They searched their massive database of one billion library holdings and isolated 55 million catalog records describing “language-based monographs”. This was further refined (eliminating duplicates) to 32 million “unique manifestations”, not including government publications, theses and dissertations. The reality of library classification, however, is such that “monographs” often include things like pamphlets, unbound documents, reports, manuals, and ephemera that we don’t usually think of as commercially published books.
The notion that 32 million U.S. published books languish on library shelves is absurd. Just do the math. That works out to more than 80,000 new books published every year since the first English settlement in Jamestown in 1607. Historical book production figures clearly show that the 80,000-threshold was not crossed until the 1980’s, after hovering around 10,000 for fifty years between 1910 to1958. The OCLC study showed, moreover, that member libraries added a staggering 17 million items (half of all print collections) since 1980. That averages out to 680,000 new print items acquired every year for 25 years, or more than the combined national outputs of the U.S., U.K., China, and Japan in 2004.
Not only will Google have to sift through printed collections to identify books, and then determine if they are in the public domain, but they will also have to separate out those published in the U.S. (assuming that their priority is scanning U.S.-based English-language books) from the sea of books published elsewhere. The OCLC study clearly showed that most printed materials held by U.S. libraries were not published in the U.S. The study counted more than 400 languages system-wide, and more than 3 million print materials published in French and German alone in the original Google Five. English-language print materials accounted for only 52% of holdings system-wide, and 49% in the Google Five. Since more than a few works were probably published in the United Kingdom, the total number of English-language books published in the U.S. will constitute less than half of all print collections, both system-wide and in Google libraries.
So how many U.S.-published books are there in our libraries? Annual book production figures show that some 4 million books have been published in the 125 years since figures were regularly compiled in 1880. If, very conservatively, we add an additional 1.5 million books to cover the pre-1880 years, and another 1.5 million to cover books published after 1880 that might have been missed, we get a much more realistic total of 7 million.
Using the lower baseline for published books tells a very different story than the dark one (that the universe of books consists of works that are out-of-print, in the public domain, or “orphaned” in copyright limbo) told by Google and their supporters. With some 3 million U.S. books in print, the inconvenient truth here is that 40% of all books ever published in the U.S. could still be protected by copyright. That would appear to jive with the OCLC finding that 75% of print items held by U.S. libraries were published after 1945, and 50% after 1974.
If we’re going to have a debate that may end up rewriting copyright law, let’s have one based on facts, not wishful thinking.
Andrew Grabois is a consultant to the publishing industry. He has compiled U.S. book production statistics since 1999. He can be reached at the following email address: agrabois@yahoo.com
Clarification update from Andrew: My post is not intended to be a criticism of the OCLC study ("Anatomy of Aggregate Collections: The Example of Google Print for Libraries") by Brian Lavoie et al, which is a valuable and timely look at print collections held by OCLC member libraries. What I am attempting to do here is point out how friends of the Google library project have misinterpreted the paper and cherry-picked findings and conclusions out of context to support their arguments.
Related articles:
Google Book Project (3/6/07)
Qualified Metadata (2/22/07)
On February 6th, Google announced that the Princeton University library system agreed to participate in their Book Search Library Project. According to the announcement, Princeton and Google will identify one million works in the public domain for digitization. This follows the January 19th announcement that the University of Texas libraries, the fifth largest library in the U.S., also climbed on board the Library Project. Very quietly, the number of major research libraries participating in the project has more than doubled to twelve in the last two years. The seven new libraries will add millions of printed items to the tens of millions already held by the original five, and more fuel to the legal fire surrounding Google’s plan to scan library holdings and make the full texts searchable on the web.
The public discussion has been mostly one-sided, with Google supporters trying to hold the high moral ground. Their basic argument goes something like this: The universe of published works in the U.S. consists of some 32 million books. They argue that while 80 percent of these books were published after 1923, and, therefore, potentially protected by copyright, only 3 million of them are still in-print and available for sale. As a result, mountains of books have been unnecessarily consigned to obscurity.
No one has yet challenged the basic assumptions supporting this argument. Perhaps they’ve been scared off by Google’s reputation for creating clever algorithms that “organize the world’s information”. This one, though, doesn’t stand up to serious scrutiny.
