Category: Publishing

End of an Era: PC Magazine Drops Print

Ziff Davis will cease publishing PC Magazine in print form and focus instead on the PC Mag Digital Network and PCMAG.com. Print subscribers will receive PC Magazine Digital Edition.

PC Magazine is a pioneering mass market computer magazine, which began publication in 1982. See the retrospective "25 Years of PC Magazine," starting with "25 Years of PC Magazine: Year One 1982."

Read more about it at "PC Magazine Goes 100% Digital," "TechSpin: Goodbye to PC Mag," and "Ziff Davis To Close Print PCMag, Focus On Online; Still Looking For Options For Gaming Division."

A Guide for the Perplexed: Libraries & the Google Library Project Settlement

ARL and ALA have released A Guide for the Perplexed: Libraries & the Google Library Project Settlement.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The guide is designed to help the library community better understand the terms and conditions of the recent settlement agreement between Google, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers concerning Google’s scanning of copyrighted works. Band notes that the settlement is extremely complex and presents significant challenges and opportunities to libraries. The guide outlines and simplifies the settlement’s provisions, with special emphasis on the provisions that apply directly to libraries.

Concord Free Press: It Really Means Free

The Concord Free Press gives away its printed books for free, shipping included, but asks for a donation to a charity of the reader's choice. Initially, it will publish two books a year, with a print run of about 1,000 copies each. Selected independent bookstores carry its books.

Writers are unpaid, and the press relies on "on donations from our Advisory Board and supporters—and sales of our stylish t-shirts."

Georgia Harper on the Google-AAP/AG Copyright Settlement

In "The LJ Academic Newswire Newsmaker Interview: Georgia Harper," Harper, Scholarly Communications Advisor at the University Libraries of the University of Texas at Austin, discusses the Google-AAP/AG copyright settlement and the part that research libraries played in it. Also see her blog posting ("Google Book Search—and Buy").

Here's an excerpt:

Brewster Kahle has chastised public libraries for working with Google under a cloak of secrecy. Can libraries realistically refuse NDAs?

I think Kahle’s point, and others raise this point too, is more about the deleterious effects of secrecy on the negotiation process itself. Secrecy tends to be isolating. If you don’t consult with your colleagues at other institutions, your leverage may be diminished. Of course, a library could also hire a business and/or legal consultant to help, and bind the consultant to the NDA. Yes, Kahle has identified a very thorny problem, but it’s one we can ameliorate. I don’t think it’s workable simply not to do business with companies whose assets are ideas and information just because they feel compelled to protect them through secrecy. Either way, consultation does increase information, and information is power—in fact, the power of information is also the source of the [NDA] problem in the first place.

Google-AAP/AG Copyright Settlement: Vaidhyanathan Questions, Google Answers

On October 28th, Siva Vaidhyanathan posed some questions to Google about its copyright settlement with the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild ("My Initial Take on the Google-Publishers Settlement"). Now, Google has replied ("Some Initial Answers to My Initial Questions about Google Book Search and the Settlement").

"Defrosting the Digital Library: Bibliographic Tools for the Next Generation Web"

Duncan Hull, Steve R. Pettifer, and Douglas B. Kel have published "Defrosting the Digital Library: Bibliographic Tools for the Next Generation Web" in PLoS Computational Biology.

Here's the abstract:

Many scientists now manage the bulk of their bibliographic information electronically, thereby organizing their publications and citation material from digital libraries. However, a library has been described as 'thought in cold storage,' and unfortunately many digital libraries can be cold, impersonal, isolated, and inaccessible places. In this Review, we discuss the current chilly state of digital libraries for the computational biologist, including PubMed, IEEE Xplore, the ACM digital library, ISI Web of Knowledge, Scopus, Citeseer, arXiv, DBLP, and Google Scholar. We illustrate the current process of using these libraries with a typical workflow, and highlight problems with managing data and metadata using URIs. We then examine a range of new applications such as Zotero, Mendeley, Mekentosj Papers, MyNCBI, CiteULike, Connotea, and HubMed that exploit the Web to make these digital libraries more personal, sociable, integrated, and accessible places. We conclude with how these applications may begin to help achieve a digital defrost, and discuss some of the issues that will help or hinder this in terms of making libraries on the Web warmer places in the future, becoming resources that are considerably more useful to both humans and machines.

Podcast: Library Publishing Services: An Emerging Role for Research Libraries—An Interview with Karla Hahn

EDUCAUSE has made available a podcast recorded at the CNI 2008 Spring Task Force Meeting: "Library Publishing Services: An Emerging Role for Research Libraries—An Interview with Karla Hahn." Hahn is the Director of the Office of Scholarly Communication at the Association of Research Libraries.

