RE: AAP/Google in Chronicle of Higher Education

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

Bob, I'm probably as worried as a librarian can be about the future of the
monograph (no matter what format). Book publishers have been extremely
slow in my opinion, to innovate. I WANT books especially scholarly books,
to survive. What they do can't be done in journal articles i.e. the
multiperspective, the careful development of complex concepts, the pulling
together of an extended informed presentation on the author's topic. This
form of entering into public debate and consciousness is not duplicated by
the article.

AT the same time, as a librarian, I see journal articles swamping whatever
awareness individual students and scholars have of the means and tools of
reasoned articulate, civilized discussion. A large part of this has to do
with HOW journal articles are identified vs. book contents. We have
massive database driven indexes, we have the open URL, and we have special
search tools within databases, and controlled vocabularies, thesauri for
special topic fields.--all these tools make the journal article more
findable, more accessible, and more usable.

How do books take their rightful place in the electronic environment as
significant scholarly sources? So far the major models we have don't
result in very high usage of the content in my experience. The different
silos of e-books aren't very helpful. I realize there are advocates for
e-book usage results, but in my experience, they just don't get the kind
of usage that justifies the kinds of investments being made in e-books.
So, what's the solution? I would suggest right now we know of two basic
things that can enhance the utility of books: one I suggest is purely
technical and absolutely legal, the other, where I think google is coming
down, requires re-engineering the landscape of monographic literature
through a massive indexing project.

On the purely technical level, I want to see tables of contents, which are
often embedded in records in library online catalogs, linking directly to
individual chapters and every other place a TOC appears (like Amazon for
instance). We have tools that index at the chapter level right now, it's
the library catalog and other TOC services. In many ways that is analogous
to title level identification for journal articles but we don't link at
the chapter level out to those electronic chapters.-or instantly identify
the item is print only-though the Worldcat Google indexing COULD be an
automatic link from TOC indexing I guess...for one thing the system of
chapter level access in MOST e-book systems just doesn't support the
zeroing in even at the chapter level. Its sort of similar to where
e-journals were when all publishers would support was site level linking
or journal title level linking. Deep linking is what has made journal
articles instantly accessible. We need on the purely technical level, full
scale linking to usable text in books at least at the chapter level.

On the environmental level, we need much better comprehensive, I think,
indexing. Word by word indexing, as seen in the many indexes in books
comes to mind as one approach. It seems to me this is where google print
and other google approaches comes in. they have the technical expertise to
provide indexing that publishers could be supporting, It's at no cost to
them, and highlights the content in their Intellectual property. Is what
google print, for instance, doing, so different (especially since the text
they show is so un-usable for cutting, pasting, even citing!) from the
hundreds of indexes that indexing databases provide? A structure, I would
remind everyone, that journal publishers didn't have to do much to cause
to come into existence, but stems from a generations long project of
indexing and abstracting practices that by itself supports a myriad of
avenues into journal literatures. I'd argue that google print's scanning
and use of those scans, is analogous to the journal article indexing
already standard practice in the serials literature.

And it can't happen soon enough, if books, even e-books are going to
survive in terms of usage in the millennial generation's idea of where to
go for information. I don't think we have 20 years, or even 10 to debate
the future of the book. Its happening right now, and it can be lost I
would guess in the next 5 years or less.

So Massive indexing of monographs which is what I see google print
actually doing, is critical for the survival--the survival as usable text,
of the book, to keep it from becoming nothing more than an interesting
artifact of civilization.

I'd say if publishers don't want a future for the book then by all means,
pull out the stops and go after google, or any other company audacious
enough to provide indexing--a commonplace for the journal article
literature. On the other hand, look at usage data on e-books, no matter
what platform, and I think you will see the book is not right now in the
same playing field, the same ground, or even the same universe as the
journal article. The book's utility is being drowned out by snippets of
information via articles.

So I think these two approaches:

First: better accessibility from existing tools like catalogs, amazon and
other indexes ala the Open URL structure or fixed URL structure--a purely
technical approach linking at the chapter level everywhere a chapter is
mentioned in sales and finding tools. (including indexing and abstracting
sources the commonly include books)

Second: Massive full text indexing, with enough "context" to let
individuals know if they need to go "get" the book wherever that is(in
lieu perhaps of abstracts?)

The constructive approach I would suggest, is to work with google to link
from the google "print" -actually dumb-print-version to the full text
version at publisher or vendor controlled, metered or subscribed site. Is
that happening? If it is I haven't heard about it.

The whole library and vendor and publisher community has had to be engaged
to create Open URL linking. Why not see if google can support some sort of
standard for linking into non-functional books to functional e-book
linking. They are building the master index (that is what they do) with
their scanning, why not use it to link to the "official" copy or copies
that individuals can actually "use"?

So again, I see the scanning as something other than "scanning" but in
this instance it looks to me like indexing. Scanning the whole item to
provide a "free" index for publishers and book readers and users seems to
me in the best interest of everyone concerned. Journal publishers don't
opt out of journal indexes, because they know it enhances their journal
sales. Why wouldn't the same thing be true of whole book indexing?

PS

Bob, thanks for the primer, it's a good dose of legal reality, but I hope
the legality doesn't impede progress in supporting access to books. WE all
have a lot to gain if massive indexing and promotion of book content is
sustainable legally.

Thanks


Chuck Hamaker
Associate University Librarian Collections and Technical Services
Atkins Library
University of North Carolina Charlotte
Charlotte, NC 28223
phone 704 687-2825