Guide to Finding an Orphan

(via P. Brantley) The Society of American Archivists have produced a best practice guide for researching rightsholders titled Orphan Works: Statement of Best Practices. Here is a sample from the LibraryLaw Blog:

Then, the heart of the beast - what constitutes a diligent effort? I love the way the document clarifies that you first need to try to identify the creator, but that you also need to try to identify the rights holder, which is often different, especially for older works that may have dead authors.

How far do you go in identifying and locating creators and rights holders? This is the $30,000 question, and the guide really helps you here. It's as if you have the collective wisdom of the archivist community at your beck and call. True, this isn't legal guidance based on statutes/court cases, but we don't have those yet. This will likely influence those arenas, should the time ever come.

Bill Folman, The Scandal Plan

Pretty good book video via @chapmanchapman and @harperstudio

Elsevier's Journal of The Future

Journal publisher Elsevier has announced a beta project to re-think the journal article. In collaboration with their journal Cell, the company's innovation team has set up two beta sites that solicit feedback on how technology can improve the experience of both the journal contributor and the consumer.

Elsevier is the world's largest publisher of scientific and medical content and its results from what they describe as the 'journal of the future' will be watched closely by subscribers and competitors.

The concept attempts to make impressive use of current technology to aid the navigation of the journal article content, to provide more graphical and multimedia content and enable better and more effective linking to related content.

In summary, there are some of the features the publisher notes on the Cell beta site:

• A hierarchical presentation of text and figures so that readers can elect to drill down through the layers of content based on their level of expertise and interest. This organizational structure is a significant departure from the linear-based organization of a traditional print-based article in incorporating the core text and supplemental material within a single unified structure.
• A graphical abstract allows readers to quickly gain an understanding of the main take-home message of the paper. The graphical abstract is intended to encourage browsing, promote interdisciplinary scholarship and help readers identify more quickly which papers are most relevant to their research interests.
• Research highlights provide a bulleted list of the key results of the article.
• Author-Affiliation highlighting makes it easy to see an author’s affiliations and all authors from the same affiliation.
• A figure that contains clickable areas so that it can be used as a navigation mechanism to directly access specific sub-sections of the results and figures.
• Integrated audio and video let authors present the context of their article via an interview or video presentation and allow animations to be displayed more effectively.
• The Experimental Procedures section contains alternate views allowing readers to see a summary or the full details necessary to replicate the experiment.
• A new approach to displaying figures allows the reader to identify quickly which figures they are interested in and then drill down through related supplemental figures. All supplemental figures are displayed individually and directly linked to the main figure to which they are related.
• Real-time reference analyses provide a rich environment to explore the content of the article via the list of citations.

Here is the link to the beta version of the journal itself. (Cell Beta).

Moon Memory

I always remembered the moon walk occurring during the daytime, and it wasn't until recently that Mrs. PND happened to recall 'staying up' to watch a couple of guys walk on the moon. My memory was captured in brilliant white sunshine and air conditioning because in their early twenties in mid 1968, my parents had packed up the family and moved to Thailand where my father took his first management role at Intercontinental. Out of England, Thailand was a magical place but also often fetid, smelly and unbearably hot; however, living at one of Bangkok's few luxury hotels - one also that had created a sort of garden oasis out of the surrounding slums - eased the transition considerably. I had the run of the place since both my brothers were much too young to get out by themselves and while I didn't get up to too much mischief I did have my moments.

My mode of transportation was my peddle car US Army issue Jimmy's Jeep (all green) in which I tooled around the open air corridors of the hotel. This was especially fun during the rainy season when the corridors became particularly conducive to skidding. As three blond haired kids, we were a somewhat unusual commodity to the Thai especially the women and whenever my youngest brother went out they always wanted to touch his blond hair. From my perspective this attention was often unwanted and one particular room service waiter teased me mercilessly, and I had just had enough when on one occasion he snuck up behind me and took my hat. When he refused in the face of my demand to give it back, I took a run at him in my Jeep and rammed him. Catastrophically, he was also carrying a lunch tray which went flying in a cascade of crockery, food and glass. I remember him looking at me half laughing while I was immediately mortified that my father would find out. Needless to say he never bothered me again and I got my hat back. No one ever mentioned it. I always wonder what he told HQ when he had to return with a tray full of debris to replace the order.

There were no televisions in the hotel rooms at that time mainly because there was only one state television station in Thailand which broadcast in Thai. On the morning of July 21st, 1969 (evening of July 2oth on the east coast), my mother took me to the hotel lobby vowing to me this is something you will always remember. I suspect if we were still living in England that I would not have seen the moon walk live because of the time difference. As I recall, there were only a few people gathered around the TV which was sitting unceremoniously low to the floor on a chair. In contrast to the crowds gathered in public places in the US, I was left to recognize the importance of what I was witnessing without the collective endorsement of the crowd, but I am sure our little group clapped and sighed with relief just like everyone else. We also didn't have the benefit of Walter Cronkite's commentary and in the last several days having watched some of the CBS broadcast, he did indeed sum up the penultimate moment brilliantly when he takes off his glasses and just says 'Wow'.

