Metadata Webinar April 1st (Today)

From ALA TechSource Webinar: Directions in Metadata with Karen Coyle

Bibliographic data is in the midst of a major transition. With the emergence of the Semantic Web, the very purpose of this data is evolving from an entity meant for interpretation by humans to one meant for interpretation by machines.

Karen Coyle, digital library consultant and bibliographic data expert, will discuss the future of Metadata and its role in bibliographic data and the semantic web. With major transformations in the use and structure of data already occurring, Karen will discuss what these changes mean for libraries, and what librarians can do to prepare, adapt, and take advantage of new possibilities that emerge.

Topics will include:

• Defining metadata
• Bibliographic data and the semantic web
• Future directions of library data

Attendees will be given the opportunity to participate through Q and A and discussion.

Please join us on Thursday, April 1st at 3pm Central (4pm Eastern, 1pm Pacific) for this exciting event!

Register Here: Meeting

Free Your eBooks: See Sales Increase?

A just released study that looks at the relationship between free digital books and print sales has been published in the Journal of Academic Publishing and suggests some positive implications:

A growing number of authors and publishers freely distribute their books electronically to increase the visibility of their work. These books, for both academic and general audiences, cover a wide variety of genres, including technology, law, fantasy, and science fiction. Some authors claim that free digital distribution has increased the impact of their work and their reputations as authors. [1] But beyond increased exposure, a vital question for those with a commercial stake in selling books is, “What happens to book sales if digital versions are given away?”

One answer may come from the National Academies Press (NAP), which makes the text of all of its publications freely accessible. “Consequently,” reported Michael Jensen, Director of Publishing Technologies at NAP, “we are very well indexed by search engines.” [2] Jensen wrote that as a result of this indexing they receive many visitors, a small percentage of whom purchase books. Jensen reported that NAP’s 1997 publication “Toxicologic Assessment of the Army’s Zinc Cadmium Sulfide Dispersion Tests” had 11,500 online visitors in 2006. Those visitors “browsed approximately four book pages each. Of those, four bought a print book at $45, and two bought the PDF at $37.50. So 0.05% of the visitors to that particular book purchased it, even though they could read every page free online.” [3] Thus, a nine-year-old out-of-print publication that otherwise would likely have been inaccessible was viewed 11,000 times and purchased six times.
...

The present study indicates that there is a moderate correlation between free digital books being made permanently available and short-term print sales increases. However, free digital books did not always equal increased sales. This result may be surprising, both to those who claim that when a free version is available fewer people will pay to purchase copies, as well as those who claim that free access will not harm sales. The results of the present study must be viewed with caution. Although the authors believe that free digital book distribution tends to increase print sales, this is not a universal law. The results we found cannot necessarily be generalized to other books, nor be construed to suggest causation. The timing of a free e-book’s release, the promotion it received and other factors cannot be fully accounted for. Nevertheless, we believe that this data indicates that when free e-books are offered for a relatively long period of time, without requiring registration, print sales will increase.

MediaWeek (Vol 3, No 13): ISTC, Libraries and eBooks,Twain, Byron, Academic Libraries, EBSCO

BISG has a seminar on Tuesday (3/30) to discuss the International Standard Text Code (ISTC) and as a prelude they have published a discussion document (BISG):

The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) and Book Industry Communication (BIC) today co-published for public comment a discussion paper on the International Standard Text Code (ISTC) intended to foster understanding of the unique book identifier and provide clarification as to its potential benefits. The paper, entitled The International Standard Text Code: A Work in Progress, is the first in a new series of BISG discussion papers that will be published online for real-time reader review and comment. "We've commissioned this paper to encourage our members to take a long hard look at the opportunities ISTC can offer the book industry," commented Peter Kilborn, Executive Director of BIC. "Their active support is essential if the standard is to achieve the critical mass it needs to deliver real benefit, especially as digital formats proliferate in the future." The ISTC has been called one of most important identifiers since ISBN. The ISO standard, published in 2009, identifies an underlying textual "work" independently of a specific manifestation. It provides a much needed mechanism for identifying an original text that may be available in many seemingly different published versions with different ISBNs. By doing so, it has the potential to provide better, more targeted online search and discoverability. However, like ISBN, ISTC's path to adoption has not been a straight one. Misunderstandings--even controversy--with regard to its implementation and its efficacy in solving key book industry problems abound. The new BISG/BIC discussion paper is designed to look beyond the official documentation of the International ISTC Agency at the real opportunities available to publishers, retailers, rights and collection agencies, bibliographic aggregators and systems providers to derive benefit from early implementation of the standard.