Author's Rights, Tout de Suite

Author's Rights, Tout de Suite, the latest Digital Scholarship publication, is designed to give journal article authors a quick introduction to key aspects of author's rights and to foster further exploration of this topic through liberal use of relevant references to online documents and links to pertinent Web sites.

It is under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License, and it can be freely used for any noncommercial purpose, including derivative works, in accordance with the license.

The prior publication in the Tout de Suite series, Institutional Repositories, Tout de Suite, is also available.

Catherine Mitchell Named as Director, eScholarship Publishing Group at CDL

Catherine Mitchell, Acting Director of the eScholarship Publishing Group at the California Digital Library, has been named as the permanent occupant of that post. In this capacity, Mitchell is responsible for the eScholarship Repository, eScholarship Editions, the Mark Twain Project Online, and other ventures.

In her statement about the appointment, Laine Farley, CDL Interim Executive Director, said:

Catherine has held the position on an interim basis since November 2007. During that time, she has led the group to develop a new services-oriented vision and to launch an ambitious redesign of the eScholarship interface. She was also the project manager for the Mark Twain project which successfully launched last November. Catherine’s dedication, deep understanding of scholarly communication, publishing issues, and professionalism are admired by all of us who work with her.

Scholarly Publishing Practice, Third Survey 2008: Academic Journal Publishers' Policies and Practices in Online Publishing

ALPSP has released Scholarly Publishing Practice, Third Survey 2008: Academic Journal Publishers' Policies and Practices in Online Publishing. It is available for purchase by non-ALPSP members.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Key findings include:

  • Publishers—especially large publishers and commercial publishers are launching new journals at a higher rate than in 2005.
  • The growth trajectory of online availability has been steady since 2003. There is still some difference between the disciplines, with 96.1% of STM and 86.5% of arts, humanities and social science titles accessible online.
  • Pricing models are just as complex and varied as they were in 2005. Most publishers use a variety of means to establish prices. It is notable that fewer publishers are providing online access free with print and instead are offering online-only subscriptions.
  • Open access advocacy has clearly had an effect on publishers' thinking. The proportion of publishers offering optional open access to authors has grown from 9% in 2005 to 30% in 2008. However, the take-up of the author pays open access option is exceedingly low.
  • Licensing terms have become more generous, as publishers have become more comfortable with the use of digital content, including allowing use in Virtual Learning Environments and repurposing to create learning objects.
  • Publishers' practice on authors' rights is changing. Fewer publishers now require authors to transfer copyright to the publisher and will instead accept a licence to publish.
  • The growth of institutional and subject based repositories has prompted a rethink on authors' rights to post their articles on the web. Large publishers have relaxed prohibitions on posting pre-prints, but have imposed embargoes on the final accepted version.
  • Publishers are at different stages of development in their implementation of Web 2.0 technologies, with 20% enabling collaborative tagging and between 10% and 15% implementing forums, blogs and podcasts for a journal.

PEER Project to Examine Large-Scale "Green" Open Access Impacts

The PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research) project will examine "the effects of the large-scale, systematic depositing of authors' final peer-reviewed manuscripts . . . on reader access, author visibility, and journal viability, as well as on the broader ecology of European research." The project will conclude in 2011.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The aim of PEER is to build a substantial body of evidence, by developing an 'observatory' to monitor the effects of systematic archiving over time. Participating publishers will collectively contribute 300 journals to the project and supporting research studies will address issues such as:

  • How large-scale archiving will affect journal viability
  • Whether it increases access
  • How it will affect the broader ecology of European research
  • Which factors influence the readiness to deposit in institutional and disciplinary repositories and what the associated costs might be
  • Models to illustrate how traditional publishing systems can coexist with self-archiving

The International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM), the European Science Foundation, Gottingen State and University Library, the Max Planck Society and INRIA will collaborate on PEER, supported by the SURF Foundation and University of Bielefeld, which will contribute the expertise of the EU-funded DRIVER project.

Long-Term Preservation: Results from a Survey Investigating Preservation Strategies amongst ALPSP Publisher Members

The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers has released Long-Term Preservation: Results from a Survey Investigating Preservation Strategies amongst ALPSP Publisher Members.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

  • The majority of ALPSP publishers who responded to the survey believe long-term preservation to be a critical issue: 91% either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement "Long-term preservation is an issue which urgently needs to be addressed within the industry." 9% were neutral; no-one disagreed.
  • ALPSP publishers are strongly motivated to engage with preservation because of its critical importance to their customers, with over 90% of respondents citing this as a major motivating factor: a heartening response for those in the library community.
  • Although 68% of publishers reported understanding of preservation issues within their organisation to be either 'good' or 'reasonable', the survey also revealed a wide range of concerns suggesting an overall lack of confidence, at least for the present. The survey revealed a strong desire amongst almost all publishers for the development of 'best practice' and industry standards.
  • There is some confusion surrounding the nature and extent of publisher participation in long-term preservation schemes, with high numbers of respondents declaring their organisation to be participating in one or more initiatives and yet the schemes themselves reporting substantially lower numbers presently taking part.
  • Publisher views on who should take responsibility for long-term preservation also reveal some interesting contradictions: despite presently supporting a range of preservation schemes, a significant majority of publishers indicated they would in fact prefer other groups and institutions to take this responsibility on. National libraries in particular were a popular choice.
  • Finally, the survey revealed most publishers are clear about the distinction between ensuring long-term access and ensuring long-term preservation, with the majority believing they have clear responsibility for long-term access. A worryingly high number however admit to either not trusting their present strategy or not currently having any strategy to deliver here.