In the forty years since the landing, I am indifferent to the manned space program and I don't see the value of spending billions just to prove we can do something that has no recurring benefit. The Apollo program was important but everything we do in space can be replicated down here and down here we have more than enough problems to contend with.

MediaWeek (Vol 2, No 28): Napstered, Amazon, Chegg.com, ALA,

WaPo reports on the romance writers of American conference (Link):

There is no prototypical romance writer. Here at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel, some 2,000 women of all races and ages wear everything from chunky Goth boots to strappy stilettos. (There are also men. Maybe five of them.) But if you squint and look for a general appearance trend, this is it: They look like your mom. They look kind, comforting, domestic, as if they are wearing perfume made from Fleischmann's yeast.

The real pros are fluent in every genre. Paranormal romance -- ghosts, vampires -- is big, though the market might be reaching saturation. Jane Austen-era stuff always does well, though one industry expert confidently says, "I think Victorian is the next Regency," which makes everyone in earshot go "Ooh." The array of titles at a massive book signing reveals the wide gamut of what turns people on: "Lord of Bondage," "My Sexy Greek Summer," "Alien Overnight," "Diving in Deep." That last one is a gay, swimming-themed romance written by one straight woman for other straight women.

Slate magazine suggests publishing risks being 'Napstered' (Link):

While publishers, authors, and agents are well within their rights to attempt to maximize profits by forcing e-book prices up, their efforts may backfire. Put off by higher prices, readers who have grown accustomed to $9.99 Kindle editions may choose to flout copyright law and turn to the lush "pirate" markets for books on the Internet. It's a simple matter of querying a search engine to find thousands of e-books—best-sellers included—that can be imported without charge into a Kindle, a Sony Reader, personal computer, or smart phone.

What has kept illegal e-books from taking off? First, all the electronic reading gadgets on the market are subpar, if you ask me, making the reading of books, newspapers, magazines, and even cereal boxes painful. The resolution is poor. The fonts are crap. The navigation is chunky.

Ironically Amazon.com removes purchased copies of 1984 and Animal Farm from the Kindle - and they don't even replace the 'illegitimate' copies with new ones (Link):

People who bought the rescinded editions of the books reacted with indignation, while acknowledging the literary ironies involved. “Of all the books to recall,” said Charles Slater, an executive with a sheet-music retailer in Philadelphia, who bought the digital edition of “1984” for 99 cents last month. “I never imagined that Amazon actually had the right, the authority or even the ability to delete something that I had already purchased.” Antoine Bruguier, an engineer in Silicon Valley, said he had noticed that his digital copy of “1984” appeared to be a scan of a paper edition of the book. “If this Kindle breaks, I won’t buy a new one, that’s for sure,” he said. Amazon appears to have deleted other purchased e-books from Kindles recently. Customers commenting on Web forums reported the disappearance of digital editions of the Harry Potter books and the novels of Ayn Rand over similar issues.

FT Editor says most news organizations will be charging for content within a year and he also speaks about the balance between News Bloggers and journalists (Link):

"I do not wish to sound precious. British journalism has always put a premium on the scoop and it has long blurred the distinction between news and comment," said Barber.

"The rise of bloggers may simply signal the last gasp of the age of deference, not just in politics but also in general social mores in Britain, America and elsewhere. Nor does it follow that the worldwide web has dumbed down journalism.

"On the contrary: it has created opportunities to "smarten up". News organisations with specialist skills and knowledge have the opportunity to thrive. The mediocre middle is much more at risk."

Profile of textbook rental company Chegg.com (Link)

There is plenty of secret sauce to Chegg’s business, including logistics and software to determine the pricing and sourcing of books, as well as how many times a given book can be rented. The savings can vary from book to book. A macroeconomics textbook that retails for $122 was available on Chegg for $65 for one semester; an organic chemistry title retailing for $123 was offered for $33. (Round-trip shipping can add $4 to a book.)

Those kinds of savings are turning students into fans, Mr. Safka said. “Word of mouth,” he said, “has put wind in the company’s sails.”

A set of presentations on digital standards from the ALA conderence (Link):

The market for e-books has expanded rapidly in the past year and the release of new readers, along with the ever increasing amount of new content, makes it likely this growth will continue. On July 10, 2009, BISG and the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) co-hosted their third annual standards forum, providing a big-picture look at the development and impact of common e-book standards, and a discussion of the pain points that persist

Coverage of the ALA meeting in Chicago from Library Journal:

Library Journal and School Library Journal's up-to-the-minute coverage of the American Library Association's (ALA) annual conference, to be held in Chicago July 9–July 15, 2009. Breaking news, views, developments, and live reports from the show floor. Check back often for updates via bookmark or RSS.

