Official Description:

Closing Keynote:

The Stamp of Truth: Brands in the Marketplace of Ideas
Paul Duguid, Adjunct Professor, University of California Berkeley

Technological innovations have continuously raised hope that everyone who chooses may be his or her own publisher. Faced with this new-found openness, old, closed monopolies - newspapers, publishing houses, television stations - will fall away and a pure marketplace of ideas will emerge to be, as Oliver Wendell Holmes suggested, "the best test of truth." It hasn't quite turned out like that. Bloggers who champion the overthrow of "old" or "mainstream" media also value the credibility that established media provide them. This paradox suggests that getting ideas out into the world may be more complex than sticking them in cyberspace. Indeed, acting on too naive a view of the old institutions may tend neither to replace nor to reform them, but only to enhance them. Paul suggests that to understand "the power of thought to get itself accepted," we can think less about "markets" for ideas and more about "supply chains" and brands, and, in attempting to go it "alone" - from "home" or elsewhere - to consider not just independence but interdependence.

My live blogging notes:

Indicates that he's going to talk about brands.

1. Information wants to be free
2. problematic freedom
3. information in chains
4. chains & brand wars
5. The Search for Quality

Lively opening with humor but he notes that there is a global anxiety with the issue of quality. This is a segue from our earlier discussion in the intellectual property segment regarding the quality "watermark" publishers feel they provide.

The market vs. hierarchy (classic economic forms). Current culture -- hierarchy bad; markets good. He touches as well on the same network effect that Kevin Guthrie opened with. Sometimes networks operate like markets and sometimes like hierarchies.

Info-fundamentalists (information wants to be free). Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge, where is the knowledge we have lost in information." TS Eliot. (verify that I got it right).

Paul Otlett and the "burden of the book" - need to manage somehow to elicit the information from the book and leave all the unnecessary padding, extraneous material behind. (Hard to blog when the man has such a humorous delivery and you're laughing too hard to type. Story of dealing w/ a historian researching cholera when they used to soak mail in vinegar in order to "fumigate" it before delivery in a town outside the quarantine zone. You get that "information" in the physical environment, but wouldn't necessarily pick on that in a digitized environment. "All cretans are liars." (couldn't type fast enough to get source of the quote). A Cretan cannot testify to his own veracity. Documents cannot tell you how to read them (sense of irony, tone of sarcasm, etc.) Information doesn't stand up on its own.

Marketplace of ideas Refers to news stories out of Google (where you can't just rely on the algorithm; must add in additional context). His slide reads "Not so independent?" and shows painting of Pygmalion and Galatea. Institutions become invisible when they're most effective and efficient. Y'know he's so good and so glib, you really need this man's slides to get the full sense of what he's saying. Old hierarchies begin to break down - shows table indicating how IBM declined and rose again (Again, referring back to Kevin talking about the turnaround of IBM).

Accidental branding "I didn't really know what a brand was, but it became evident that we had created a brand - Denis Carter (Intel). Everyone putting Intel Inside on their boxes. Compaq having to fight back promoting the semiconductor company at the expense of Compaq's brand (Compaq) Dell, intel, Windows logo -- all these people trying to hold on to importance of their brand.

Accidental un-branding (Who knows who makes the disk drive in their PC? Only two people raise their hand in the room. ) Yet critical element of the operation.

Books in chain. What's the nature of a book -- he shows two separate definitions. - notes that the writer isn't given precedence in the supply chain shown in the lengthier, more detailed definition.

1518 -- first printing patent

1557 -- The stationers' charter; "binders, stitchers, sellers, publishers, etc" printers v. booksellers. Wouldit be the printers or the booksellers who would control in this environment?

1694/5 End of that licensing model "publisher's profit". Change to intellectual property thinking

1709 Statute of Anne (the author's due) printers v. booksellers didn't want the other to get control of the pile and thought they could themselves control the third party, the author.

Author's role - (quote from Daniel Defoe "injurious piece of violence and grievance to all Mankind -- robs Men of the due reward..." Publisher offers imprimateur (sp?)

Post modern flights? "The stationers made 'Shakespeare." - Erne

Who "brands" When you go to a play is it due to author director producer actor? When you go to a movie? Who knows the name of the author of the last movie they saw? Television another example. Music -- composer condustor orchestra soloists? Different markets for Different products the key name will change.

Whose brand is it then? This came up in the intellectual property discussion segment. The brand name is really the journal rather than anyone else in the supply chain. The dynamics and tensions of the relationships shift in our business.

How do you buy expertise? Lawyers, doctors, etc. Certification by ABA, AMA, etc. "The market for lemons" Akerlof's academia "education and the labor markets themselves have their own "Brand names." Brands as a form of validatin information are very important.

Moves over to Google. "incredible breadth of information that librarians so lovingly orgnaizae searchable online." incredibly condescdending quote from Page & Brin. translates to we'll help librarians or we'll replace librarians. Sought out the name libraries to recruit for their book initiative (Harvard, Bodleian, etc.)