The Bookseller (UK) reports on UK publisher concerns over libraries future lending practices with respect to e-Books. Does this presage issues in the US? (Bookseller):

The Library Modernisation Review, published this week by culture minister Margaret Hodge, said the government would make an “affirmative order preventing libraries from charging for e-books lending of any sort, including remotely”. Tim Godfray, chief executive of the BA, said he had “concerns” over the issue, with the BA council meeting yesterday [Thursday] to discuss the matter. In a submission sent to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on 25th January, the BA said it was “worried about the loaning of e-books in the library market”. The submission also said there was “undeniable tension” between the library world and authors, publishers and booksellers. It stated: “The former want to give as much information to their ‘customers’ for free; the latter to make a living by creating, producing and selling copyrighted material.”

Mark Twain's autobiography is in preparation and will include revelations about his relationship with his assistant Isabel Lyon (Times):

Clara convinced Twain, perhaps unfairly, that Lyon had stolen $2,000 when she supervised the building of his last home in Connecticut. Twain sacked Lyon and repossessed a farmhouse he had given her as a Christmas present. He then showed her the 429-page dossier and threatened to release it if she ever tried to extort money from him or his family. It was a brutal finale to a close relationship that had brought much happiness to one of America’s most popular and highly paid writers. In 1904 Twain, then 68, employed Lyon, a socialite who had fallen on hard times, as his secretary and a companion to Clara. Twain and Lyon became close: the widower described her as “slender, comely, 38- year-old by the almanac and 17 in carriage and dress”.

A newly rediscovered memoir by one of Lord Byron's lovers suggests he was really a monster (Observer):

Written by one of the women closest to them, it contradicts historical accounts and demolishes their moral reputations. Penned when she was an embittered old woman, it reveals for the first time her accusation of both poets ruining lives, including her own, in their pursuit of "free love" and "evil passion". Historians yesterday hailed it as an extraordinary discovery. Daisy Hay was researching her first book in a New York public library when she found the manuscript – a fragment of a memoir by Claire Clairmont (1798-1879), Mary Shelley's pretty step-sister, who was made pregnant and dumped by Byron in her teens, and whose contemporaries gossiped that she had also had a child by Shelley. Historians have striven repeatedly to understand the bizarre relationship between Clairmont and the Shelleys – she went with them when they eloped, and lived with them throughout most of their marriage. There was also the entanglement with Byron, who virtually abandoned their illegitimate daughter, Allegra, sending her to a convent, where she died aged five.

From the twitter (@personanondata) Outsell/Springer Report on Special Libraries Offers Academic Parallels (LJ)

Perception crucial Aside from linking library value to grant income, another crucial component of demonstrating value is addressing the perception of library services, especially among decision makers. This is important in both academic and corporate settings. Here, the Springer/Outsell report's conclusion that "information managers must not allow the value of the library to be underestimated" stands as a more universal maxim: Libraries provide services and support not just in the breadth and quality of the information provided, but also in terms of staff skill-sets. Embedding the library function into the workflow of users as much as possible will further cement their position.

OCLC looks at future risks to the academic library and concludes (OCLC):

This is heartening but likely to be inadequate. Most institutions continue to direct resources in traditional ways towards operations that are marginal to institutional and national research priorities, towards processes and services that are ignored or undervalued by their clients and towards staff activities that are driven more by legacy professional concerns than user needs. To properly respond to the risks identified here, research libraries need to come together around an action agenda aimed at improvement of the research enterprise they serve. Incremental revision of traditional operational models will only hasten the movement of important new research services to other entities within the academy, leaving the library with only the vestigial values of its book-determined legacy. It will look the same but everything will have changed.

