Category: Publishing

“How to Improve the Google Book Search Settlement”

James Grimmelmann, Associate Professor at New York Law School, has made available "How to Improve the Google Book Search Settlement" in the Berkeley Electronic Press' Selected Works.

Here's the abstract:

The proposed settlement in the Google Book Search case should be approved with strings attached. The project will be immensely good for society, and the proposed deal is a fair one for Google, for authors, and for publishers. The public interest demands, however, that the settlement be modified first. It creates two new entities—the Books Rights Registry Leviathan and the Google Book Search Behemoth—with dangerously concentrated power over the publishing industry. Left unchecked, they could trample on consumers in any number of ways. We the public have a right to demand that those entities be subject to healthy, pro-competitive oversight, and so we should.

Economic Implications of Alternative Scholarly Publishing Models: Exploring the Costs and Benefits

JISC has released Economic Implications of Alternative Scholarly Publishing Models: Exploring the Costs and Benefits.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Sharing research information via a more open access publishing model would bring millions of pounds worth of savings to the higher education sector as well as benefiting UK plc. This is one of the key findings from a new research project commissioned by JISC.

Professor John Houghton from the Centre of Strategic Economic Studies at Melbourne’s Victoria University and Professor Charles Oppenheim at Loughborough University were asked to lead research that would throw light on the economic and social implications of new models for scholarly publishing.

The research centred on three models which include:

  • Subscription or toll access publishing which involves reader charges and use restrictions;
  • Open access publishing where access is free and publication is funded from the authors’ side; and
  • Open access self-archiving where academic authors post their work in online repositories, making it freely available to all Internet users.

In their report, Houghton et al. looked beyond the actual costs and savings of different models and examined the additional cost-benefits that might arise from enhanced access to research findings.

The research and findings reveal that core scholarly publishing system activities cost the UK higher education sector around £5 billion in 2007. Using the different models, the report shows, what the estimated cost would have been:

  • £230 million to publish using the subscription model,
  • £150 million to publish under the open access model and
  • £110 million to publish with the self-archiving with peer review services plus some £20 million in operating costs if using the different models.

When considering costs per journal article, Houghton et al. believe that the UK higher education sector could have saved around £80 million a year by shifting from toll access to open access publishing. They also claim that £115 million could be saved by moving from toll access to open access self-archiving.

In addition to that, the financial return to UK plc from greater accessibility to research might result in an additional £172 million per annum worth of benefits from government and higher education sector research alone.

NetLibrary to Offer Five E-Book Collections for Sony’s Reader Digital Book

OCLC's NetLibrary will offer five Sony Reader Mobile Collections for Sony’s Reader Digital Book.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The program includes a Reader model PRS-505, a collection of titles from leading publishers and all required licenses. Using the library’s PC, librarians can download a mobile collection title or titles from the NetLibrary site to the Reader as necessary.

Libraries that purchase Mobile Collections will be able to offer their patrons the ability to check out Readers for onsite or offsite use, depending on the policy established by each library. Collections, selected by NetLibrary’s collections librarian, include Career Development and Business Self Help (30 titles), Management and Leadership (22 titles), Popular Fiction (29 titles), Romance (19 titles) and Young Adult Fiction (24 titles).

"Google & the Future of Books"

Robert Darnton, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor at Harvard University, has published "Google & the Future of Books" in the The New York Review of Books.

Here's an excerpt:

As an unintended consequence [of the Google Book Settlement], Google will enjoy what can only be called a monopoly—a monopoly of a new kind, not of railroads or steel but of access to information. Google has no serious competitors. Microsoft dropped its major program to digitize books several months ago, and other enterprises like the Open Knowledge Commons (formerly the Open Content Alliance) and the Internet Archive are minute and ineffective in comparison with Google. Google alone has the wealth to digitize on a massive scale. And having settled with the authors and publishers, it can exploit its financial power from within a protective legal barrier; for the class action suit covers the entire class of authors and publishers. No new entrepreneurs will be able to digitize books within that fenced-off territory, even if they could afford it, because they would have to fight the copyright battles all over again. If the settlement is upheld by the court, only Google will be protected from copyright liability.