Supply chain - academics - univerities - libraries -- publishers. Refer back to point in Postmodern flights above. Everyone is struggling to achieve the preeminent position (note: Libraries as DRM mechanisms for librarians, what a great line!) Supply chains are falling apart and being re-engineered. Who will be the last person standing.

Not a marketplace of ideas - a network of ideas. We form networks and again they may either be like marketplaces or like hierarchies. Plusses and minuses - tensions in our chain. Journals provide quality assurance but there are some hesitations about that. Can turn into monopolistic practices. Can't tell us how the fight is going to resolve itself. Visibility is going to be a key element to survival.

Nature's hatchet job on Encyclopedia Britannica in comparing w/ Wikipedia is an outstanding classic sense of this battle. (Bios on wikipedia may or may not be any good but they pop up third in the results listing. EB would be better but its not visible.)

Applause from audience is really quite enthusiastic! Enjoyed him immensely.

DISCLAIMER - Please Bear in Mind

Just a very quick post to remind any reader of this blog that I am in fact blogging and may not be quoting the content entirely as presented. I've done my best, but...

There is some truth to the rumor that I was frightened by punctuation marks as a small child and have never fully resolved the trauma. In many instances, if it seems as if there OUGHT to be a period at a particular point in the blogging and if the next word actually begins with a capital letter, please be charitable and mentally apply the appropriate punctuation.

Contacting me through the Society of Scholarly Publishing will allow me to correct any truly egregious errors in my rendition.

Official Description:

Uncommon Ground? Intellectual Property in a Flat World

Ed Colleran, Publisher Relations, Copyright Clearance Center, Moderator
Thinh Nguyen, Counsel, Science Commons
William Strong, Partner, Kotin Crabtree and Strong, LLP
Ben White, Copyright Compliance and Licensing Manager, British Library

As the Internet has opened up the global distribution of content, publishers and libraries are facing changing attitudes and needs of readers and scholars who want access whenever and wherever, at no cost in this digitally flat world. How is the concept of intellectual property changing, nationally and internationally? How will new open access legislation and the growing popularity of depositing pre-publication content in institutional repositories affect a publisher's copyrights and business models? Does the trend for libraries to reshape their role to include the management of e-collections, e-reserves, and institutional repositories collide with copyright? What new rights and licensing models can we expect next?

My Live Blogging Notes:

"What are we to make of copyright in a world of infinite redistribution" - was it Bob yesterday or was it AKMA in the discovery tools session who said that?

Plenty of challenges - e-reserves, institutional repositories, open access, and the new legislation popping up all over the world.

CCC distributed 112 million dollars last year to publishers, an increase of 13 percent. Honor systems

Bill Strong, Kotin Crabtree and Strong

Enforcement programs in which he's been involved. going after copyshops, docdel cos, and other more exotic types. Major names (ELS, Sage, ACS, various university presses) who've been involved. Doc del providers who charge cc fees w/o paying it back to the publishers. "Whenever we sue a non-compliant shop, they're always surprised...." ActiMed (swiss based company) not charging c'right fees; suit filed in both Switzerland and in the US.

Other areas more problematic -- univ libs in this country and attempts to serve users (via the Internet) w/o verifying rights. Some success in changing their behaviors. somewhat shielded by the eleventh amendment. customer relation concerns make this a very difficult area to handle. Acknowledges that the bulk of the library community very concerned w/ copyright and trying to work w/in the confines of the law but otehrs push the envelope.

E-reserves and coursepack activity. In-house online coursepacks to be expected over the course of time - essentially indistinguishable from e-reserves. This is a growing area of concern. More and more widespread. There will be a lawsuit filed in the near future on this one because the parameters need to be established and publishers feel that this is a significant troublespot. His stance is that ILL is limited to bricks and mortar, print artifacts and is clearly not intended to apply to the digital environment.

Questions arise over what copyright protection extends to one version (say 90% of the final version of an article) placed in an IR and the final version as distributed by the publisher. Properly crafted copyright assignment/release form should protect the publisher in this instance.

Thinh Nguyen, Counsel, Science Commons

He's speaking from not exactly the opposing side but provide different perspective of what's needed in this new environment. He will speak about Creative Commons, Science Commons focuses on policy.

Creative Commons founded 2002; basically open-source licensing models (GNU is his example). Legal format, metadata format (machine readable) and human readable (set in terms appropriate to the lay person). They see themselves as accidental tourists in scholarly publishing; 30 law journals are using their creative commons license, PLoS is using creative commons license. Univ libraries are using creative commons licenses for some activities. Researchers funded by the Wellcome Trust are encouraged to make their research available via the Creative Commons license.

Scholar's Copyright Project - SPARC author addenda used to reserve some rights to the author. Right to archive in the IR after a certain embargo period is one such right. CCommons is still working on building this. Berlin, Bethesday, Budapest signatory.