Information Today's Barbara Quint discussed the NetLibrary to Ebsco deal (IT):

The NetLibrary acquisition will ultimately allow EBSCO customers to search their NetLibrary ebooks on EBSCOhost. EBSCO will begin work immediately to integrate NetLibrary ebooks into the EBSCOhost platform while also maintaining and making improvements to the NetLibrary platform. The purchase included e-audiobooks and the NetLibrary staff and operations located in Boulder, Colo. EBSCO plans to continue the subscriptions using the NetLibrary platform. Tim Collins, president of EBSCO Publishing, stated, "We plan to invest in the current platform with scheduled enhancements. We're working with the Boulder team to integrate it so users can search NetLibrary along with EBSCOhost databases and EBSCO Discovery Services. We plan to grow the business." To protect library investments in NetLibrary ebooks, OCLC will place all NetLibrary ebooks purchased by libraries in a dark archive-the OCLC ebook archive-at least through March 2013. EBSCO will provide OCLC MARC records for applicable ebooks to libraries free of charge and will ensure continued visibility of these important collections in WorldCat.org. EBSCO plans to maintain the popular ebook content purchase model and will explore ebook subscription options. Thousands of libraries also subscribe to Recorded Books eAudiobooks on the NetLibrary platform. This service will continue as EBSCO and Recorded Books will partner to provide access and new eAudiobook content on the NetLibrary platform. Moving into ebooks marks an expansion of EBSCO's scope. "Our customers have been encouraging us to enter the eBook business as their users want to search eBooks on the same platform they are using to search leading full-text databases," said Collins. As to EBSCO's future plans for ebooks in general, Collins said, "We are already talking to publishers about new formats like epub and Onix for metadata. If publishers want material processed in those formats and it can benefit customers, I do see us going that way. At this point we're agreeing to explore it. As to e-readers, it's probably too early to be looking at different devices. One of the first things we're going to do is work with focus groups of librarians and ask what they want to see us do in general for interface features. We're trying to approach this methodically and avoid the temptation to make decisions quickly. It's early days yet, but we're committed to serving libraries."

Even without Rooney, the team played well. Still top.

BookExpo 1999 - Repost

This was 'posted' in my final week at PriceWaterhouse before I took up my new role at Bowker. I had been collecting and commenting on news items and circulating a news digest via email on the industry for our Entertainment, Media and Communications practice for the prior two years and this 'post' is from my attendance at BookExpo 1999 (Los Angeles). It was posted 5/22/99. (All of my digests from those years are in my archive on the lower right of the PND blog page).


At the BookExpo show in Los Angeles, the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) reported that last years trade sales declined for the first time in seven years. This information was in contrast to the popularly held belief that internet or online sales had expanded the market for books generally and further the report indicated that affluent educated readers are buying fewer titles. In the day prior to this announcement, I asked Peter Olson CEO of Randon House (who was participating in a panel discussion) that if the market share of online booksellers was to grow to 20-25% of the market by 2003 as is predicted by BCG and Jupiter Communications where he thought this additional share was going to come from. He responded by saying that he believed online sales were incremental to existing book sales and therefore there would occur limited shift from other traditional outlets. The BISG reported that online selling accounted for 2% of total sales last year and as has been the case over the past five years independent book store sales declined and chain stores saw their share of the market increase.

During the same panel discussion, Michael Lynton – CEO of Penguin Group commented that the current price model for online book selling would almost certainly change and that the biggest risk would be the negative gross margin model. “If someone were to take all front list titles and sell them at a loss this would radically change the model for selling publishing product online.” Such companies sell ‘below the line’ products such as credit cards, services and advertising as sources of income. Priceline.com is the most recent example of a model that didn’t really exist on the web six months ago.

While at the show I also had a conversation with Mike Lovett who is the CEO/President of the Ingram Distribution Company. We spoke about the proposed purchase by Barnes and Noble of the company and he is convinced that the merger will go ahead. “They have interviewed – which is a polite way of saying deposed – many, many B&N and Ingram people over the past six months as well as others in the industry” he commented and that the Justice department he believed were ‘trying their best to understand the publishing industry.’ At this point he thinks that the original issues with the merger have been answered and that there may be some request to reduce operations in certain areas but for them it wouldn’t be a big deal. I would think that the transcripts from this review would be interesting reading for anyone interested in this industry.