In Spain their 'big three' have joined together to create a digital content distributor (Link):

Planeta, Random House Mondadori, and Santillana, which together make up some 70% of the market, are joining forces to set up a digital distribution company for ebooks. This initiative will go hand in hand with a major marketing effort starting with a splashy launch of e-books and e-readers this holiday season through at least one major retailer. They have set a goal of having every frontlist title able to be published simultaneously in both print and ebook form by mid 2011.

McCartney on Letterman

Asked why he hadn't ever been on the show before, Macca said he didn't like it.

Letter also asked him if he had played on a marquee - "it's reasonably safe" he said - to which Paul said he had 'done a roof once'.

WSJ goes to School on eBooks

In the WSJ this morning they have a round-up of some of the trails and debates about placing eBook readers in schools as a replacement for paper texts. Clearly, ebook readers are not a replacement since many basic functions that paper texts allow are not available with eBooks. At this point it appears the only 'benefit' to eBooks in schools are the low weight compared to a back pack of books. As such, the Kindle and Sony reader efforts to enter this market risk deterring other more adventurous manufactures who will face student and administrator scepticsm because these early efforts are so inadequate. That's my view but here is more from the journal:

Some California school districts say they have had positive results with e-texts so far. At the Las Virgenes Unified School District in southern California, digital books have been used on PCs and in printouts in elementary-school science classes since 2007. “The greatest immediate observable result is how quickly the kids get engaged,” says Las Virgenes schools superintendent Donald Zimring. He adds, however, that there is no evidence e-texts improved reading or test scores.At colleges, trials of e-textbooks and readers have been mixed. When Northwest Missouri State ran its trial with the Sony Reader last fall, dozens of the 200 participants bailed out after about two weeks. “The students more often than not either suffered through it or went and got physical books,” says Paul Klute, the assistant to the university’s president, who oversees the e-book program. Students didn’t like that they couldn’t flip through random pages, take notes in the margins or highlight text, he says.

Penn State ran a pilot program last fall with 100 of the Sony Reader devices in honors English classes, and found similar results as Northwest Missouri State. The devices are good if you’re using them “on a beach or on an airplane,” said Mike Furlough, assistant dean for scholarly communications at Penn State University Libraries. “But not fully functional for a learning environment.”

(If you can't see this article search the title: Book Smarts? E-Texts Receive Mixed Reviews From Students and that should bring up a link that works).

Post: Big Kindle Goes to School (Shug)

MediaWeek (Vol 2, No 27): OCLC, Journals, Book Apps, Book Data, AARP

Most of these were posted to twitter this week. (@personanondata) Springer launched an image back containing over 1.5 million scientific images, tables, charts and graphs, spanning all scientific subject areas. (GEN - Press Release):

SpringerImages allows users to search fast, broadly and accurately through captions and keywords (both author-provided and user-generated). A feature unique to SpringerImages, users can also search the sentences from the full text which refer to the image. The platform provides bibliographic information for the sources, as well as one-click access to the full text, allowing users to delve deeper into the context of the image and research surrounding it.

Images obtained from SpringerImages can be used for almost all non-commercial purposes, including integration into presentations and PDF documents. The platform enables the user to store image sets and saved searches. Image sets can be exported to PDF or PowerPoint (including their bibliographic data) with one click. Copyright and license information for images for commercial use is also available.

Eoin Purcell notes his approval (Blog) Giles Slade on HuffPo offers some thoughts on the Kindle:

Feature creep harms the quality of any tool, but, most important, it obscures a manufacturer's ability to market it. The Kindle, on the other hand, is what you keep at home or take with you on vacation to relax into. It is for the book-lover who might occasionally buy a first, a signed or a special edition. It is lingerie. It is a box of chocolates or a bottle of double-malt. Especially well-timed for the recession as a luxury item that keeps on giving by allowing you to 'save' on cheaper electronic editions, it's now here to stay. Competition will drive it to adapt and compete, of course. That's only natural. Stanza, for example, has many attractive features that Kindle now needs to copy. It will.

According to the current growth curve, electronic books will dominate world-wide book sales by 2018. (This is the book industry's own prediction, and is extremely 'safe.' It does not anticipate a watershed or 'tipping point'). In any case, Kindle-Amazon and Google will continue to make good money. Traditional print media will continue to lose money as long as they stumble around wondering how to accommodate themselves to what happened yesterday.