Forces that he sees going on that require creative solutions. (1) Technological - basic problem is that there's lots of information. References the haves and the have-nots in the context of the Parable of the Talents. Need for immediacy of access in the research environment. Technology allows use of data to move towards uncovering new factual information. Now you can have a computer read stuff for you and uncover the patterns that used to require human effort to read and process. Time-efficiency of data-mining but we're slowing that process because so much of the literature under copyright and search engines can't do that w/o permission from the copyright holder.

Make facts available as a form of metadata (computer readable form) is one way out of this dilemma.

(2) Economic forces. Rising costs. (cites ARL statistics with regard to pricing of scholarly journal material). There are marginal audiences who cannot access content as a result. North-South divide in universities; forcing researchers from other countries to come here to the US because that's the only way they can get access to the literature they need. This brain drain is an on-going issue on an international level.

NIH public access policy (ended w/ voluntary recommendation of deposit) compliance just over 4 percent. References proposed legislation in 2003 (Sabo) and in 2005 (?) and the 2006 Corwyn-Lieberman proposal (doesn't look like it will pass). Clearly there is an on-going push.

The Wellcome Trust is requires the open-access deposit in PubMed (after 6 mos.) for the research it funds. This goes into effect next month so effects to be seen...

Need to extend the reach of the research they are funding.

Ben White, British Library

"Things happen differently where I'm from" and he states up front that he's not a lawyer nor is he a librarian. Digitization project w/ Microsoft for Xmillion pages that will go up under a creative commons style arrangement. They will be hosting a UK PubMed style repository. All of their projects (and he named a couple) indicate that they understand the value of the intellectual property to the UK economy but also the need to maximize access. They are active in a variety of sectors (publishing, database producer, etc.) so they understand the various pressures.

We're living in a paradoxical world ( a hybrid world) -- wrestling w/ idea of "digital lockdown" even as we don't want to yield up the rights and exceptions that serve a practical purpose and preserve a balance that is good for all. Issues include: DRM, anti-circumvention methods, commoditization of knowledge down to the most granular levels, contracts that prevent access (ie more restrictive in their terms than international copyright would allow).

Update by author: I realized that my comment to the panelists may not have been properly stated. I do believe that education of users is a key element here and I do think that we need to do more in that regard. The second portion of my statement however (and this may not have been stated clearly) is that we need to simplify what the rules are -- what we expect the user to understand and abide by. The practices currently in place that serve the publishers and the librarians are not simple or sensible or clear to users. Users will conform more readily if the rules we ask them to abide by are sensible and practical and perhaps most importantly, time-efficient!

SO what do I think I heard today? This isn't intended to be polished. I'm thinking about this at about 11:30 at night.

• We're operating in a highly competitive environment. If we're to be faulted for anything, it's that, for the most part, we're not thinking or behaving like entrepreneurs in this competitive environment. (That "we", by the way, refers to content providers as a very general population). We need to be nimble, able to adjust our services almost on demand.
• The researchers and scholars scattered across the various panels indicated that they are seeing the gaps in the services offered to them. They realize that there are publishing alternatives and explore those alternatives for the sake of their research and academic endeavors. Some disciplines are tentative in their approaches (Brent Shaw, the classicist in Session #2, talking about adopting the working papers approach already proven in the STM sector.) You get some communities of practice that are moving ahead w/ new collaborative approaches as Bob Hanisch in Session #4 illustrates. Should content providers be looking for a community of interest or a community of practice whose transition they can support? Show willingness to support their efforts and act as a partner!
• The competitive environment on a global scale (think about expanding Asia-Pacific markets) means that others will go ahead and do all the things that content providers are seemingly slow to do. Governments will move forward (and some of them, like the Japanese, are incredibly well focused on achieving the prize). One wonders if we've forgotten how the Japanese revolutionized the automotive industry because of their willingness to address the interest in and need for fuel-efficient cars. Scholars are looking for time-efficient tools.
• Tomorrow we'll be thinking about intellectual property as well as hearing from Paul DuGuid. More to come.

Official Description:

Discovery Tools: Replanting the Tree of Knowledge

Jill O'Neill, Director of Planning and Communication, NFAIS, Moderator
Reverend AKM Adam, Professor of New Testament, Seabury Theological Seminary
Robert Hanisch, Project Manager, US Virtual Observatory, Space Telescope Science Institute
Amanda Spiteri, Product Marketing Director, Elsevier

The current digital information landscape provides more avenues to content than ever before: distributed and federated data, sophisticated human and machine search, specialized portals, wikis, and blogs. How are traditional and new indexing services blended to maximize discovery? How are researchers and educators navigating disciplinary and geographic boundaries? What is the yield of increased interactivity, in research labs, classrooms, hospitals, field work - any location? Are content creator and content user expectations matching up along the way? Where are publishers breaking new ground? What do users envision for the future? This panel discussion will encompass the entire spectrum of discovery in scholarship in today's digital environment.