At the BookExpo show, a company named On Demand Machine Corp displayed a book printing system that can print and bind a standard trade paper back in a machine which measures eight feet by four feet. This machine is designed to fit in a bookstore and can both store electronic titles in its memory and call up additional titles from the company head office via satellite. Customers can order the books, confirm the title is the one they want and purchase using a credit card. The transaction takes a little more than five minutes. The first full implementation is scheduled to take place in June at The Tattered Cover in Denver. My guess is you will see similar machines at Kinkos, Airports and other public places in the not too distant future.

Other interesting comments from panel discussions at BookExpo:
The traditional book distribution channel poses too many problems for some publishers particularly those which are smaller. The difficulty they face is not the risk people will copy their books rather that customers couldn’t find them in the first place. Placing content on the web actually increased sales of the printed product by 30%. National Academic Press and Rough Guides are examples of this. Additionally, McGraw Hill’s Beta Books have been so successful on line (while still generating bookstore sales) that the company is expanding the availability on the internet of non technical titles as well.

Many people commented that the highest risk job in publishing is ‘International Rights Manager.’

Xerox has developed a product that allows the production of a book anywhere in the world via web ordering. There will be literally 100,000’s of titles which were previously ‘out of print’ available via print on demand to individuals over the next five years. Additionally, what are now considered ‘non viable’ titles by publishers will also be made available as publishers make publishing investments without the huge investment in large volume printing. Coupled with this, some projections assume that front list sales will decline as a percentage of total sales as back list sales increase.

Link Bait

Someone announced to me the other day that publishers need to control the links in and out of their content. The notion being that a publisher shouldn’t allow another entity – say a retailer for example – to insert their own links and references into content produced by a publisher. This is half right: Enabling third parties to link and build applications using your content could become an important aspect of consumer engagement but today that idea – enabling linking and supplying APIs – might give publishers pause. It doesn’t mean however that the concept is completely wrong for publishers and with experimentation and testing third party access to publisher content is likely to develop over time.

Print books are seen as a ‘unit’ but in the eBook world the ‘unit’ can be atomized and through this process all sorts of opportunities for the publisher to provide additional value and commercial opportunities may develop. For example, publishers can provide reference links that expand on some element of the text like an encyclopedia entry or mapping that shows geographic or topographic details, images or archive video on an historical event. Much of this is the stuff of basic blogging but should now be considered by publishers as key components of their eBook product offerings.

Commercial applications will enable up and cross selling. For publishers, this ability to manage how the consumer navigates within the eBook content could be critical to building consumer loyalty, engaging with the consumer and adding incremental revenues. If a consumer is reading a book about President Lincoln it is (almost) obvious that up selling that consumer to a paid ‘invitation only’ discussion with the author could be commercially viable. This is also true of cross-selling that consumer on books published by the same author and about revolutionary history. Commercial applications could also include advertising – consider a trade title on home repair where advertising is matched to topic. In the case of advertising, many publishers have reservations over effectiveness, but this is a legacy of the print world where the ad was static and often became irrelevant over time.

Key to enabling some of this in/out linking could be the digital object identifier (DOI). (A DOI remains ‘persistent’ but a DOI can ‘resolve’ to different online locations over time). CrossRef, the organization that – in part – supports journal publishers with DOI resolution, has been assigning more and more DOI’s to books and publishers should be thinking about using DOI’s to up and cross sell enhanced consumer engagement. Publishers will be thinking less about the book as a single ‘unit’ and more about their unique ability to add and enable universal (but appropriate) linking that raises their engagement with consumers. After all, wouldn’t a publisher rather control this than Amazon?

MediaWeek (Vol 3, No 12): The Economist on Data, Children's Publishing, Marvel, Librarians, Holmes.