The figures used by supporters of the Library Project come from a 2005 study undertaken by the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), the largest consortium of libraries in the U.S. According to the OCLC study, its 20,000 member libraries hold 31,923,000 print books; the original five research libraries participating in the Google library scanning project hold over 18 million.
OCLC did not actually count physical books. They searched their massive database of one billion library holdings and isolated 55 million catalog records describing “language-based monographs”. This was further refined (eliminating duplicates) to 32 million “unique manifestations”, not including government publications, theses and dissertations. The reality of library classification, however, is such that “monographs” often include things like pamphlets, unbound documents, reports, manuals, and ephemera that we don’t usually think of as commercially published books.
The notion that 32 million U.S. published books languish on library shelves is absurd. Just do the math. That works out to more than 80,000 new books published every year since the first English settlement in Jamestown in 1607. Historical book production figures clearly show that the 80,000-threshold was not crossed until the 1980’s, after hovering around 10,000 for fifty years between 1910 to1958. The OCLC study showed, moreover, that member libraries added a staggering 17 million items (half of all print collections) since 1980. That averages out to 680,000 new print items acquired every year for 25 years, or more than the combined national outputs of the U.S., U.K., China, and Japan in 2004.
Not only will Google have to sift through printed collections to identify books, and then determine if they are in the public domain, but they will also have to separate out those published in the U.S. (assuming that their priority is scanning U.S.-based English-language books) from the sea of books published elsewhere. The OCLC study clearly showed that most printed materials held by U.S. libraries were not published in the U.S. The study counted more than 400 languages system-wide, and more than 3 million print materials published in French and German alone in the original Google Five. English-language print materials accounted for only 52% of holdings system-wide, and 49% in the Google Five. Since more than a few works were probably published in the United Kingdom, the total number of English-language books published in the U.S. will constitute less than half of all print collections, both system-wide and in Google libraries.
So how many U.S.-published books are there in our libraries? Annual book production figures show that some 4 million books have been published in the 125 years since figures were regularly compiled in 1880. If, very conservatively, we add an additional 1.5 million books to cover the pre-1880 years, and another 1.5 million to cover books published after 1880 that might have been missed, we get a much more realistic total of 7 million.
Using the lower baseline for published books tells a very different story than the dark one (that the universe of books consists of works that are out-of-print, in the public domain, or “orphaned” in copyright limbo) told by Google and their supporters. With some 3 million U.S. books in print, the inconvenient truth here is that 40% of all books ever published in the U.S. could still be protected by copyright. That would appear to jive with the OCLC finding that 75% of print items held by U.S. libraries were published after 1945, and 50% after 1974.
If we’re going to have a debate that may end up rewriting copyright law, let’s have one based on facts, not wishful thinking.
Andrew Grabois is a consultant to the publishing industry. He has compiled U.S. book production statistics since 1999. He can be reached at the following email address: agrabois@yahoo.com
Clarification update from Andrew: My post is not intended to be a criticism of the OCLC study ("Anatomy of Aggregate Collections: The Example of Google Print for Libraries") by Brian Lavoie et al, which is a valuable and timely look at print collections held by OCLC member libraries. What I am attempting to do here is point out how friends of the Google library project have misinterpreted the paper and cherry-picked findings and conclusions out of context to support their arguments.
Related articles:
Google Book Project (3/6/07)
Qualified Metadata (2/22/07)
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Google Book Project
Thomas Rudin the associate general council for Microsoft lambasted Google’s approach to copyright protection characterizing it a ‘cavalier’ in comments delivered at the Association of American Publishers conference in New York. Those of us in publishing have a first hand understanding of this opinion and other segments of media are rapidly coming to a realization that even obvious content ownership isn’t enough to preclude Google from adopting and more importantly making money off content under copyright. Google is probably the only company that was willing to take the significant legal risks associated with the purchase of YouTube for example.