Does corporatisation of Journals result in 'preemptive' and 'non-consultative' staffing issues? (HigherEd):

Needless to say, having respected editors removed from their positions at journals without any consultation with editorial boards is exactly the kind of move scholars fear when they consider corporate management of their journals. While some have speculated that Sage was taking sides in some kind of philosophical battleground, many have said that the problem here isn't one of philosophy or of one editor or another, but of academics not making the decisions.

In the discussion on Crooked Timber, a popular social science blog, one political scientist wrote: "Given the nature of journal publishing anymore, where firms like Sage and Elsevier think of their journals as profit engines first and charge enormous amounts for subscriptions, I’m amazed -- though perhaps I shouldn’t be -- that people immediately leaped to the conclusion that this must be a Berkeley against the world thing, or a Habermas vs. Foucault thing, or a history-of political-thought-vs.-critical-theory thing, or an administration-vs.-faculty thing, or what have you, and ignored the possibility that it’s all about the Benjamins (Franklin, not Barber)."

For those you like bibliographic data (and I know you're out there) here is yet another report on book metadata. Of the two recently published recently neither push the envelope; however, this one by Judy Luther is the better one. (Link): These are her conclusions which as you will notice are library centric:

• Use crosswalks between ONIX and MARC to facilitate the creation of CIP and to provide publishers with an XML feed of MARC data.
• Work to enhance the CIP record post publication could be shared with OCLC member libraries if database authorizations were expanded.
• Expand training on MARC records with more international vendors to ensure broad conformance to standards and to eliminate duplication of effort by libraries.
• Reviewing of OCLC records could be automated if attributes were exposed so that a manual review could be skipped if it was determined that the contributor is a trusted source.
• Explore the value to publishers of incorporating in their systems the unique data elements added by catalogers (authorized names, subjects, series, and classification numbers).
• For large data files received via FTP as part of an electronic feed, a “manifest” is needed to identify the contents to save staff the time of having to open the file to learn what is in it.
• Descriptive metadata such as the series or table of contents could be synthesized and used to support more refined search results that would also allow better navigation from the collection level, to title level, to the article or image level.
• Science publishers that are exploring tagging content at the chapter level need guidelines and expertise in-house to create and maintain good quality metadata below the product level.
• The long tail of publishers would benefit from Best Practices and simple guidance for options on how to present their data in a consistent manner.
• Economic conditions necessitate the need to simplify ingest mechanisms. A best practice could define quality control expectations.
• There is a need for Collection Identifiers that represent the packages of individual titles that libraries acquire from both publishers and vendors.
• The NISO Thought Leader Meeting on Digital Libraries & Digital Collections recommended the development of a tool that would enable publishers to self test the quality of their metadata.
• Establish best practices for exchange, frequency of updating, feedback mechanisms, and reuse— making the supply chain more multi-directional (not just from publishers to community or from vendor to library).
• Explore methods for integrating the recently published International Standard Text Code (ISTC) and the forthcoming International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) standards into the existing workflow and promoting their adoption. The ISTC can be used to create associations among works and ISNI could provide authority control for authors.

Publisher's Weekly looks at Apple's platform support for book related applications (link):

With such a robust emerging market for smartphones, publishers are actively reimagining the very notion of the e-book, creating book-based apps that both enable mobile reading and enhance their books. Simon & Schuster, for example, has had great success with game and utility apps, made in-house and with the help of outside developers. One, called 365 Crossword, mines the company's huge back catalogue of crossword puzzle books to offer readers a puzzle for each day of the year. “We launched that in February, and it's done really nicely,” Ellie Hirshhorn, chief digital officer and executive v-p for Simon & Schuster, told PW. “Even the first day or two as we were watching closely, it wasn't just being downloaded in the United States—it was all over the world.”

Hirshhorn is quick to point out that mobile technology has enabled S&S to “marry the platform to the content.” The company also did well with a Klingon dictionary app pegged to the release of Star Trek. And, while Hirshhorn says S&S launched these apps because they hoped to learn about the market, “we are making money,” she adds.

AARP has sold to Ebsco their unique AgeLine database of bibliographic data related to medical and aging information for the 50+ market (PR):

"AgeLine is the largest database on aging, and is widely used both domestically and internationally. When AARP decided to sell AgeLine, it was essential to find a home that would continue to provide access to the geriatric community, and who would make the investment necessary to take it to the next level. Our discussions with EBSCO disclosed that they would invest further in the database and make use of the company's larger infrastructure to support it. Confirmation of these positive attributes led to the final decision."

CompletelyNovel reach the finals of ThePitch

CompletelyNovel a small start-up social book site 'out of' Nawfth Lahdn (North London) has reached the London final of a new business launch competition named ThePitch. The company founders want CompletelyNovel to become the MySpace for books and authors where authors can join a community, showcase their work, interact with readers and hopefully build a market for their work. Readers and publishers can discover new authors and print works they are interested in as well as build relationships with authors and other readers.