UM Scholarly Publishing Office Releases Economics and Usage of Digital Libraries: Byting the Bullet

The Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan Library has released an open access monograph, Economics and Usage of Digital Libraries: Byting the Bullet. It is edited by Wendy Pradt Lougee (University Librarian, University of Minnesota) and Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason (Arthur W. Burks Collegiate Professor of Information and Computer Science, School of Information, University of Michigan).

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

In the late 1990's, researchers and digital library production staff at the University of Michigan collaborated on deploying the Pricing Economic Access to Knowledge project (PEAK), a full-scale production-quality digital access system to enable usage of content from all of Elsevier's (then about 1200) scholarly journals, and at the same time to conduct a field experiment to answer various questions about the interplay between pricing models and usage. The experiment culminated in a lively conference that engaged scholars, library practioners and publishers. This volume captures some of the most interesting and provocative discussions to come out of that conference. PEAK was a ground-breaking effort in its day, and references to the project have continued over time. It raised important questions about the potential for highly functional journal content and new economic models of publishing. In today’s context of socially-enabled systems and open-access publishing, the motivating questions of PEAK remain relevant.

Reactions to AAA's Free Access after 35-Year Embargo Decision

In "Open Access or Faux Access?," Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed has rounded up some initial reactions to the American Anthropological Association's decision to provide free access to American Anthropologist and Anthropology News after a 35-year embargo period.

Perhaps stunned that the AAA, a well-known OA opponent, would make any move towards free access, two anthropologists on the Savage Minds blog seemed to feel that, on balance, this was a positive move forward. On the other hand, Patricia Kay Galloway of the University of Texas at Austin School of Information called the notion that this move constituted open access "just crap."

Read more about it at "AAA 'Goes OA': The Emphasis Should Be on 'First Step'" and "Open Access and 'Open Access'."

Springer Will Acquire BioMed Central Group, Major Open Access Publisher

Springer Science+Business Media will acquire the BioMed Central Group, a major open access publisher that publishes over 180 journals.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

BioMed Central was launched in May 2000 as an independent publishing house committed to providing free access to peer-reviewed research in the biological and medical sciences. . . .

BioMed Central’s flagship journals include Journal of Biology, BMC Biology, BMC Medicine, Malaria Journal, BMC Bioinformatics and Genome Biology. BioMed Central has revenues of approximately EUR 15 million per year. The company is based in London, with a second office in Liverpool, and has approximately 150 employees.

Derk Haank, CEO of Springer Science+Business Media said: "This acquisition reinforces the fact that we see open access publishing as a sustainable part of STM publishing, and not an ideological crusade. We have gained considerable positive experience since starting Springer Open Choice in 2004, and BioMed Central’s activities are complementary to what we are doing. Additionally, this acquisition strengthens Springer’s position in the life sciences and biomedicine, and will allow us to offer societies a greater range of publishing options."

Matthew Cockerill, Publisher of BioMed Central said: "We are very excited about this new phase of BioMed Central's growth and development. Springer has been notable among the major STM publishers for its willingness to experiment with open access publishing. BioMed Central has demonstrated that the open access business model can work, and we look forward to continued rapid growth as part of Springer. The support of our authors, journal editors and institutional customers has been vital to BioMed Central's success and we will continue to focus on offering the best possible service to these groups."

Peter Suber has commented on the potential implications of the sale for the open access movement.

American Anthropologist and Anthropology News Freely Available after 35-Year Embargo Period

The Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association has announced that access to American Anthropologist and Anthropology News will be free for "personal, educational and other non-commercial uses after a thirty-five year period."

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Starting in 2009, content published from 1888 to 1973, will be available through AnthroSource, the premier online resource serving the research, teaching, and professional needs of anthropologists. Previously, this information was only available via AAA association membership, subscription or on a so-called "pay per view" basis. . . .

The initiative, which will be re-evaluated by internal AAA committees in the next year (the Committee on Scientific Publication as advised by the Committee for the Future of Electronic Publishing), may be expanded in the future.