Publishers have elected to sue Google to protect their content rights and the content rights of their authors. At the same time, publishers have engaged with Google in participation in the Google Scholar program. Here publishers are equal partners and (I assume) negotiations for the acquisition of content by Google was negotiated in good faith and the results have been good to great for both parties. (Springer, Cambridge University). It is also no bad thing that Google’s content (digitization) programs have spurned other similar content initiatives particularly those of some of the larger trade and academic publishers.
The continued area of friction is the digitization project that Google initiated to scan all the books in as many libraries willing to participate. This is where publishers got upset. They were not consulted nor asked permission, they cannot approve the quality of the scanning, they will not participate in any revenue generated and they can not take for granted that the availability of the scanned book will not undercut any potential revenues they may generate on their own. The books in question are the majority of those published after 1925 or so (It's actually 1923: thanks to Shatzkin for noticing my error) and which are still likely to be under copyright protection of some sort.
Having said that, lets get one thing straight; having all books which exist in library stacks (or deep storage) available in electronic form so that they can be indexed, searched, reassembled, found at all and generally resourced in an easy way is a good thing and an important step forward and opportunity for libraries and library patrons. Ideally, it would lead to one platform (network) providing equal access to high quality, indexed e-book content which any library patron would be able to access via their local library. Sadly, while the vision is still viable the execution represented by the Google library program is not going to get us there.
Setting aside the copyright issue, the Google library program has been going on now for approximately 24mths and results and feedback is starting to show that the reality of the program is not living up to its promise. According to this post from Tim O’Reilly, the scans are not of high quality and importantly are not sufficient to support academic research. Assuming this is universally true (?), the program represents a fantastic opportunity lost for patrons, libraries and Google. BowerBird via O’Reilly states:
Publishers have elected to sue Google to protect their content rights and the content rights of their authors. At the same time, publishers have engaged with Google in participation in the Google Scholar program. Here publishers are equal partners and (I assume) negotiations for the acquisition of content by Google was negotiated in good faith and the results have been good to great for both parties. (Springer, Cambridge University). It is also no bad thing that Google’s content (digitization) programs have spurned other similar content initiatives particularly those of some of the larger trade and academic publishers.
The continued area of friction is the digitization project that Google initiated to scan all the books in as many libraries willing to participate. This is where publishers got upset. They were not consulted nor asked permission, they cannot approve the quality of the scanning, they will not participate in any revenue generated and they can not take for granted that the availability of the scanned book will not undercut any potential revenues they may generate on their own. The books in question are the majority of those published after 1925 or so (It's actually 1923: thanks to Shatzkin for noticing my error) and which are still likely to be under copyright protection of some sort.
Having said that, lets get one thing straight; having all books which exist in library stacks (or deep storage) available in electronic form so that they can be indexed, searched, reassembled, found at all and generally resourced in an easy way is a good thing and an important step forward and opportunity for libraries and library patrons. Ideally, it would lead to one platform (network) providing equal access to high quality, indexed e-book content which any library patron would be able to access via their local library. Sadly, while the vision is still viable the execution represented by the Google library program is not going to get us there.
Setting aside the copyright issue, the Google library program has been going on now for approximately 24mths and results and feedback is starting to show that the reality of the program is not living up to its promise. According to this post from Tim O’Reilly, the scans are not of high quality and importantly are not sufficient to support academic research. Assuming this is universally true (?), the program represents a fantastic opportunity lost for patrons, libraries and Google. BowerBird via O’Reilly states:
umichigan is putting up the o.c.r. from its google scans, for the public-domain books anyway, so the other search engines will be able to scrape that text with ease. what you will find, though, if you look at it (for even as little as a minute or two) is that the quality is so inferior it's almost worthless
Could Google suffer more embarrassment as disillusion grows over the program – perhaps, but I doubt it will force them to rethink their methodology. It would represent a huge act of humility for Google to ‘return to the table’ with publishers and libraries to work with them to rethink the project with the intention of agreeing to the copyright issues, and agreeing a better way to process and tag the content. To suggest that they become less a content repository and more a navigator or ‘switchboard’ which is how O’Reilly phases it is beyond expectation; however, were they to change course in this way they would immediately reap benefits with all segments of the publishing and library communities. O’Reilly – a strong supporter of the Google program – believes the search engines (Google, Yahoo, Others) will ‘lose’ if they continue to create content repositories that are not ‘open’.