In addition to providing a place for authors to mingle, CompletelyNovel is also a retailer and show cases and sells books using Amazon services (I assume) which means they are also making a small percentage on each book sale.

The services for self-publishers look interesting as they offer free display of an authors work online:

It is free to publish your book into the CompletelyNovel BookStreamer and through print on demand printers. This allows you to promote and sell paperback copies of your book throughout the internet. You can easily direct buyers to your CompletelyNovel web address so they can read, review and buy copies of your work.

We will soon be offering a premium account which for a monthly fee gives you advanced printing options such as hardback and also inserts your book into the ISBN database and book catalogues around the globe such as in amazon.

CompletelyNovel's revenue model is based on offering 'premium services' to author, publishers and printers:

We provide a very valuable service to our printers, agents and publishers on our site. Just like our writer premium account, if they want to get more out of the service they can subscribe.

We also receive a small payment when adverts are clicked or when someone clicks through from our site to buy a book from a bookshop.

The company launched last year and they say they are planning to expand into the US in the next few months.

Here is a little more from their press release regarding The Pitch. It is great a publishing business got this far in an innovation competition but admittedly this would be more news worthy if they actually won it. So fingers crossed.

CompletelyNovel.com, book publishing and web start-up, has reached the London final of The Pitch 2009, a competition to identify the most promising UK small business. The company hopes to highlight the great potential for innovation within the publishing industry and also win the prize of £50,000 worth of business related goods and services, including mentoring from former Dragon’s Den panellist, Doug Richards. Their pitch will take place on Tuesday 16^th July.

Oliver Brooks, founder of CompletelyNovel.com hopes that his vision to create a MySpace for the book publishing world, enabling future hit authors to be discovered by the power of the social web, will prove a winner:

“The new technology available through the web holds so much potential for the publishing industry – we want to help authors and publishers take advantage of this.”

Oliver will be pitching in a Dragon’s Den style against five other finalists from the South East region to demonstrate that CompletelyNovel offers the best in innovation, market knowledge, customer engagement and financial viability. A number of business experts and experienced entrepreneurs will select one company for a place in the national final, judged by ex-Dragon himself, Doug Richards, and due to take place in November.

CompletelyNovel’s pitch follows hot on the heels of some very satisfying news for their website. Aspiring author Gary Hurlstone, who published his book through CompletelyNovel, was signed to a publisher last week thanks to his ability to use the reviews, ratings and sales he got on CompletelyNovel to prove his book’s market.

"CompletelyNovel was a great help in helping us decide to publish Gary Hurlstone's book. It provided us with the rare chance to gauge a real audience's reaction prior to release, giving us a headstart in the processes of marketing and preparing the book for publication."

Derek Sandhaus, Earnshaw Books

With plans to expand into the US in the next couple of months, CompletelyNovel are hoping that there will be many similar stories to come.

For more information please contact:

Anna Lewis, CompletelyNovel.com

E: anna@completelynovel.com, T: 0207 249 1850 M: 07900 811075

Shared Book Teams with Encyclopaedia Britannica and On-Demand Books

SharedBook is making the following announcement at ALA today:

Visitors to the American Library Association conference in Chicago this week will find a unique, customized book, printed on demand by an on-site Espresso Book Machine®, created to showcase the custom publishing platform of SharedBook Inc.

The new title, A Brief Look at Chicago, is published by Encyclopaedia Britannica, using content its editors selected from Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, and SharedBook’s SMART BUTTON™ technology. Output from this one-click process has been delivered for print on demand to the Espresso Book Machine® from On Demand Books. From content selection through finished book, the entire publishing process was completed in less than 30 minutes. Conference attendees can have their personal copy of this new title printed by the Espresso Book Machine® at booth #2446.

“We’re excited to have an opportunity to share this project with our friends and colleagues at ALA,” said Caroline Vanderlip, CEO of SharedBook. “While this book represents only a small portion of the potential of our platform, it is still a powerful, tangible example of the bright future for the publishing industry as it harnesses technology to create new products and open new markets. We’re delighted that our partners at EB and On Demand Books have joined us in this effort.”

Riding the Subway

Savvy sub-way riders memorize which carriage to ride in and which door to exit that will guarantee them a quick exit up the stairs or a fast transfer to another line. I was never a public transport commuter until I spent a semester abroad in London in the early 1980s. During that time, I quickly realized there was a useful trick to optimizing your journey so that you never had to trudge behind a column of people up the stairs to get out or you missed your connection because you went down the wrong passage. It seemed obvious to me that with a little bit of observation, and by anticipating the placement of the exits and passages at my next station, that I could save considerable time. In a short while, I had it down to a science and to this day when riding the Underground, Path or Subway I still move about the departing station platform in order to make sure I get in the right car and so I can leave by the right door.