My Not-Quite-Live Blogging Notes (compiled in a joint initiative between me at the podium and Judy Luther of Informed Strategies in the back of the room...Collaborative effort!):

The intent behind this panel was to spotlight the various channels available to users in the current networked environment -- they have the highly functional traditional indexing services (such as Scopus from Elsevier), the portals developed by communities of practice such as the Virtual Observatory that Bob Hanisch will be discussing, and the view from an educator and researcher in the humanities, specifically theology, where available tools are more limited.

Amanda Spiteri (Director Product Marketing Elsevier)

Amanda briefly delineates the profile of an average user of Scopus (36-45 year old researcher w/ variety of pressures and responsibilities in terms of productivity of research, teaching, and mentoring/advising undergrads and grad students. They are faced literally with a plethora of potential resources full of electronic full text (logos pop up for most of the significant providers). How does the researcher maneuver in this context and perhaps more immediately of concern to the audience, how do the libraries themselves direct users to appropriate resources. Increasingly complex automation to build and sustain. Note as well that users rarely move past the first two pages of results.

Quotes Charlie Mingus -- "Making the simple complicated is commonplace. Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity!"

NOTE: That's the real issue. Our systems are still far too complex. Not too complex to understand if users were willing to work at it a bit but they aren't and we have to re-create the situation. AKMA echoes later on the same difficulty with interfaces! You can have complex arcane systems or the alternative of Google regurgitating oceans of mixed relevant and irrelevant stuff.

One interesting note from my perspective. She shows the volume of referrals to Elsevier content from a variety of sites which are in this order (1) Elsevier customer sites (2) PubMed (3) other ELS sites such as Cellpress.com (4) Crossref and in fifth place (5) the search engine referrals including Google. She does say that's a growth area but still not as big as folks might think.

She presents some of the functionality of Scopus to the audience. Recently Elsevier announced the availability of additional source materials indexed through Scirus (content housed in institutional repositories). They're making this additional material available to existing customers w/ Scopus at no additional cost. Tabs can be customized to reflect the institution's branding of the content. They've added RSS to the tool, but admit this is only the first step and they expect to go further.

WHere will Web 2.0 take them? Unclear but she references Connotea, Zotero, folksonomies, social software, etc. -- ELS appears at least to be aware of what's going on out there in the marketplace which may mean that they will implement into their services once they can prove the value of the mechanisms for the demographic they serve.

Robert Hanisch, US Virtual Observatory

Astronomy is one of the first disciplines to pioneer epublishing. Underlying data links to ejournals through a system of persistent identifiers. These services point to each other.

Data deluge – the virtual observatory is about data discovery, access and integration and combing data with computational services. Metadata and interoperability are the key words.

Virtual Observatory (VO) in Astronomy includes basic data, simulations, analysis and interpretation and name resolution services. Note that these aren't discoverable via standard text-based search tools. Name resolution services in this field are particularly of interest or concern given that naming conventions across the discipline are varied. The tool they've developed uses a unique position in the sky rather than a multitude of terms. The VO is a mediator that knows which archive is appropriate and where to route a query. This is a portal that provides access to all the resources located in different areas.

The new understanding is through data integration which uses metadata standards to support discovery with distributed applications, web services and distributed storage with authentication and authorization.

There is a data preservation problem as images are stored but not the underlying data sets. He says ".jpg and .tif formats are not a good basis for deeper research in this field." (expresses exasperation w/ available tools) To correct it they want to integrate digital data management into the publication process (data capture, review metadata tagging and validation, storage). Note that there's a pilot program for publishers to participate in this process.

Digital data discovery and access is essential for the research community.

Reverend Adam (AKMA), Seabury Theological Seminary

What’s available in the humanities – or the lack thereof – is depressing in contrast to the STM arena. Database discovery falls into 2 categories: unfriendly (one-size-fits-none) database interfaces or Google. The user community in theology is at a distinct disadvantage.

Twin issues of ease of use and delivering full capabilities even if they might disrupt established business models. There is a tidal wave of users depending on e-first and scholarly publishers must prepare for this change by changing their approach to publishing.

He stresses w/ a certain amt of vehemence that publishers need to move towards capturing content that is not considered traditional (audio, video representations, things that don't "parse neatly". More vehemence regarding expectations of ease of use, fine grained search, (missed one item) and durable archiving. He suggests that we learn how to derive micro-profits in a mega-use world. Deal with copyright issues and concerns (this comes up on the Friday segment). "Publishers should do it in the face of our retrograde tendencies!"

(Note: I speak w/ him before he leaves and he assures me he'll be blogging about what he's heard here today! Ought to be VERY interesting to see what he took away from this event.)

Question for this segment had to do with browsing and serendipity and loss thereof in an electronic environment. Panelists all agree that this is an issue. Bob points out that browsing as an activity is getting harder and harder to do and research is tending to "stove-pipe". This is an issue certainly.

At the cocktail reception that closes out the day, I'm chatting w/ someone who reiterates the gap between humanities and STM (not just w/ regard to discovery tools but with all kinds of full text as well). This is such a significant issue. Requires that we do SOMETHING about it.