Ironically, the lawsuit by the AAP could actually have a beneficial impact on the process of digitization. As some have noted, we may have underestimated the difficultly in finding relevant materials and resources once there is more content to search (this assuming full text is available for search). Initiatives are underway particularly by Library of Congress to address the bibliographic (metadata) requirements of a world with lots more content and perhaps the results of some of these bibliographic activities will result in a better approach to digitization of the more recent content (post 1923). Regrettably, some believe that since there may be only one opportunity to scan the materials in libraries that we may have lost the only opportunity to make these (older) materials accessible to users in an easy way.
Tomorrow, just what is the universe of titles in the post 1923 ‘bucket’? The supporters of the Google project speak about a universe of 30million books but deeper analysis suggests the number is wildly exaggerated.
Ironically, the lawsuit by the AAP could actually have a beneficial impact on the process of digitization. As some have noted, we may have underestimated the difficultly in finding relevant materials and resources once there is more content to search (this assuming full text is available for search). Initiatives are underway particularly by Library of Congress to address the bibliographic (metadata) requirements of a world with lots more content and perhaps the results of some of these bibliographic activities will result in a better approach to digitization of the more recent content (post 1923). Regrettably, some believe that since there may be only one opportunity to scan the materials in libraries that we may have lost the only opportunity to make these (older) materials accessible to users in an easy way.
Tomorrow, just what is the universe of titles in the post 1923 ‘bucket’? The supporters of the Google project speak about a universe of 30million books but deeper analysis suggests the number is wildly exaggerated.
Shaffer Announced as Chairman of Knovel
Dave Shaffer (and old boss of mine) has been named as Chairman of the Board of Knovel. Knovel is an information publishing company that focuses on Science and Engineering. The company is in the process of developing an integrated platform of information products and integration tools that enable users to integrate their use of Knovel products into their daily workflow. This is little different than what most information publishers are trying to do.
From the press release:
From the press release:
Chris Forbes, CEO of Knovel said: "David brings Knovel years ofexperience in managing companies that have successfully delivered highvalue information and productivity solutions to end users. We look forwardto his guidance as Knovel takes the next steps to dominate the engineeringinformation market." David Shaffer continued: "I am excited to join acompany that is a passionate leader in driving value for end users in thislarge and important market. This new role is a natural extension of mycareer at Thomson."
Monday, March 05, 2007
Bear Sterns Media Conference
For those interested in the publishing company participants for the current (Mon/Thur) Bear Sterns media conference at the Breakers in Palm Beach here is the approximate schedule:
Monday 3/5
Moodys - 10am. Webinar
Meridith - 11.00am. Webinar
CBS - 12.20pm. Webinar
Thomson - 2.40pm. Webinar
McGraw Hill - 3.20pm. Webinar
Tuesday 3/6
NYTimes - 9.25am. Webinar
Primedia - 10:05am Webinar
Dow Jones - 10:40am Webinar
Scripps - 2:40om Webinar
Monday 3/5
Moodys - 10am. Webinar
Meridith - 11.00am. Webinar
CBS - 12.20pm. Webinar
Thomson - 2.40pm. Webinar
McGraw Hill - 3.20pm. Webinar
Tuesday 3/6
NYTimes - 9.25am. Webinar
Primedia - 10:05am Webinar
Dow Jones - 10:40am Webinar
Scripps - 2:40om Webinar
Reader's Digest Closes Sale
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Social BookMarking
Many of you are more than familiar with Librarything and the similar sites that enable cataloging of book titles with tags that are meaningful and useful to the user. Tucked away in the 'Your Money' section of The NY Times was another puff piece about how great Librarything is for people like us who like books and reading. The likely origin of this article is a blog post by Tim at Librarything which looked at the comparison between tags of books at LT and tags of books on Amazon.com.
He goes on to talk about the power of numbers that inevitably feeds on itself; as more people tag more people find it useful which leads to a larger community. Passion also plays a part because the overwhelming number of active 'taggers' also have more books. Those that have less than 200 titles rarely tag books. (Since fees kick in over this number the users are also more financially committed to librarything).