When Mrs PND and I first visited London together she couldn't grasp that whenever we traveled on the Underground I was always saying 'we can't stand here we need to go to the end of the platform' or 'I have to count the carriages to make sure we get on the right one' or words similar. Invariably, there are many stations in any system that are new to me (excepting the PATH) and thus if I end up at one of these unfamiliar stations I become a commuting victim just like everyone else.

Unlike me however; Jonathan Wegener and his sister Ashley thought that maybe "there should be an app for that" and have built an iPhone application that optimizes every NYC subway ride. They have created an easy and intuitive interface that enables you, for any combination of NYC stations, to find the proximity of carriages and doors to exit stairs and transfer points. It is a pretty neat app and represents yet another reason why the monthly NYTech Meetups can be so fun.

The Wegeners actually created this information by brute force . It didn't exist until the two of them spent 10 weeks riding the subway with clip boards in hand to document each subway stop. As far as I know, they weren't stopped by NYPD in the process. The application was introduced as the 'quintessential New York app' but I can see others copying the idea pretty rapidly.

MediaWeek (Vol 2, No 26): Scientific Publishing, Elsevier, Open Library

New blog found. Three Guys One Book. In this post they discuss Bookexpo (link):

JE: In the wake of a grim BEA, as the death toll continues to mount in all ranks of the book industry, from writer to editor to indie bookseller, I thought it was high time for all four Three Guys to convene and converse over virtual beers about the state of publishing and the state of books in 2009, as writers, readers, professionals, and consumers. It's fashionable (and not unreasonable) to saddle fiscally irresponsible corporate publishers with the burden of responsibility for the current conditions of book culture. But who else might share the responsibility? I might argue that writers are just as much to blame, that the sentence is killing the novel, that the literati needs to quit cowering in dusty academic circles and engage a larger culture. What do you three guys see as the biggest threat to book culture?

A wide ranging set of presentations entitled: Going Digital, Evolutionary and Revolutionary Aspects of Digitization. From the Nobel symposium at Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. (Link) Article about the Open Library initiative (Guardian):

Not everybody thinks that way, however, including the Open Library – a project with an audacious goal that it hopes can bring the web and books closer together.

The scheme is to create a single page on the web for every book that has ever been published; an enormous, searchable catalogue of information about millions of books. It is still in beta, but already more than 23m books are in its system, drawing information from 19 major libraries and linking to the text of more than 1m out-of-copyright titles.

That is admirable work for just a handful of staff at the library, an arm of the non-profit Internet Archive (which itself has the vast objective of trying to keep a historical record of the web for future generations). But with information about books already being processed by hugely popular websites such as Google and Amazon, the question remains – why bother?

Excellent blog post on the impending changes in scientific publishing. Also look around his site for some other interesting material (Blog):

What I will do instead is draw your attention to a striking difference between today’s scientific publishing landscape, and the landscape of ten years ago. What’s new today is the flourishing of an ecosystem of startups that are experimenting with new ways of communicating research, some radically different to conventional journals. Consider Chemspider, the excellent online database of more than 20 million molecules, recently acquired by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Consider Mendeley, a platform for managing, filtering and searching scientific papers, with backing from some of the people involved in Last.fm and Skype. Or consider startups like SciVee (YouTube for scientists), the Public Library of Science, the Journal of Visualized Experiments, vibrant community sites like OpenWetWare and the Alzheimer Research Forum, and dozens more. And then there are companies like Wordpress, Friendfeed, and Wikimedia, that weren’t started with science in mind, but which are increasingly helping scientists communicate their research. This flourishing ecosystem is not too dissimilar from the sudden flourishing of online news services we saw over the period 2000 to 2005.

Elsevier is on the loosing end of a bid to keep their pricing confidential (LJ):

The episode has served as an opportunity for ARL to reiterate its position. "This case is a telling example of why we should not be signing these non-disclosure agreements," said Tom Leonard, ARL president and university librarian at the University of California, Berkeley. Elsevier, however, disagrees. Speaking about ARL's statement, Ruth said: "We think it’s in everyone’s interest to be able to keep some elements of these agreements confidential, so we have more flexibility to customize an agreement to the unique circumstances of the customer. That’s why we might ask for confidentiality or request that some information be redacted if agreements are released to the public."

Fireworks

DA Australia Acquire Languages Direct

From their press release:

DA Information Services (DA) today announced it has completed the acquisition of Languages Direct, the leading supplier of LOTE (Languages Other Than English) books and AV material to Libraries in Australasia. This acquisition will mean public, state and University libraries in Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia can now consolidate English Language and LOTE purchasing easily.

As both companies are conveniently headquartered in Melbourne, integration has already commenced to incorporate Languages Direct as a division of DA Information Services. Languages Direct will continue to have its own identity within DA.