Official Description:

Global Exposure: New and Emerging Models and Strategies from Bangkok, Tokyo, Seattle, and Brooklyn

Dan Tonkery, Vice President of Business Development, EBSCO Information Services, Moderator
John Burns, Manager, eBook Conversion & Creation Technologies, Amazon.com (cancelled participation)
Pote N. Lee, Chairman, iGroup
Asako Omi, cofounder, J-STAGE
Bob Stein, Director, Institute for the Future of the Book

Marketing and technology innovations occur at the edges, where societies meet and industries collide. And disruptive technologies often breed best in the slip-stream of traditional R&D activity. In this session we'll look at some inventive and influential activities from the "off ramp" side of scholarly publishing, including new trade routes in Asia from the perspective of a multi-national information provider, the development of a nationally supported infrastructure for the publishing and archiving of e-journals in Japan, novel technologies being incubated at Amazon that will take us beyond Search-Inside-the-Book, and a powerful and transformative open source authoring system, called Sophie, from a small band of researchers on the East River.

My Live Blogging Notes (Society for Scholarly Publishing, Top Management Roundtable):

Dan Tonkery of EBSCO opens with a few slides from his recent overseas travels (China and Korea specifically) discussing global exposure and the "appetite for information". Expectation that there will be a forthcoming volume of papers of increasing quality from these institutions. He notes that overseas libraries are better at marketing their resources as gauged by the display of posters and advertiseements directing users to the appropriate tool/service/product. Awareness of the Thomson Scientific journal impact factor as a metric for productivity and publication. Awareness of open-access as well. STM information worldwide is generating high volume activity. Dan predicts a major sea-change coming out of the Asia Pacific region.

Pote Lee, iGroup

Overview of the Asia Pacific marketplace and iGroup's approach to that market, the challenges, the trends and the solutions. Lee's background is as an engineer and he is the chair of iGroup, representing publishers overseas in this market. Employee base of 400 serves academic and corporate institutions.

Overview

Asia is very broad geographical region, highly diverse in a variety of ways -- linguistically (with multiple dialects even within a specific nation), religious, political, cultural differences do exist throughout. Economically Asia Pacific region has a variety of economies (Aus, NZ, Japan are high income nations; China and Korea qualify as middle income, etc.) Main market is the academic institution. Research institutions are less common in that region and corporate customer base is further behind (although starting to pick up). His personal view is that India will be the most important market in another five-ten years, surpassing the levels of China at the present time.

Only a few nations have official formal consortia management entities; iGroup has found it useful in certain locations to establish "virtual consortia" in areas where the concept is not widespread. The idea of a consortia differs with regard to negotiations and fee-structures. Demanding environment -- vendors may have to negotiate for purchases that are only hovering at the thousand dollar mark (very different from experience with Western library consortia).

Infrastructure in Japan is very robust; other countries' infrastructure are less so. In China for example ISPs are actually operated in large part by the government. Speed of access may be significantly slower because the infrastructures may be limited in what they can handle.

His organization advises customer base in what publications may be most useful to them, depending upon national priorities. They also do training on the various resources. Translate manuals into the local languages. Support for information literacy and usage is key in these markets as is offering various forms of professional development and continuing education for the library and information professionals. The range of library budgets also requires that his organization provide technological support for library automation.

Challenges faced? Only 3-5% are actually buying due to budgetary constraints so growing the revenue requires an ongoing commitment on the part of both vendor and publisher.

Asako Omi, Professor, Tokai University

J-Stage Japan Science and Technology Information Agregator, Electronic. Used by 380 academic societies. 330 journals, 98 conference proceedings, 200,000 articles. 450,000 downloads per month. The aim is dissemination of journal content from Japanese academic societies. All abstracts are free. Full Text access is controlled by individual participating publishers (access/authentication controls are in place). Language demands: Abstracts English 62% 48% for journals. Also mix of English and Japanese publications. 57% of the articles on the platform are accessible w/o charge. The disciplines covered span the spectrum of disciplines.

JST LInk Center (subsystem of JStage) enables linking between e-journals and bibliographic databases. Cross Ref Chemport STN PubMed Google (lots of traffic in referrals) PubMed appears to be the largest and most important referralsource. More than half of the traffic is directed to JST from standard A&I services.

Moving to add new functions (alerts when article is cited; and COUNTER compliance)

JSTAGE has Journal @rchive. Full text pdfs from major journals published in Japan. Expect to cover 500 titles in five years. All abstractsand most full text content available for free. Use the archive to make Japanese intellectual heritage more visible and attract youth to the various scientific-tech professions. Content dates back as far as the 1880's.

Japan has focused on developing their science and technology policy over the past ten years and will continue over the course of the next five. Increasing allocation of government funding to the sciences and preserved even in periods of economic constraints in other forms of government funding. Hope to achieve more efficient and effective management of government R&D and break-up any existing institutional or operational bottlenecks.

Mission is promotion of R&D from basic research to commercialization w/ particular emphasison the creation of new technology and (2) to improve infrastructure. Hence the importance of these STM information activities.