It is a very interesting article on the power of community and worth a read.
Lorcan Dempsey suggests these types of sites also represent examples of the 'Network effect':
The other component of interest to me is that sites like librarything are becoming sources of viable bibliographic information and indeed the NY times article suggests that Librarything maybe selling or licensing some of its tagging data:
At Bowker one of our most important and costly editorial tasks was to assign subject classification to titles so that they could be found either in our own products or in the products of our customers. With well over 200,000 titles per year this is an expensive excercise and while it can be automated (and was) the process suffers from obvious limitations. Firstly, the subject classification methodology is quite rigid and is not always intuitive. Secondly, subjects change over time and books previously categorized could benefit from additional or changed subjects. Thirdly, the application of subjects is subjective and can pose a limitation on the subjects applied to the title. A subject expert wants to be as accurate as possible in applying the subject classification for relevancy and integrity. In BooksinPrint, we had an average of slightly more than two subjects per title over approximately five million records. Many had more and a few had more than 15 but the average was two. Many users of Librarything, myself included, have placed more than two tags against most titles.
The ability of a community to supply a range of subjects that reflect the work, what's important about the book and what becomes important in the wider world may provide a vast addition to traditional bibliographic database work. I believe the social network applications and the structured approaches will work in concert but increasingly it is the social aspect that needs to be actively solicited for inclusion into the traditional bibliographic databases.
Amazon visitors have not taken to tagging Amazon's books in significant numbers. With thousands of times the traffic, Amazon produced a tenth as many tags as LibraryThing. What's going on?
He goes on to talk about the power of numbers that inevitably feeds on itself; as more people tag more people find it useful which leads to a larger community. Passion also plays a part because the overwhelming number of active 'taggers' also have more books. Those that have less than 200 titles rarely tag books. (Since fees kick in over this number the users are also more financially committed to librarything).
Critical mass is important, even if we can't pinpoint the line. Ten tags are never enough; a thousand almost always is. Unfortunately, Amazon's low numbers translate into a broader failure to reach critical mass. With ten times as many tags overall, LibraryThing has fifteen times as many books with 100 tags, and 35 times as many with over 200 tags.
It is a very interesting article on the power of community and worth a read.
Lorcan Dempsey suggests these types of sites also represent examples of the 'Network effect':
Regular readers of this blog will not be surprised to hear me say that they also highlight a structural issue for libraries, how to provide services at the network level. These new services are network level services. They are aimed at the general user, not an audience circumscribed by region, or funding or institution. And, additionally, they provide an integrated service, moving the user quickly through whatever steps are needed to complete a task.
The other component of interest to me is that sites like librarything are becoming sources of viable bibliographic information and indeed the NY times article suggests that Librarything maybe selling or licensing some of its tagging data:
For example, he is in the process of selling some of his recommendations data, which is based in part on tagging statistics, to other sites that sell books and book information.
At Bowker one of our most important and costly editorial tasks was to assign subject classification to titles so that they could be found either in our own products or in the products of our customers. With well over 200,000 titles per year this is an expensive excercise and while it can be automated (and was) the process suffers from obvious limitations. Firstly, the subject classification methodology is quite rigid and is not always intuitive. Secondly, subjects change over time and books previously categorized could benefit from additional or changed subjects. Thirdly, the application of subjects is subjective and can pose a limitation on the subjects applied to the title. A subject expert wants to be as accurate as possible in applying the subject classification for relevancy and integrity. In BooksinPrint, we had an average of slightly more than two subjects per title over approximately five million records. Many had more and a few had more than 15 but the average was two. Many users of Librarything, myself included, have placed more than two tags against most titles.
The ability of a community to supply a range of subjects that reflect the work, what's important about the book and what becomes important in the wider world may provide a vast addition to traditional bibliographic database work. I believe the social network applications and the structured approaches will work in concert but increasingly it is the social aspect that needs to be actively solicited for inclusion into the traditional bibliographic databases.
Self-Serving List Of Best Blog
Eoin Purcell has been kind enough to include me on his list of best Blogs. I hope I can keep up with the expectations. The list was also nicely picked up by Richard Charkin. I owe someone a Guinness....
