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Fellowship experience broadens the family WorldCat.org: Advanced citations Moving our global cooperative forward Expanding research opportunities for the cooperative The next steps toward Web scale Three new ways to experience WorldCat.org Download this issue (3.56 MB pdf)
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Libraries and the changing role of creators and consumersBy Andy Havens and Tom Storey “Communications tools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.” So wrote Clay Shirky in his 2008 book, Here Comes Everybody. He goes on to say that, “It’s when a technology becomes normal, then ubiquitous, and finally so pervasive as to be invisible, that the really profound changes happen.” According to a 2010 R. R. Bowker study, 764,448 self-published and micro-niche titles came out in 2009. That’s more than twice the number—288,355—of traditional books published that year. And that’s just books. The publishing work of “regular people” can also reasonably be said to encompass some substantial portion of 234 million Web sites, 126 million blogs, 4 billion pictures on Flickr and the 1 billion+ videos served up every day on YouTube. In which case, the technology of personal publishing is now somewhere between “ubiquitous” and “pervasive.” Get ready for things to get socially interesting.
Creating a blog or Web page, uploading a photo or video … even designing and publishing a print-on-demand book are no longer unusual, niche activities, and anyone can create, or even publish, personal content. NextSpace asked two leaders from different sides of publishing to comment on the future of publishing and how libraries can fit in. The University as Publisher
For the past two years, Catherine Mitchell, Director, Publishing, California Digital Library, has been involved in an effort to coordinate the services of the library and University Press in order to better support and manage the University of California’s scholarly output. The goal of the initiative—the University as Publisher—is to help the university reclaim its core intellectual asset (i.e., the knowledge it produces) and assert itself more powerfully in the marketplace of scholarly communication. In the process, the university shores up its values, and its value. “Despite the daunting complexity of the task, universities must take responsibility for managing their own scholarly output or risk losing control of that core intellectual capital,” she says. “If we don’t, someone else will. And it won’t be pretty. We’re talking about our institutions’ major asset. “If we miss the boat on this, we hand off opportunities to partner with our faculty around issues of intellectual property, curation and preservation standards, and transformative models of scholarly communication. We simply become the ‘buyer.’ And, we risk getting locked into untenable licensing agreements in order to gain or regain access to the very research that our own faculty are producing.” And of course, this is more than just keeping the university’s own assets neatly arranged in portfolios. It’s really about access, Catherine says. “We have an opportunity here as a community to put a stake in the ground, to work to protect our institutions’ investments in academic research by inserting ourselves, wherever possible, into the flow of scholarly communication,” Catherine says. “It is a massive space—with a great many unmet or poorly met scholarly communications needs, a space with opportunities for universities and colleges to engage deeply, solve problems and operate as a transformative force.” The University as Publisher initiative is designed to be that transformative force for the University of California’s 10-campus system, whose academic output is not insubstantial. The reality is that UC generates an extraordinary amount of diverse scholarly output that needs management. Each year, UC faculty alone publish upwards of 30,000 journal articles; UC researchers are granted nearly 300 patents; and the university awards thousands of advanced degrees for the completion of theses and dissertations. The building blocks of these culminating research efforts are the working papers, seminar series, conferences, data sets, 3D visualizations and more that are produced across the UC system. It is this vast collection of UC-sourced knowledge that represents nothing less than the core intellectual capital of the institution.
We have an opportunity here as a community to put a stake in the ground, to work to protect our institutions’ investments in academic research by inserting ourselves, wherever possible, into the flow of scholarly communication.”