Campus-based Publishing Partnerships: A Guide to Critical Issues

SPARC has published Campus-based Publishing Partnerships: A Guide to Critical Issues.

Here's an excerpt from the report's Web page:

SPARC’s Campus-based Publishing Partnerships: A Guide to Critical Issues addresses issues relevant to building sound and balanced partnerships, including:

  • Establishing governance and administrative structures;
  • Identifying funding models that accommodate the objectives of both libraries and presses;
  • Defining a partnership’s objectives to align the missions of the library and the press;
  • Determining what services to provide; and
  • Demonstrating the value of the collaboration.

Also see SPARC's new Campus-based Publishing Resource Center.

University of California Affiliated Authors Will Be Able to Publish Using Springer Open Choice as Part of Journals License

Under the terms of the journals license negotiated by the California Digital Library for the University of California Libraries, UC-affiliated authors will be able to publish in Springer journals using the Springer Open Choice option without paying additional publication fees. (Thanks to Open Access News.)

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

There will be no separate per-article charges, since costs have been factored into the overall license. Articles will be released under a license compatible with the Creative Commons (by-nc: Attribution, Non-commercial) license. In addition to access via the Springer platform, final published articles will also be deposited in the California Digital Library's eScholarship Repository.

The University of California-Springer agreement is the first large-scale open access experiment of its type undertaken with a major commercial publisher in North America.

"UC faculty members have told us that they want open access publishing options in order to increase the impact of their published work and eliminate barriers to educational and research use," said Ivy Anderson, director of collections for the California Digital Library, which licenses content on behalf of the University of California libraries. "Just as importantly, they want these options in the journals in which they routinely publish, without disrupting their normal research activity. The CDL agreement with Springer supports the transformation that our faculty seeks, while continuing the libraries' crucial role in facilitating access to research information. Springer is a leader among commercial publishers in open access experimentation, making it a natural partner for the University of California in this endeavor."

EDUCAUSE Review Special Section: The Case of the Textbook: Open or Closed?

The latest issue of EDUCAUSE Review has a special section on "The Case of the Textbook: Open or Closed?."

Here are the articles:

Here’s Why You Can’t Find That Online ALA Journal (and Other Tales of Journal Access Woes)

Apparently without warning, the American Library Association has changed the format for its journal URLs, and the old URLs are not redirected to the new ones.

Here's an example from version 73 of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography ("Fair Use after CONFU" from College & Research Libraries):

  • Old URL:
    http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crljournal/
    backissues1998b/may98/candrlmay1998editorial.cfm
  • New URL:
    http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/
    crljournal/1998/may98/candrlmay1998editorial.cfm

ALA journal URLs were removed from version 74 of SEPB, and will be restored in version 75 (unless there are further changes). Since ALA does not include article page numbers in journal sites such as College & Research Libraries, they may be missing from some SEPB references, reflecting the time lag between issue publication and inclusion in standard indexing tools that I can access.

A similar issue has arisen with archived issues of RLG DigiNews, a ceased e-journal archived by OCLC.

Here's an example from version 73 of SEPB ("Benchmarking Conversion Costs: A Report from the Making of America IV Project"):

  • Old URL:
    http://digitalarchive.oclc.org/da/ViewObjectMain.jsp?fileid=0000070513:000006280584&reqid=5141#feature2
  • New URL:
    http://worldcat.org/arcviewer/1/OCC/2007/08/
    08/0000070519/viewer/file706.html#feature2

RLG DigiNews articles were removed from version 74 of SEPB, and they will be restored in a future version. (SEPB previously included virtually all articles published in this fine journal.)

“Editorial: Google Deal or Rip-Off?”

In "Editorial: Google Deal or Rip-Off?," Francine Fialkoff, Library Journal Editor-in-Chief, takes a hard look at the Google-Association of American Publishers/Authors Guild copyright settlement.