Live demo of Journal @rchive

Bob Stein, Institute for the Future of the Book

Locating a book inside of a network is a critical activity. Without Gods: Towards a history of atheism. Author is thinking out his process online at his blog and the readers of his blog are becoming collaborators in the development of his text. This is one way of increasing value and visibility of the text.

Author of the Hacker Manifesto has a new book two-thirds completed and wanted to put it online. He writes in paragraphs, sections, chapters and wanted input (comments and other forms of annotation) to display in parallel with his text. Comments may appear even as you are reading online, giving a sense that the book is alive.

Two experiments in moving the book from a less static form to a more fluid form of discursive process.

References a work from the '90's in which he was involved where the creator was introducing Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" to audience (musical concepts, scoring displayed as music is played, instruments separated out from full work) It was a linear process and the original creator was leftout of the process and ever since Stein has wanted "to create an authoring environment that would allow creative people to assemble robust and elegant documents without having to resort to extensive programming. (Hence Sophie) Tool uses what appears to be Ajax technology to drag and drop modular elements of the work (text, images, etc.) Done in small talk which is an object-oriented language. Demos mechanism for going to a url to pick up a video clip (not housed on his machine) and embed that element into the page of the book for subsequent users. Sophisticated layout of elements on the page. Clickng on word in page launches music and/or a timeline. Teachers and students in higher education will have the means whereby they can express ideas in new ways. Document is created in an XML format so with some limited intervention Google will be able to index the content published in this format.

Official Description:

Deeds to Words: The Changing Relationship Between Scholars and Their Publishers
Charles Watkinson, Director, ASCSA Publications, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Moderator
Christopher Greer, Cyberinfrastructure Advisor, Office of the Assistant Director for Biological Sciences, National Science Foundation
Mark McCabe, Professor of Economics, Georgia Institute of Technology
Brent Shaw, Faculty Coordinator, Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics Repository

As "open" technology has moved downstream, scholars have become empowered users. The availability of software tools and institutional infrastructure has made it possible for authors to create their own publishing venues and to set the terms of engagement with their readers. But with this new authority comes responsibility and confusion. What role do traditional publishers play in the professional lives of scholars? Do new modes of publishing satisfy authors' needs to have their scholarship registered, to have its quality certified, to see it disseminated to a relevant audience, and to ensure that it is archived for posterity? What conventional values are still relevant, and what new competencies are needed by both publishers and authors in this emerging "Publishing 2.0" environment?

My Live Blogging Notes (Society for Scholarly Publishing Top Management Roundtable)

NOTE: There were no powerpoints used in this session. Notetaking tends to be stream of consciousness so therefore this may be incomplete or unclear. Not perhaps the ideal situation for readers....

The intent of this session is to cover what authors want now as well as what they'll want for the future. Charles Watkinson of ASCSA as moderator drew laughter with references to Dr. Phil, the self-help guru, as he talks about the angst of the current environment. He noted a recent University College London study: comparisons in Arts & Human, Economics and Business, and Biochemists. Differences in attitudes towards speed of publication, importance of citation activity, use of a variety of information resources in the library (humanists go to the library; biochemists don't). This will be stressed later in the day in my own session. The point is that one size does not fit all in terms of how various disciplines use and think about content. Impact of the networked information environment will be felt in upcoming users (this refers back to what Kevin Guthrie discussed in his opening keynote in likening this impact to an oncoming asteroid hurtling towards Earth in the 1951 sci-fi thriller, When Worlds Collide). Watkinson references as well the conflict between hoarding data and sharing of data

4 secrets of relationships success between authors and publishers (functions performed by publishing environment)

• Registration - priority of claim and recognition
• Certification - recognized as value
• Dissemination - awareness of the community of the content
• Archiving. - record of research left for posterity, version control and final version that can always be discovered across time and therefore cited.

Chris Greer, NSF

Perspective of a funding agency. Talk briefly about a small case study and then move on to what publishers might do. Phil Born (PloS Structural Biology) at UC, Co-director of Protein Databank (repository of 3D biological structures) and works with Biolit to match structure image with that referenced in specific literature. Brings in related materials - other molecular structures, other articles written. Publication itself becomes a form of metadata (Exactly! This is the type of metadata that Cory Doctorow referenced in his 2001 essay, Metacrap! Seven Straw Men of Meta-Utopia . Behavioral metadata as it were). Interdependency and reciprocal relationship between the literature and the data.

Finding in the funding realm that the output of research being funded is digital in format. Microarray studies generating lots of data. The four needs of authors still apply to the datasets. How will this relationship play out? Two separate arenas

(1) Digital environments- discussions of required deposit of the material in these repositories. References the Corwyn-Lieberman proposal.

(2) Wide variety of international and domestic initiatives

Videostreams, audiostreams, algorithms, published text, etc. need to be included in this digital data framework. Routinely collected and formated data -- registration of contributions w/ reliable attribution -- data readily discovered and understood by professionals and laypersons alike -- data properly protected and reliably preserved. The digital data framework has to address all of these

Not the responsibility of a single sector to provide this environment; a social responsibility for the good of all. Everyone has a role in this. Libraries exist and can play a role as print repositories and may be turned to as foundation for digital. Given that libraries have different business models, a variety of funding models -- they may be able to offer a conceptual model for this digital data framework.