Academic Publishing Developments: Bloomsbury Academic and AAUP's Tizra Deal

In "2 New Digital Models Promise Academic Publishing for Profit," Chronicle of Higher Education reporter Jennifer Howard overviews two interesting developments in academic publishing: (1) the new Bloomsbury Academic imprint, which offers free access to books in PDF form under Creative Commons licenses (as well as print-on-demand versions), and (2) the Association of American University Presses' deal to give its members lower-cost access to Tizra's Publisher, a publishing e-commerce platform.

National Institutes of Health Director Resigns

The National Institutes of Health has announced the resignation of its Director, Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., from that post effective at the end of October 2008. Zerhouni has been a strong open access advocate (Peter Suber has commented on the potential effect of his resignation on the NIH Public Access Policy.)

For further information, see "Federal Health Official to Step Down," "National Institutes of Health Director Zerhouni Stepping Down," and "NIH Director Departs."

RoMEO List of Publishers Who Allow Their PDFs to Be Deposited in Institutional Repositories

SHERPA's RoMEO service has made available "Publishers Allowing the Deposition of Their Published Version/PDF in Institutional Repositories."

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

SHERPA has analysed its records to determine which of the 414 publishers listed allow authors to deposit the publishers' version or publishers' PDF of a journal article into the author's institutional repository. 50 publishers allow immediate, un-embargoed deposit into repositories—even more allow use in restricted circumstances. This means that there is a large volume of work which can be deposited directly into repositories even if the author has not retained their own final draft. . . .

We have separated the publishers into sub-sets, indicating any restrictions that are imposed by the publishers on the use of their versions. The sub-sets are: no restrictions, embargos, fee required and embargo & fee required.

Hindawi Launches Open Access Institutional Membership Program

Hindawi Publishing Corporation, which publishes more than 125 open access journals, has launched an Open Access Institutional Membership program that allows institutions to subsidize Hindawi's article processing charges for their authors.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Hindawi's membership program is based on a flat rate payment that covers all accepted articles that are submitted by an author from a member institute during the period of the membership. The cost of the membership depends on the level of research output of the institute and their historical publishing pattern in Hindawi journals. . . .

In addition to the 125+ open access journals that Hindawi currently publishes, this membership will include any journal that is added to Hindawi's collection during the term of the membership.

University of Tennessee Libraries' "Newfound Press Business Plan, 2008-2011"

The University of Tennessee Libraries' "Newfound Press Business Plan, 2008-2011" is available.

Here's an excerpt:

The University of Tennessee Libraries launched its digital imprint, Newfound Press (www.newfoundpress.utk.edu), in 2005 to develop a framework for making peer-reviewed scholarly and specialized works available worldwide. Building on local digitization investments, Newfound Press has published two monographs, with two more in production and a third in the referee process. The Press currently hosts one born-digital journal and is considering a proposal for a second. To experiment with digital multimedia publication, the Press has compiled text, recordings, and ephemera from two scholarly conferences for public access. Through Newfound Press, the University of Tennessee demonstrates an open access publishing model that explores issues such as creating a process for peer review “on the fly,” exploring new channels for the discovery of research results, and establishing credibility as a viable scholarly publications venue.

Mellon Foundation's 2007 Scholarly Publishing Initiatives

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has released its 2007 annual report, and the "Scholarly Publishing Initiatives" section by Donald J. Waters and Joseph S. Meisel is of particular interest. The complete report is available as a PDF file.

Read more about it at "Mellon Foundation Assesses the State of Scholarly Publishing" (Chronicle of Higher Education subscribers only).

E Ink to Hit the Newsstand: Esquire Will Use It for Magazine Cover

The October issue of Esquire will have an E Ink cover powered by a small battery.

Here's an excerpt from the press release.

Esquire, one of America’s iconic magazines, is turning 75 this year. As part of the celebration of this milestone, the October issue will be the first magazine ever to embed a revolutionary digital technology—electronic paper—into a mass-produced print product.

In partnership with the all-new Ford Flex Crossover and in collaboration with E Ink Corporation, the world's leading supplier of electronic paper display (EPD) technologies, Esquire’s groundbreaking cover will make a profound statement about how the print medium can expand its capabilities while continuing to exploit its own unique strengths. Ford will prominently feature its highly-anticipated Ford Flex on the inside cover, utilizing the same E Ink VizplexTM flexible display technology, in a double-page advertisement.

"This cover is both a breakthrough for magazines and an expression of the theme of our anniversary issue," said David Granger, editor-in-chief, Esquire. "We’ve spent 16 months making this happen as one of the ways we’re demonstrating that the 21st century begins this fall. The entire issue is devoted to exploring the ideas, people and issues that will be the foundation of the 21st century. . . ."

Esquire will distribute 100,000 issues with the special cover on newsstands. They will be available at Borders, Barnes & Noble and select newsstand vendors.

Read more about it at "News Flash From the Cover of Esquire: Paper Magazines Can Be High Tech, Too."