Here's an excerpt:

Clearly, the public had little standing in the negotiations that led to the recent agreement in the class-action lawsuit against Google for scanning books from library shelves. . . . Well, the suit was never about the public interest but about corporate interests, and librarians did not have much power at the bargaining table, no matter how hard those consulted pushed. While there are many provisions in the document that specify what libraries can and can't do and portend greater access, ultimately, it is the restrictions that scream out at us from the miasma of details.

Other perspectives can be found in my recently updated Google Book Search Bibliography, Version 3.

Book Industry Study Group BookDROP 1.0 Standard Released

The Book Industry Study Group's Digital Standards Committee has released BookDROP 1.0, which is "a standard intended to support the search and discovery of digital book content on the Web."

Here's an excerpt from the standard's description:

It was first published on December 8, 2008 and was developed jointly by the Book Industry Study Group and the Association of American Publishers. BookDROP defines a set of HTTP transactions between a publishers digital book archive and the websites of the publisher's syndication partners. The overall goal of BookDROP is to encourage the discovery, search, browse and distribution of digital book content across the Web while allowing publishers to manage the quality and availability of their content.

Read more about it at "BISG Unveils BookDROP Standard for Digital Book Repositories."

Google Book Search Bibliography, Version 3

The Google Book Search Bibliography, Version 3 is now available.

This bibliography presents selected English-language articles and other works that are useful in understanding Google Book Search. It primarily focuses on the evolution of Google Book Search and the legal, library, and social issues associated with it. Where possible, links are provided to works that are freely available on the Internet, including e-prints in disciplinary archives and institutional repositories. Note that e-prints and published articles may not be identical.

SAGE Report: Meeting the Challenges: Societies and Scholarly Communication

SAGE has released Meeting the Challenges: Societies and Scholarly Communication (Thanks to Adrian K. Ho's Digital & Scholarly: News about Research and Scholarship in the Digital Age.)

Here's an excerpt:

The survey was supported by the Association for Learned Professional and Scholarly Publishers; the Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers; the International Association for Science, Technical and Medical Publishers, and the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, and made available to the 600+ members of these organizations.

The online survey of 30 questions was available for response from 2 September, 2008 – 23 September, 2008.

118 responses were completed during this time—reflecting approximately 19% of the organizations contacted.

Societies cited the major challenges facing them as international presence for their organization; membership retention and growth; provision of online services; resources (funding and income); and Open Access. International presence was the most highly-ranked attribute for societies (49%), with particular importance placed on sales representation on a global scale.

Stanford's HighWire Press Hits 5 Million Article Mark

With the addition of a backfile 1884 article, "Dermatitis Herpetiformis," in JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, HighWire Press, a division of the Stanford University Libraries, hit the five million article mark. Over two million of those articles are freely available.

Read more about it at "5 Million Articles Online at HighWire: The Evolution of an e-Publishing Platform."

Digital Video: Future of the Book: Can the Endangered Monograph Survive?

The Columbia University Libraries' Scholarly Communication Program has released "Future of the Book: Can the Endangered Monograph Survive?," a digital video of the meeting of the same name. (Thanks to Adrian K. Ho of Digital & Scholarly: News about Research and Scholarship in the Digital Age.)

Here's the abstract:

Panelists Helen Tartar, Editorial Director at Fordham University Press; Sanford Thatcher, Director of Penn State University Press and past President of the Association of American University Presses; and Ree DeDonato, Director of Humanities and History and Acting Director of Union Theological Seminary's Burke Library of Columbia University Libraries/Information Services discuss the economics and process of scholarly publishing and the future of the monograph. Columbia's Deputy University Librarian and Associate Vice President for Digital Programs and Technology Services Patricia Renfro introduces the panel, which is followed by a question-and-answer session.

Sandy Thatcher, Director of the Penn State University Press, to Retire

Sandy Thatcher, prolific author and vocal advocate for university presses, will retire from his position as Director of the Penn State University Press. The Press has posted an ad for his position, and Tony Sanfilippo has written a tribute posting on the Are You Loving Publishing Today? blog. Sanfilippo's posting says: "Sandy won't be leaving until sometime next year, and he’s likely to continue to freelance as an acquisitions editor after that."

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.