RE: AAP/Google in Chronicle of Higher Education

["Anthony Hamber" <anthony.hamber@btinternet.com>]

I've read this thread with considerable interest and thought I might
contribute a very minor footnote.  Word coming out of the Bodleian Library
in Oxford is that the sequential "Aardvark to Zanussi" scanning from top
left of the first book shelf to the bottom right of the last shelf
continues unabated.  I have both a professional and a personal interest in
what's happening on this front - as an author of 'academic' books and
articles (albeit as a 'private scholar') and also as a builder of a
digital learning resource (a digital bibliography) and various articles in
the pipeline.

Jean states:

"Unfortunately, at this point, finding book content is still stuck in the
print era, and that is problematic for those of us trying to educate our
students on authoritative sources in an electronic environment."

Well, I'd like to challenge that assumption.  The 'book of my Ph.D' was
OCR'd in its entirety and made available on amazon.com under its "Search
Inside this book" functionality soon after it launched. I was able to
locate single words and phrases anywhere within the 542 pages of text -
and then page backwards and forwards a couple of pages either side of the
hit.  Given my royalties each year would hardly by a quick round of drinks
for me and the Webmaster of liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu I can't plead the
'I'm loosing revenue' game.  The real challenge is whether there could
there be a double whammy in getting multiple micro-payments from Web users
gaining access to search my book text - and this then spawn those who
prefer to have a copy of the book itself.  Can't say that my publisher, or
Google, or Amazon have come hammering on my door to discuss.

I contacted my publisher when I noticed that my book was in the "Search
inside this book"- "Surely making a copy of the entire work is breaking
fair usage let alone UK copyright law?"  The reply - and this was a couple
of year's ago - was "Ah, but we see it as being no different as being able
to pop into a bookshop and browse."  I robustly challenged that
assertion.!

My quandary is this.  The print run of my book was around 1000 copies.  
When the publisher was bought out a few years back, the new publisher
'lost' all the remaining stock - that was over 30% of the entire print
run!!  So, in the new 'open access' world do I cut my losses and think
about a 2nd hard copy edition - I now have the copyright back in my text
given me 'gratis' by the publisher! (talk about closing the door once the
horse has bolted!) - or do I see what to do with my OCR online version of
text, perhaps offer a 'new improved' 2nd edition.  How do I get back my
OCR'd text into the genie's bottle? Or do I simply offer a bigger and
better text in another bottle?

Presumably these are first term brain teasers posed to the bright young
MBA students at Harvard Business School et al!

Answers on a postcard please!!

Anthony Hamber


Dr. Anthony Hamber
Director
Learning Markets Analysis Ltd.

Direct Tel: +44 (020) 8772 9585
Fax: +44 (020) 8772 9585
Mobile: +44 (0) 7950 263561
email: anthony@learningmarketsanalysis.com


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu]On Behalf Of JBedord@aol.com
Sent: 25 June 2005 02:16
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: AAP/Google in Chronicle of Higher Education

Chuck, thank you for your thoughtful post.  As an adjunct faculty member
teaching online searching at SJSU School of Library and Information
Science, in addition to being an industry analyst, "findability" is indeed
a crucial issue.

>From my viewpoint, the abysmally low usage of traditional scholarly books
is directly related to the lack of indexing of the content in a meaningful
way, as well as complete text indexing. When I give my distance learning
students assignments to find information on topics, I make them explore
the aggregated article databases and the full text databases, using both
structured indexing and full text searching approaches....they are amazed
by the variety of online information available on both free web and
commercial services.

Unfortunately, at this point, finding book content is still stuck in the
print era, and that is problematic for those of us trying to educate our
students on authoritative sources in an electronic environment.

Book publishers need to look at what is happenning with journal
publishers.  This spring I heard speakers from Wiley, Elsevier, and Nature
saying that their traffic from Google now exceeds traffic from PubMed, and
that's a major revenue opportunity.  Indexing and aggregating does cost
money, so there are real advantages to having third parties provide that
service.

We went through the publisher syndrome of "online might cannibalize print"
fears years ago with journals, and found that online increased the market
for both online AND print, by opening up new revenue channels. The old
days of index only databases went by the wayside, first with abstracted
databases, and then with full text.  Today's scholars and students EXPECT
to be able to search full text, and will simply will not find content
buried in print silos.

It's time for book publishers to get in tune with their readers, who after
all, will drive purchases, either individually or through their
institutions.  (Librarians would love to see usage of books in their
collections increase!)  For more insight on the dynamics of the
environment today, I recommend reading "The Long Tail" in Wired magazine,
October 2004: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html . Why
shouldn't book content become as ubiquitous as video and and music in
reaching new audiences?

Warm regards,
Jean Bedord
Consultant, Senior Analyst
Shore Communications Inc.
email: jbedord@shore.com
Phone: 408.257.9221
Fax: 408.252.8078 http://www.shore.com