Greer insists that authors want publishers to be a part of this. Question to the audience is what part do publishers feel they are ready to assume in this? Note that the discussion that followed this segment of the program didn't generate a response to this question.

Mark McCabe, GA Tech

Picture of the economic framework of serving authors and readers. Delineation of differences in objectives and expectations between non-profits and for profit organizations recognized when he began his work; technology has driven changes in how publishers are expected to fulfill those objectives and expectations. How to analyze the functions of journals in this changing environment? Socially determined outcomes vs. privately determined outcomes. Readers want to have as many authors as possible and authors want to have as many readers as possible. Zero costs on either side satisfies both ends of that market but can't cover the associated costs. Price doesn't really operate as anticipated in a market of authors and readers. Externalities that each provide to the other side and the costs/distribution of fees needs to be balanced. Publishers no longer perform as a smooth intermediary between the two ends of this marketspace.

Introduction of competition and impact of technologies. Fiddling w/ the cost of dissemination and archiving drives different results (those outcomes that are desired by both ends of the market). Our current model assumes the publisher as a locus. Slow inefficient processes can be supplanted by new technologies. RCDA (the four functions referenced by Charles Watkinson above) can be handled via other channels. References the Russian mathematician recipient of the Fields medal who didn't go through usual channel yet still accomplished the various required functions in RCDA.

Researchers don't need publishers to perform these functions in current environment. Means that publishers have to re-evaluate their value-add, their roles in this environment. They will be forced by these changes.

McCabe, Schonfeld (Ithaka) et al. about to embark on study as to whether all of the changes will perform in the same way across the spectrum of disciplines. Hopefully, next spring results will be published (on the Web).

As an author,he would rather like to see something like a Consumers Report for authors (where can he publish and get the most bang for the buck ie. the fullest result of RCDA functionality.

Brent Shaw, Princeton,

Discussing the Princeton-Stanford Working Papers in Classics Repository -- the use of the working paper approach (popular in the STM arena) in the humanities environment. The timelag between submission of a paper and the final publication was significant in this field (the Classics) and the desire was to shorten the time lag and elicit a wider response from the community (Main aims of the site). Faculty from only two sites are depositing content, but participation has doubled within the community over the course of the year with a desire that the platform be opened to a wider set of contributors from other institutions. They'd like to construct an environment for the humanities that more closely mimics the functionalities found in electronic journal environments in the sciences. Their site is getting well over a thousand hits a day. These were coming from all over the globe.

He touches on the difficulty of eliciting participation by those researchers who have not yet achieved tenure. Contributors to the working papers site are largely those tenured individuals who have nothing to lose by putting work in progress out for examination.

Results of circulation and/or dissemination of research -- no attempt has been made to publicize the availability of the site. Electronic delivery of content is proving popular and he expects this to continue.

Archival role of the site wasn't a particular priority as these were working papers and the intent was to refer the reader to the final printed publication for purposes of citation. This is clearly not going to be the way that works out because the world readership is actually citing the working paper version found at the site rather than the final certified version. Even in the humanities, the pattern of adoption based on electronic resources currently available, the humanists will be driven to expect the level of service and functionality currently found in the STM sector. New generation of students will also drive that long-term effect.

Discussion:

The question that I posed to the panel during the discussion segment was whether or not they were aware of any movements by the relevant heads of academic and research facilities (provosts and the like) to change the reward structure that was so closely tied to the publication process. This to my mind would be an easy way to drive the transition that these scholars seem to be seeking. None of the responses by the panelists indicated awareness that any specific discussions were taking place (indeed one panelist told me later privately that he didn't think that the provosts had gotten that far along in the thinking process). However they did note incremental shifts in attitudes on the part of the academic community in thinking about how they might benefit from adopting the electronic platform for publishing.

Official Description: When Worlds Collide: The Information Economy and the Scholarly Enterprise
Kevin Guthrie, President, Ithaka

In today's rapidly evolving networked economy, is every organization - even a scholarly or academic one - a start-up? At the very least, parts of every organization need to behave like one. Kevin Guthrie will share experience from over a decade starting and establishing several not-for-profit organizations serving the scholarly community, first at JSTOR and now at Ithaka. In the first part of the talk, he will share the principles that have guided the process of innovation for those organizations. In the second part, Kevin will provide observations on some of the major forces from the commercial information economy that are "colliding" with the prevailing approaches of the scholarly community. The concept of interdependence is not new - for example, commercial publishers and scholars have been engaged in symbiotic co-existence for decades - but the emerging interdependencies across "worlds" introduce new and challenging questions of scale, control, and scope.