Richard Siegersma, Executive Chairman of DA Information Services said, “DA is the most innovative library supplier in Australia for English language titles. Our innovative solutions will be applied to the LOTE product range as well. Initiatives like local Print on Demand and access to foreign language electronic books, means a broader and more comprehensive range of books will be available faster. DA’s sophisticated technology platform and scale will deliver economies of scale for libraries, through merging the purchasing and delivery of LOTE and English
language titles.”

Jacob Miceli, Managing Director of Languages Direct commented: “We are delighted to have concluded our agreement with DA Information Services. DA have impressed us with their commitment to advancing LOTE and their capacity to expand the services associated with the supply of LOTE material. This is a positive development for our customers as it will provide continuity and improved services for our customers, which we know DA can
clearly provide.” Languages Direct operations will be relocated to DA’s Mitcham premises by early July 2009. The Foreign Language Bookshop in Collins Street, Melbourne will be retained by the Miceli family

.

FiledBy Announces Pre-Pub Website Features

FiledBy announced some new enhancements this morning:

FiledBy (www.filedby.com) has added a new pre-publication website feature to its growing list of online marketing tools for authors. Writers publishing a new book now have a low cost, effective tool to pre-launch their book online.

The new feature allows both first time and published authors to quickly and inexpensively build a pre-publication web presence on FiledBy. “Bookselling experts agree that authors should start promoting a new book well before it arrives in bookselling channels to build interest, community and sales,” said Peter Clifton, FiledBy CEO and president. “FiledBy’s new website feature makes it easy for authors to get ahead of the marketing curve by setting up a comprehensive online marketing presence in advance of their book’s publication date.”

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Finding An Orphan

Based on my personal experience working with small and medium sized publishers, it will be prove very difficult for anyone reaching out to the 'Orphan' group to encourage them to participate in the Google Book Settlement process.

When I joined Bowker in 1999, we were still using the post office to mail our publisher check lists to over 55,000 small and independent publishers each year. These check-lists represented our primary communication with this group of publishers most of whom published less than 10 titles each (many only one). These publishers had one chance per year to correct any errors or change any prices to make sure that year’s edition of Books In Print had the most accurate information. This should have been sufficient motivation then for any publisher who understood that Ingram, Barnes & Noble, Borders and a raft of independent booksellers relied on BIP for their title research and buying. When we reviewed this process and analyzed the results that year – forms returned and changes made – the data showed us that less than 20% of this group bothered to return the document and of these less than 50% made any kind of change. Even with a degree of financial motivation, over 40,000 small and independent publishers couldn’t be bothered.

Certainly, you could argue this had to as much to do with the paper based process as it did their disinterest; however, several years later when we had fully implemented BowkerLink the small press group of publishers remained largely anonymous. By 2005, the publisher data base had grown from 65,000 in 1999 to approximately 85,000 and we counted approximately 45,000 publishers registered on BowkerLink. BowkerLink includes both US and international publishers and registrations were naturally skewed to active and newer publishers. In the transition, we aggressively mailed to every publisher encouraging them to register and manage their title listing online. We also proactively cleaned the publisher address file using the National Change of Address (NCoA) file which we had not been using prior to 1999. I think we eventually stopped mailing paper checklists in 2004. Still, the number of small and independent publishers who chose to participate only increased marginally even as Bowker made the title management process more inclusive.

Most of the Books In Print database reflects titles published after 1970 and most observers of the Google settlement expect that the large proportion of Orphan titles are going to be found in the pre-1970 grouping. If it has been challenging to engage the small and independent publishers post 1970 then the earlier group will be significantly harder. Whether the publicity around the Google Book Settlement proves more of a motivator than the options the post 1970 group often disdained such as listing their title(s) in bibliographic databases, asserting their ownership via the copyright office and/or selling their title on Amazon.com remains to be seen. I have my doubts. If the expectation of retail glory (however misguided) at Amazon.com hasn’t galvanized anyone with an ‘Orphan’ copyright then Google probably wont either.

I hope the lack of interest changes if real money is dispensed. The Authors Guild has stated that when you are collecting money for people and looking to disperse it recipients have a tendency to show up at your door. Around 2001, the AG started collecting the money due from rights and permissions for authors. (Previously this had been handled by CCC). Not only did they become proficient at collections but their membership and disbursements increased. All good things, but their membership is still less than 10,000. Not only do they not have a lot of undistributed revenue but they also haven’t seen a mammoth rise in members.

OUP on Google Book Settlement

Via Evan Schnittman.

There is a very long piece on the Google Settlement by OUP USA President Tim Barton in the Chronicle of Higher Education today.