Friday, March 02, 2007
Check Prices and Get Recommendations by Phone
If you are like me then you often find yourself in a bookstore looking at a selection of books wondering which to buy. Sure you have a list but perhaps the list is slightly out of date and doesn't reflect the most recent releases, or maybe you are in the basement of the Strand innundated with potentially fantastic books but confused for choice. This little application enables you to access pricing information (if you see second hand titles at a yard sale that you think you can sell on Alibris) and customer recommedations using your phone. It iwll be even better if you could scan the bar code.
Rowling Suing EBAY
News from The Times via Richard Charkin that J.K. Rowling has initiated a suit against Ebay in India for selling pirated copies of her work. From The Times article:
Neil Blair, Rowling’s legal adviser at the Christopher Little Literary Agency, said that she welcomed the court order. “Over the years eBay has appeared to be unwilling to control sellers on their site offering pirated or forged Harry Potter items for sale to innocent fans,” he said. “We have asked eBay on numerous occasions to assist by taking preventative steps to avoid these sales – steps that we are aware they can introduce. As these requests were not heeded we had no choice but to seek judicial intervention.Ebay has played the innocent in other similar cases - Tiffany in NYC and Dior in Paris - suggesting that it isn't partical for them to monitor every sale to ensure that the goods are legitmate. They just don't want to do the work.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Harlequin (Torstar) Reports
Things aren't going well for the Torstar Group publisher of The Toronto Star newspaper and owner of Harlequin Books. Reuters eloquently states that profit has slumped and attribute this to the decline in fortunes at The Star and also to restructuring charges. Things don't look too good at Harlequin either but results look worse than they may be because of exchange rate issues.
On full year revenue:
and on Operating Profit:
Here is the short version and the long version of the press releases.
Further detail on the publishing units performance is summarized as follows:
On full year revenue:
Book Publishing revenue was $471.8 million in 2006, down $49.3 million from $521.1 million in 2005. Underlying revenue growth of $9.4 million was more than offset by a $30.0 million decline from the strengthening of the Canadian dollar during the year and $28.7 million from lower gains on U.S. dollar hedges year over year.
and on Operating Profit:
Book Publishing reported operating profit was $56.3 million in 2006, down $39.1 million from $95.4 million in 2005. Underlying operating profit was down only $2.5 million in the year while the strengthening Canadian dollar decreased profits by $7.9 million and lower gains on the U.S. dollar hedges decreased profits by $28.7 million year over year. Underlying results were up for North America Retail and Overseas but were more than offset by lower North America Direct-To-Consumer results.It is difficult to discern the true impact here as there may have been some currency impact in the operating profit in 2005. Nevertheless, taking the numbers at face value, underlying revenues were up $9.4mm versus 2005 but operating profit was down $2.5mm.
Here is the short version and the long version of the press releases.
Further detail on the publishing units performance is summarized as follows:
- North America Retail increased book sales in 2006 after stabilizing in 2005. Significant efficiency improvements were made to the series business in 2006 as fewer books were printed and distributed and more books were sold.
- The North America Direct-To-Consumer revenue decline in 2006 was due to both fewer shipments of a children’s direct-to-home continuity program and from shipping disruptions experienced early in the year associated with the bankruptcy of a key supplier. Improved sales through the Internet channel partially offset this decline.
- Overseas markets had mixed results in 2006 with improvements in the United Kingdom and the Nordic Group offset by lower results in Germany. Brazil, a joint venture launched in 2005, showed improvement in 2006 selling more books and making progress towards break-even.
- The outlook for 2007 is for stability. Harlequin has stabilized the total number of books sold over the past three years despite difficult trends in its direct-to-consumer operations.
- Investment will continue in innovation and new products including digital initiatives in 2007.
- Cost savings of approximately $3.0 million are expected from the restructuring undertaken in late 2006.
- Harlequin will continue to be subject to the impact of changes in the value of the Canadian dollar relative to the U.S. dollar and other currencies.
Wolters Kluwer Posts Full Year
Dutch publisher Wolters Kluwer posted a top line increase of 9% (0rganic growth of 3%) and an EBITA increase of 16% to €618million for the full year.