In their Feb 27th issue, The Economist takes a look at Data in an article titled Data, data everywhere and it is well worth a read. I won't paste in too much since it is an 18page insert however here are some nuggets (The Economist): In the article A Different Game: Information is Transforming Business

• Best buy a retailer, found that 7% of its customers accounted for 43% of its sales, so it reorganized its stores to concentrate on those customers needs
• Cablecom a Swiss telecoms operator. It has reduced customer defections from 1/5th of its subscribers a year to under 5%
• By examining more than 2m transaction records the RSA (Royal Shakespeare Company), discovered a lot more about its best customers: not just income, but things like occupation and family status, which allowed it to target its marketing more precisely.
• Nestle found improving the quality of its data to be as important as the analysis: For just one ingredient, vanilla, the company was able to reduce the number of specifications and use fewer suppliers saving $30mm per year.
• Most CIO's admit their data are of poor quality: In a study by IBM half the managers quizzed did not trust the information on which they had to base decisions
• Companies are increasingly moving to analyzing real time information flows
• Wal-Mart's RetailLink, enables suppliers to see the exact number of their products on every shelf of every store at that precise moment
• New tools make working with data sets easier: Visa, in a recent trial with Hadoop crunched two years of test records, or 73bil transactions amounting to 36 terabytes of data. The processing time fell from one month with traditional methods to 13mins

There are many other interesting points I noted as I read the section but I'll leave with this one for all you data geeks: In a short article titled Needle in a haystack,

• Metadata are a potentially lucrative business. "If you can control the pathways and means of finding information, you can extract rents from subsequent levels or producers."

That's why when I was at Bowker we moved the business in the direction of data analysis and there's still more to be done there. A future of Children's publishing (WaPo):

That may be good for the bottom line at children's publishing houses, but entertaining the kids with the printed page seems to grow more difficult by the year. Children's appetite for cell phones, computers, video games and television far exceeds that for books. In January, a Kaiser Family Foundation report found that the time spent on all entertainment by kids from 8 to 18 rose from 6.5 hours a day five years ago to 7.5 hours a day. But only 25 minutes were typically spent reading a book. The Department of Education found that in 1984 only 8 percent of 13-year-olds and 9 percent of 17-year-olds reported that they "never or hardly ever" read for fun on their own. By 2008, the percentage had jumped to 24 percent for both groups. "The budget of most video games rivals that of Hollywood blockbusters," said Kinney, who worked on the "Wimpy Kid" movie that opened over the weekend. "The kid gets to be the star of the story, and it's really tough to compete with that." Yet several publishers are making the attempt. Scholastic launched a 10-book international mystery series called "The 39 Clues" in the fall of 2008. Scholastic hopes it will appeal to 8-12 year olds, an age group they have successfully captured in the past with titles such as "Goosebumps," "The Babysitters Club" and, of course, "Harry Potter." Much of the action takes place online, however, where kids amass hundreds of collectible cards and compete for prizes. According to Scholastic, they have 760,000 registered users.

What of Hollywood Reporter and Variety? Insiders are baffled by their business strategy and wonder whether they will survive (LABusiness):

In a cost-cutting announcement that shocked insiders earlier this month, Variety said it had laid off its chief film critic and chief theater critic. “The decision to fire Todd McCarthy and David Rooney is a profoundly significant move for a paper like Variety, considering that reviews were such a core function of what they did,” said Sharon Waxman, a former New York Times reporter who runs TheWrap. “It’s almost bewildering in a way that they would do this.”“History may record the dismissals as a seminal moment,” said Hollywood publicist Michael Levine of Levine Communications. However, he believes Peter Bart’s decision to step aside as Variety’s editor in chief a year ago was more important. “Many people working at the Hollywood trade papers are as anxious as a hemophiliac in a razor blade factory,” Levine said ... At the same time, Hollywood Reporter has been plagued by rumors that it would kill its print edition and go Web only. In December, the paper, along with seven other sister publications, was sold by Nielsen Business Media to e5 Global Media LLC, a company chaired by New York media figure Jimmy Finkelstein, for an estimated $70 million.