..What once seemed at least debatable has now become irrefutable: If it's not online, it's invisible. While increasing numbers of long-out-of-date, public-domain books are now fully and freely available to anyone with a browser, the vast majority of the scholarship published in book form over the last 80 years is today largely overlooked by students, who limit their research to what can be discovered on the Internet.

For most books published in the last 10 years or so, the picture is more heartening: University libraries provide students and scholars with access to a fair number of those works via services purchased directly from publishers and aggregators. Excerpts can often be viewed online free (but only as much as is allowed by publishers, with an eye toward generating sales). And many titles are available as e-books. Nonetheless, the vast majority of the scholarship published since 1923 (the date before which titles are in the public domain in the United States) is now effectively out of reach to the modern student.

As one of the world's most prolific scholarly publishers, Oxford views as a core expression of its mission — and the responsibility of all scholarly publishers — the reactivation of publications long sidelined by the restrictions of a print-only existence....

MediaWeek (Vol 2, No 25): Chris Anderson, Readers Digest, Google Book Search,

Some of these were on noted Twitter (@personanondata). I find I am using delicious much less. Reader's Digest sold their library business to management (link):

Gareth Stevens Inc., the publisher of library and classroom books founded in Milwaukee, is being sold by Reader's Digest Association Inc. to Gareth Stevens' chief Gary Spears and a business partner.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Gareth Stevens Inc., now based in Strongsville, Ohio, is being sold to Gareth Stevens Publishing LLP, a new entity led by Spears and Roger Rosen, owner and CEO of Rosen Publishing of New York City, Reader's Digest said Thursday.

Rumors that Bertelsmann may get back into music publishing (Billboard):

U.S. private equity firm KKR and several banks are said to be ready to act as co-investors for a plan by Bertelsmann and its BMG Rights Management arm to acquire the master recordings archive of EMI Music in London (described as "one of several" targets in the report), though a representative for EMI says no deal is in the works.

Pearson invests in education businesses in the UK (NYT):

Pearson is buying half of the vocational training business of Educomp Solutions, a Delhi education company that creates software and training systems for 23,000 schools. Pearson is also buying a 17.2 percent stake in TutorVista, an online tutoring company that brings together Indian tutors and American students.

Comprehensive article in support of Google Book Settlement (BigMoney):

The meme of the Google book monopoly has been gathering force over the last months, after being given a push by Robert Darnton, the head of Harvard's library system. Darnton was originally one of the most prominent backers of Google's digitization initiative. But somewhere along the line, Darnton got cold feet. In February, he wrote an essay for the New York Review of Books in which he set out the case that thanks to Google Book Search, Google will enjoy "a monopoly of a new kind, not of railroads or steel but of access to information." Since Darnton's essay appeared, the anti-Google crusade has gathered steam, fed by Google-bashing advocacy groups like Consumer Watchdog, and the hue and cry has sparked a federal antitrust inquiry.

Chris Anderson makes an ass of himself (Edrants):

As the examples below will demonstrate, Anderson’s failure to paraphrase properly is plagiarism, according to the Indiana University Bloomington Writing Tutorial Services’s very helpful website. It is simply not enough for Anderson to cite the source. An honest and ethical author cannot, in good conscience, swipe whole sentences and paragraphs, change a few words, and call it his. Plagiarism is not an either-or proposition, although we leave the readers to decide whether the cat inside the box is dead or alive.

And some more on this from the Boston Globe

But the more important debate is going to be over the ideas in the book itself, over the future of free as a business model - and over Anderson’s contention that companies that want to survive will have to either figure out how to offer their wares for free or contend with competitors that do. “Free” is a business book, but the dynamics it describes are unsettling the social and cultural landscape, as well. For many people, music is now free, along with news, movies, video games, and the software to help with everyday tasks. In ways it was not before, it’s free today to look for jobs, apartments, friends, roommates, and even romance. For the time being at least, the forces of free are upsetting not only traditional business models, but long-held assumptions about what we have to pay for, and when and how. It’s a confusing time, and Anderson’s book offers a reassuring diagnosis and set of prescriptions.

After the Storm

Lightning and heavy rain pushed through last evening but as the sun set an orange glow reflected off the skyline and also produced some weird amoeba like cloud formations.

NY Times Announces Linked Data Initiative

A cool announcement from the NY Times yesterday:

Releasing the Times thesaurus is consistent with our TimesOpen strategy. We want to facilitate access to slices of our data for those who want to include Times content in their applications. Our TimesTags API already makes available our most frequently used tags, the 27,000 that power our topics pages. But the new effort will go well beyond that. We plan to release hundreds of thousands of tags from the corpus back to 1980, and later, in a second phase, hundreds of thousands more going back to 1851.

Here is some more material on the Linked data initiative.

And my post from earlier this month on a PWC report discussing Linked Data and the semantic web: PND