Following is are highlights from the company press release:
Following is are highlights from the company press release:
- Revenues increased 9% to €3,693 million (2005: €3,374 million)
- Organic revenue growth of 3%, in line with full-year outlook
- Ordinary EBITA increased 16% to €618 million (2005: €533 million)
- Ordinary EBITA margin of 17% (2005: 16%)
- Investment in product development reached €272 million (an increase of 9% over 2005)
- Structural cost savings of €128 million (an increase of 28% over 2005)
- Strong free cash flow of €443 million (2005: €351 million)
- Ordinary diluted EPS increased 16% to €1.23 (an increase of 15% at constant currencies)
- Selective acquisitions to strengthen leading positions and enter high-growth adjacent markets
Fourth-Quarter 2006:
- Revenues increased 8% to €1,003 million (2005: €932 million)
- Organic revenue growth of 6% (2005: 3%) Ordinary EBITA increased 17% to €173 million (2005: €148 million)
- Ordinary EBITA margin of 17% (2005: 16%)
- Investment in product development reached €74 million (an increase of 7% over same period 2005)
- Structural cost savings of €37 million (an increase of 32% over same period 2005)
- Strong free cash flow of €204 million (2005: €208 million)
- Ordinary diluted EPS increased 9% to €0.34 (an increase of 15% at constant currencies)
A more detailed review is in the press release. Most of the business units are doing OK with Corporate and Financial Services showing the largest percentage revenue growth. Of Education they say the following:
Organic revenue growth of 2% with particularly strong performance in the United Kingdom following new product introductions. The review of strategic alternatives for Education announced in 2006 is expected to be completed in the first half of 2007.
The company has announced that this group may be sold and the statement seems to indicate that will be completed by the middle of the year.
The company is looking to build on the gains they have made over the past two years to migrate revenue to online, attack their cost structure and reinvigorate product development. Margin improvement was seem 2006 vs 2007 - of 1.0pt - but they are suggesting their EBITA margin will grow from 17% to closer to 20% which is significant progress.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Another Day another Deal: Springer Science
According to sources Springer Science has hired Goldman Sachs and others to prepare the company for an IPO valued at over 2.0bill Euros. Springer Science is the result of a prior combination of Bertelsmann Springer and Kluwer Academic. The company publishes of over 1400 journals and 5000 academic book titles per year. The main subject areas for both are science, medical and technology.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Simon & Schuster Strong Finish
CBS reported fourth quarter and and full year numbers this morning with the publishing unit (Simon & Schuster) up 6% over last year and as a result helping to cover some of the decline in radio at CBS.
The publishing unit revenues were $252.5 and $807mm for the quarter and year respectively and operating profit was $38.9 and $78.0mm. A full year operating margin of just short of 10% is good going in the consumer market and is virtually unchanged from last years margin performance. Penguin reported yesterday (with Pearson) and their operating marging was slightly lower than S&S at 7.8% on higher sales.
Here is more detail from the CBS press release:
Sounds like the AMS situation had some impact but on the other hand it looks like the bonus' this year were relatively better than last year.
The publishing unit revenues were $252.5 and $807mm for the quarter and year respectively and operating profit was $38.9 and $78.0mm. A full year operating margin of just short of 10% is good going in the consumer market and is virtually unchanged from last years margin performance. Penguin reported yesterday (with Pearson) and their operating marging was slightly lower than S&S at 7.8% on higher sales.
Here is more detail from the CBS press release:
For the quarter, Publishing revenues increased 7% to $252.5 million from $237.0
million, reflecting sales from top-selling fourth quarter 2006 titles, including YOU: On a Diet by Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz, Lisey's Story by Stephen King and Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Editionby Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker and Ethan Becker. OIBDA increased 8% to $38.9 million from $36.1 million, and operating income increased 7% to $36.3 million from $33.9 million, reflecting the revenue increase partially offset by an increase in bad debt
expense.For the year, Publishing revenues increased 6% to $807.0 million from $763.6 million in 2005 due to sales of top-selling titles as well as higher distribution fee income. OIBDA increased 5% to $78.0 million and operating income increased 4% to $68.5 million, reflecting the revenue increase partially offset by higher expenses, primarily resulting from an increase in bad debt expense and higher production, employee-related and selling and marketing costs. Publishing results included stock-based compensation of$1.9 million and $.5 million for 2006 and 2005, respectively.