Live Blogging Notes From This Session

References the future envisioned in the1951 movie, When Worlds Collide (Link to IMDB)

World we all live on -- long live institutions with eduring values and modes of operation. Bowen's Romanes Lecture (2000) talk still very relevant mellon.org/romanes.pdf.

nurture independent knowledge creation but somewhat insulated and not necessarily given to rapid adaptation.

Faced with the likes of Google, Linux, Wikipedia. Entirely new industries created in the span of just a few years. Rise and fall of organizations can be dramatic. The networked information economy means a very rapid process from inception to dominance and (in some instances) failure. Companies like IBM (hardware to services) and Apple (iPod) manage tremendous turnarounds of their businesses. Book: The Perfect Thing -- about innovation and the iPod (forthcoming)

IHE(s) in business of knowledge generation is going to be hit by the effects of this information economy. In this setting, Dialog, Lexis-Nexis, mediated search by librarian was the benchmark of effectiveness. Then Google hit the landscape. All about speed, convenience.

Broad Networked Environment

• Network effect (service becomes more valuable as more people use it; rapid growth, often viral, little or no centralized effort) Examples - fax, email, open source software, social software, arXiv
• Two sided markets (two sets of customers need each others; payment systems, operating systems for software - intermediaries make it possible to bridge the two audiences. In each situation the balance is different. The challange is in establihsing and sustaining the balance in pricing/value. Is your organization an intermediare, a provider or a user?
• Wisdon of crowds (surowiecki bestseller) crowd is diverse, decentralized and independent action and has a mechanism for summarizing the "answer" Example: Google's pageRank mechanism.Are there ways for your organization to exploit this effect to the benefit of your customers/users.

II. Examples and Experience

How JSTOR and similar initiatives leveraged this network effect. His organization (Ithaka) is a not-for-profit venture capital incubator (strategic services, research and shared services) all in support of the academic community in developing innovative organizations and projects. Incubated entities -- Aluka (content from the developing world) ; NITLE (help small colleges w/o big IT support take advantage of the new technologies and keep up with pace of development) ; Portico (protected archive of e-journals). On staff at Ithaka but move them forward and move them to independence. Affiliated entities - JSTOR, ARTstor (well-established) Higher Education Community projects pursued by Strategic Services and research groups. (research studies, survey of academic librarians and faculty)

Want to enable NFP Entreprenuership -- How To Do This?

--Must define charitable mission of the enterprise (essential). define objectives; verifiable measures of delivery; helps to prioritize and guide difficult decisions in the long-term. Articulating the metrics. (NOTE: not just the financial ones)

--Make organization independent and must have a sense of entreprenuerial accountability.

--Leadership (successful venture capitalists invest in people -- not products or services) Requires 100% commitment and vested interest in the enterprise's success

--Need for Governing board or an advisory committee with multiple perspectives from a variety of stakeholders. Emphasize bringing in the perspective rather than a representative of particular sector.

--Board engagement with the process rather than Board management or "rubber stamping" of management. Both sides of the equation learns from the encounter and leaves w/ additional knowledge or expertise.

-- FLEXIBILITY!!! Don't be wedded to the plan you start out with -- plan to adapt and make changes in the process.

-- provide sufficient capital and develop solid business plan to present to the Board (get away from the grant mentality (3 year grant then look for another 3 year grant to keep going)

-- Match value to support. Expenses at the top (This is what we do and this is what it costs) and then test out revenue generation models. Variety of models is important for testing and experimentation with useful results (learn from the consequences)

--Communication of the value provided. Validate your progress, meeting delivery metrics set earlier in the process.

(he says he provided nine; I only got eight. will have to update or else get his slides)

Building the ways the bridges from the world that we're in to the one that will exist. Applause from the Audience.

A Wonderful Venue!

This year's venue for the Top Management Roundtable is the Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia. It's a beautiful hotel and the Fountains Restaurant is considered by Fodor's and Zagat's to be the top restaurant in the city.

Taking On A Challenge

Judy Luther of Informed Strategies emailed me this morning to see if I'd be willing to blog the program at this year's SSP Top Management Roundtable. Since I have dragged colleagues into blogging my own organization's events, I didn't really feel I could say no (and still retain any credibility...). I have blogged before (on both the Blogger and the 360 platforms) but I have not blogged live from a conference so this ought to be an interesting learning experience.

There are a number of interesting topics and speakers on the agenda:

• Kevin Guthrie of Ithaka is providing the opening keynote tomorrow morning, discussing the information economy and the scholarly enterprise.
• Paul Duguid, co-author with John Seeley Brown of The Social Life of Information, and currently affiliated with the UC - Berkeley School of Information, will be providing the closing keynote on Friday. Here's a recent interview with him. Based on his responses there, his session ought to be interesting.
• In between, we've got sessions pertaining to copyright, discovery tools, global markets and "publishing 2.0".

Live blogging is very different from publishing carefully crafted entries. Some of tomorrow's entries may not be as polished as this one, so I will beg your indulgence in advance.

In the meantime, go read the blogs of other publishing professionals, such as those written by Rafael or the folks at Really Strategies.