—Catherine Mitchell, Director, Publishing, California Digital Library How the University as Publisher initiative worksThe California Digital Library (CDL), the digital arm of the UC campus libraries, has teamed up with the UC Press to create a new program called UC Publishing Services (UCPubS). UCPubS builds on the distinct activities and unique strengths of each entity—the library as a service provider and the press as a publisher—to offer a continuum of new services that can reach out to monographic publishing programs at UC. Those services include an easy-to-use publishing platform that provides a suite of open-access digital and print tools, such as electronic and print-on-demand publication, as well as manuscript management, distribution, sales and marketing. In addition, the program provides consulting services to researchers on copyright, curation, formats and any other issue of concern to faculty. Prior to this new publishing venture, the CDL and the press had a long history of experimental publishing projects, ranging from digitizing backlist files to the creation of a digital critical edition platform and the revitalization of languishing monographic series. The difference between those boutique efforts and today’s direction is scale: UCPubS provides the scale needed to touch UC’s centers, institutes and academic departments system-wide, and to extend the library and the Press’s ability to surface UC research to the global community. Embedded librarians“We are working to get involved in research farther upstream, rather than dealing reactively with it once it comes to us fully formed and looking for copyright advice, preservation services, a publications platform or a sustainability model,” Catherine says. “We’re there talking to the researchers as they are creating their works and advising them about format, copyright and publication options. “It also enables ‘on-the-ground librarians’ to continue to develop and expand those strong networks of faculty users and potential users.” A key to making the new initiative work was repositioning the library’s Institutional Repository as a publications platform. “We needed to engage our users with the notion that the library could be their publisher,” Catherine says. “We started to frame our discussions in terms of needs, not ideology. We stopped encouraging faculty to submit their work to the repository simply because it’s a good thing to do. We learned how better to communicate the value of our services and paid attention to unique disciplinary practices and concerns of ladder rank faculty. And we got out there to sell it.” Catherine’s team began with a series of strategic questions for their internal customers:
Dropping the word “repository” and describing the services in terms of needs and opportunities changed the tone for the entire process. Institutional repository deposit became a byproduct of the services being provided rather than an end in itself. “It’s important for libraries to recognize that we have a real opportunity here to bring substantial publishing services to our campus communities.” After one year, UCPubS has seen impressive growth, Catherine says. There are 60 titles in the program, which represents an additional 30 percent on top of UC Press’s typical yearly book title list. And there are 13 new publishing partners. But the most exciting thing is the potential market for UCPubS. There are 50 more monograph programs that could be participants, as well as 300 publishing programs and 1,800 research units scattered across the 10-campus system that could join. UCPubS could bring a streamlined publishing system to these areas to make them more efficient and help them concentrate on what they do best—the editorial work that distinguishes their publication efforts. Books were the pilot project, but Catherine hopes to continue to work with her UC Press colleagues to grow UCPubS to accommodate other publication types as well. She also sees UCPubS providing features that strengthen discovery and better integrate publications and their data. Catherine concedes that there’s risk for libraries with the program, but with risks there’s also opportunity. “Publishing is sometimes characterized as a departure from the library’s core concerns. And yet, publishing is in fact deeply resonant with the original charge and fundamental core competencies of the library—to intervene in and engage deeply with national and international scholarly communications issues, recognizing that the digital revolution has and will continue to profoundly alter the ways in which scholars communicate their work, and will offer new opportunities for the academy to reclaim the dissemination of its scholarship.” The library as publisher: Local book manufacturing and delivery
Andrew Pate is a 25-year veteran in the book publishing industry with a focus on new technologies. Currently, he is Senior Vice President of Business Development at On Demand Books, which markets and manufactures the Espresso Book Machine, a machine that automatically prints, binds and trims perfect-bound, library-quality paperback books in about four minutes—all at the point-of-need. He previously was Senior Vice President of Global Operations at Lulu.com—the leading Web-based publishing platform. Prior to that he was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Rutledge Hill Press, successfully transitioning a general trade publisher to become part of Thomas Nelson, the largest Christian publishing company in the world and the seventh largest trade book publishing company in the U.S. It was there that he first incorporated the very early print-on-demand capabilities as an inventory solution. From there, he has been a key proponent of technologies enabling the exploding self-publishing and Web-based publishing markets. “There are huge shifts going on in publishing, and yes, it has been going on for a long time,” Andrew says. “A term I’ve used to summarize the changes is the convergence of intellectual