Sounds like the AMS situation had some impact but on the other hand it looks like the bonus' this year were relatively better than last year.
Rumor Mill and Thomson Learning
An interesting search string appeared in my site stats a few days ago: "Bertelsmann and Thomson Learning." What could that mean - if anything? Bertelsmann's foray into educational publishing could be quite interesting and given their achievements in the US with Random House it would be something that the other educational publishers would want to monitor closely. The company doesn't have quite the cash cushion that they had before they were forced to buy out a minor partner last year; however, it seems highly unlikely that if they wanted to make a purchase of this size that they wouldn't be able to find ready suppliers of financing. They recently restructured some of their debt to reduce interest payments and had little difficulty with the offering.
It is all speculation and you have to believe the betting is on pure Private Equity. Bertelsmann is a diversified media company but clearly not adverse to paper based publishing operations and in this case they may be especially interested in the electronic revenue potential that Thomson Learning could offer. Wait and see.
It is all speculation and you have to believe the betting is on pure Private Equity. Bertelsmann is a diversified media company but clearly not adverse to paper based publishing operations and in this case they may be especially interested in the electronic revenue potential that Thomson Learning could offer. Wait and see.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Pearson Post Record Results
Pearson have been cagy all year regarding where they would end up and downplayed the full year impact they expected even after they posted very strong half year numbers. As anticipated they have posted results at the top end of analysts expectations with profits up 19% over last year to 502million pounds. EPS slightly exceeded guidence at 40.2pence. Here is the Reuters release.
In the company's release they pointed to the strong performance of all groups including the education group (both higher ed and k-12) which has been strong all year, FT group ad revenues and Penguin. The Penguin numbers may be at or slightly higher than other consumer publishing companies may be expecting. Here are the highlights from the Pearson release:
Naturally, there is no word on future acquisitions but growth from acquisitions has been critical to Pearson in growthing top line and margins recently - although underlying growth has been significant as well. Look for Pearson to continue to be active on this front particularly as Thomson Learning and Harcourt will be distracted by their respective divestiture processes.
In the company's release they pointed to the strong performance of all groups including the education group (both higher ed and k-12) which has been strong all year, FT group ad revenues and Penguin. The Penguin numbers may be at or slightly higher than other consumer publishing companies may be expecting. Here are the highlights from the Pearson release:
In their preview of 2007, it is basically more of the same with essentially the same outlook for education that they gave this time last year with growth in the 4-6% range with margin improvement in School and professional. Penguin margins are expected to continue to improve (and at 8% are already quite good for trade) and the FT group is expected to continue to benefit from the reorganization that they have implemented during the past 18mths or so. Margins are expected to improve there.Record results. Pearson reports its highest ever operating profits (adjusted operating profit up 15% to £592m), earnings (adjusted eps up 18% to 40.2p) and cash (free cash flow up £2m to £433m).
Sustained growth and market share gains. School sales up 6% and Higher Education sales up 4%, benefiting from leading position in content, assessment and technology; FT advertising revenues up 9%; Penguin sales up 3% despite tough consumer publishing market. Stronger margins and double-digit profit growth in all businesses.
Pearson margin up a percentage point to 13.4%. Education margin up to 14.1% and profits up 12%; FT Group margin up to 17.3% and profits up 18%; Penguin margin up to 7.8% and profits up 22%. Higher returns. Return on invested capital up to 8.0% (from 6.7% in 2005), above Pearson's weighted average cost of capital; dividend increased by 8.5% to 29.3p, the largest increase for a decade.
Naturally, there is no word on future acquisitions but growth from acquisitions has been critical to Pearson in growthing top line and margins recently - although underlying growth has been significant as well. Look for Pearson to continue to be active on this front particularly as Thomson Learning and Harcourt will be distracted by their respective divestiture processes.
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