RE: Digital publishing and university presses

["B.G. Sloan" <bgsloan2@yahoo.com>]

I think Adrian Stanley's calculations are rather arbitrarily 
based on anecdotal evidence. I'm not sure what they prove.

Bernie Sloan
Sora Associates
Bloomington, IN


--- On Mon, 4/13/09, Adrian <adrian.stanley13@gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Adrian <adrian.stanley13@gmail.com>
> Subject: RE: Digital publishing and university presses
> To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> Date: Monday, April 13, 2009, 9:41 PM
> Joe, always good to read your postings as ever, here's
> an
> additional point to put forward and consider.
>
> I was at an advisory board meeting last week with
> publishers,
> librarians and researchers, one of the questions asked to
> the
> researcher was how many times a day/week would he print out
>
> locally an article from an e-collection to read, add
> comments on
> (it seemed to be agreed that for in-depth reading and
> research,
> it was better not to read the whole article on screen).
>
> The answer was quite surprising, (to me anyway), the
> researcher
> said he would print out 5-15 articles a day, if you
> multiple this
> over a week, month, year and add in another 10-20
> researchers,
> one could easily see how a million pages a year are printed
> out
> locally in the institution. This institution covered all
> the
> printing local costs, I know other libraries will make the
> students contribute to printing costs. This question all
> came
> about because the researcher had said he had to cancel a
> $70
> subscription to a print journal he read. I'm not quite
> sure of
> the exact costs to print this number of pages locally at an
>
> institution, a quick look online at the HP printer costs
> for 5000
> pages ranges from around $600 to $1400 depending on the
> model of
> printer, that would be at least $200,000 a year for the
> above
> researchers, and that is not counting the switch to online
> collections and how this may affect their reading and
> printing
> habits. I'm not saying this researcher is going to be a
> role
> model for all researchers, but it did make me think what
> the
> implications might be if this were the case, and more local
>
> printing will occur in libraries, the environmentalists may
> also
> raise an eyebrow or two as well.
>
> With the possible move to more online only collections, and
>
> reduction in libraries buying printed copies as some
> suggest may
> be a way to make decisions on budget cuts, my question or
> comment
> is; is the local printing cost at a library or institution
> going
> to increase, and is this cost some what hidden and pushed
> outside
> of collection and purchasing decisions ? I was wondering if
> any
> study or research has been done on this area. Alternatively
> an
> additional point is how many of the on-screen reading
> platforms
> and devices will allow comments and highlights to be added
> and
> saved locally by the researcher, so they don't have to
> print out
> paper copies. Is this an area being actively looked into
> and
> developed ?
>
> Looking forward to hearing replies, best wishes.
>
> Adrian Stanley
> Chief Executive Officer
> The Charlesworth Group (USA)
> Web:  <http://www.charlesworth.com>
> www.charlesworth.com
>