A librarian speaks: In OP Ed in the LA Times a librarian laments that without people like her - now, pink-slipped - students won't know what they don't know (LA Times):

As a librarian in the Pasadena Unified School District, I teach students research skills. But I've just been pink-slipped, along with five other middle school and high school librarians, and only a parcel tax on the city's May ballot can save the district's libraries. Closing libraries is always a bad idea, but for the Google generation, it could be disastrous. In a time when information literacy is increasingly crucial to life and work, not teaching kids how to search for information is like sending them out into the world without knowing how to read. ... Instead of laying off librarians, we should be studying how children think about information and technology. We need professionals to advocate for teaching information literacy from an early age. We need librarians to love books -- to inspire kids to turn off the screen sometimes and get caught up in a story -- but we also need them to train students to manipulate search engines and databases, to think about them in a fresh way. Instead of closing library doors, we need to give librarians the time to teach what they know: basic research survival skills that are as important as reading, writing and math. If we don't teach our kids to take charge of information, they will get swept aside by it. Sara Scribner is a librarian at Blair International Baccalaureate School, a public middle and high school in Pasadena.

On the back of the Marvel comics acquisition by Disney, the comic book industry is bracing for a copyright battle with possible wider implications that focus's on whether work done by one of Marvels finer creative artists was 'work for hire' or not. (NYTimes):

The dispute is also emblematic of a much larger conflict between intellectual property lawyers and media companies that, in Mr. Toberoff’s view, have made themselves vulnerable by building franchises atop old creations. So-called branded entertainment — anything based on superheroes, comic strips, TV cartoons or classic toys — may be easier to sell to audiences, but the intellectual property may also ultimately belong in full or in part to others. “Any young lawyer starting out today could turn what he’s doing into a real profit center,” Paul Goldstein, who teaches intellectual-property law at Stanford’s law school, said of Mr. Toberoff’s specialty. Mr. Goldstein said cases like the one involving Marvel are only the tip of an iceberg. A new wave of copyright termination actions is expected to affect the film, music and book industries as more works reach the 56-year threshold for ending older copyrights, or a shorter period for those created under a law that took effect in 1978. Mr. Toberoff is tackling what could be one of the most significant rights cases in Hollywood history; it’s certainly the biggest involving a superhero franchise. Unlike his continuing fight with Warner Brothers over Superman, Mr. Toberoff’s rights-reclamation effort against Marvel involves dozens of stories and characters from about 240 comic books. Complicating matters are licensing agreements Marvel has made over the years with rival studios for characters Mr. Kirby helped to create. Sony holds long-term movie rights to Spider-Man; 20th Century Fox has the equivalent for the X-Men and Fantastic Four. Universal Studios holds theme park rights to Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk. And more films stemming from Mr. Kirby’s work are coming: Marvel is spending hundreds of millions to bring Thor and the Avengers to theaters. If the Kirbys succeed in their reclamation effort — and that’s still an enormous if — they would be entitled to a share of profits from new works based on any of the copyrighted material.

Taking Sherlock Holmes and Watson into the 21st century (Observer):

A bored Holmes once complained to Watson that "life is commonplace; the papers are sterile; audacity and romance seem to have passed forever from the criminal world". Gatiss has set out to prove that this is not the case in 2010. A lifelong devotee of Conan Doyle's original stories, published in the Strand Magazine from 1891, Gatiss said they provided him with an escape from a dreary childhood in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham.

An interview with Sam Shepard (Observer):

Sam Shepard opens up With a new collection of short stories to his name and two of his plays currently showing in New York, the notoriously private Pulitzer prize-winner discusses masculinity, his battle with drink and his 'tumultuous' relationship with Jessica Lange

From the twitter (@personanondata) Sara Paretsky: Interview - Telegraph "Sara Paretsky tells Jake Kerridge about her headstrong heroine, VI Warshawski" Telegraph From the best travel show on tv (@noreservations) Anthony Bourdain is back with sequel to follow Kitchen Confidential The Bookseller Jacket Copy (LATimes) Publishing lessons from SXSW Interactive: A publisher refects on "SXSWi" LA Times Focusing on WorldCat, OCLC Sells NetLibrary to EBSCO, Thins FirstSearch - 3/17/2010 - Library Journal BBC News - JD Salinger letters shine light on a recluse. On display at the Morgan Library. Chelsea stutter and MU remain rightfully at the top and I ran a decent half marathon with reasonable room for improvement.

Texas Board of Education Censors History

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Texas Dentist sends education back to the Dark Ages. NYTimes