property and technology.” Andrew explains that there is a convergence of intellectual property and technology taking place in music, video/film, and more and more in books. The explosion of self-published materials, the prevalence of desktop publishing, advances in digital printing—all tied together by the Internet—is creating new markets and opportunities. Different business models, new delivery mechanisms and how this convergence is bringing together creators and consumers is exciting, he says, and reflective of our heritage. “The connection between author/creator and reader/consumer is something very special, and it has been throughout our culture,” he says. For example, Andrew talked about how in 1640, the first book produced in the U.S. colonies was the Bay Psalm Book. Instead of bringing livestock or foodstuffs or equipment to the New World, colonists brought an entire print shop. “When I think about the economic value and what that represents … Producing locally generated, user-generated content was really important to these folks. It’s important for us to retain that value.” Trends in publishing
How libraries are searching globally and publishing locallyJust as the Internet has changed the way in which we find and use many digital materials, it is now changing how we can access physical items. If it is less expensive to print a new copy of a book locally than to ship it between libraries, print-on-demand could become a new type of resource sharing. And for works with hyper-local significance—histories, journals, travel materials, biographies, personal fine art—could short-run publishing services bring an entire new audience to the library—an audience of people looking for an audience? Xerox is largely credited with establishing the on-demand printing industry when, in 1990, the company introduced the Docutech Production Publisher. Its 135-page-per-minute, black and white, xerographic print engine and attached finisher module was arguably the first, fully integrated “print-on-demand” publishing system. Since then, POD technologies have fueled a range of new book-creation and publishing opportunities. Other POD companies include Lulu, Blurb, QooP, TheBookPatch, Trafford Publishing, NetPublications, Outskirts Press and Amazon’s Booksurge.
The New Orleans Public Library, the University of Michigan, the University of Utah and the University of Pittsburgh are using the machine in the following ways:
The Espresso Book Machine also has the ability to connect with other print-on-demand equipment and other content providers, including publishers, content aggregators, libraries, university presses and self-publishing sites, to build a vast network where users can search and discover content. The books can be ordered and produced on-site and integrated with a library Web site so that users can order books remotely via the Internet. Right now, On Demand Books is involved with digital collections of several research libraries, primarily for sustainability purposes, Andrew says. “We think we can put those collections out across a network of machines so that other research libraries can find them.” Changes and opportunitiesNowhere has the impact of the Internet been felt more than in publishing—both popular and professional—where age-old, traditional industry practices are giving way to a digital world vastly different than the one we are leaving behind. But, where there is change, there is opportunity. And the vast new world of publishing offers libraries some interesting new opportunities to connect with users and extend value to the community. As personal, institutional and on-demand publishing blur the lines of creators and consumers, libraries can still call upon traditional, professional values to help people find and utilize scholarly and cultural materials. But those values must be leveraged across increasingly innovative and inclusive tools. Finding ways in which to connect these new technologies to the communities they serve may be the next big challenge for libraries in the 21st century.
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From newspapers to popular magazines, from scholarly journals to e-books, from smart phones to print-on-demand “vending” machines, publishing is more complicated than it once was. The Internet has created new patterns of using information—both in terms of creating content as well as consuming it. Publishers are blending their print business with new digital brands, adding a new level of engagement. Thousands of individuals, companies, schools and businesses have taken the tools of literary and scholarly production into their own hands.
Physical distribution. Old math=print a bunch of books, store them and sell them. New math=sell the book, then print it. This conserves cash, eliminates waste and mitigates returns.
Rights. Today, why would anyone give up their rights? You retain your rights with self-publishing and creative commons license. You don’t want to wait 18 months.
Metadata. How do librarians find out about titles in all these formats, and determine the ones most appropriate for their collections? Traditional library suppliers aren’t (yet) offering user-generated content. How can librarians add rich bibliographic data to user-generated content so that it is discoverable through existing (and new) library channels?
Ambiguity. There is a great deal of ambiguity as to which publishing platforms, what products and what technologies are going to prevail even just three years out. It is important to be engaged and not sitting back waiting for one to become predominant.
Music. The music industry really missed the trend toward self-publishing. Today, the industry is about the same size as it was 10 years ago and all of us know there is lots more music being produced and disseminated in different ways. The music industry really missed this part of its business perhaps by not knowing their customers, their consumers and their patrons.
Self-publishing. There is really no end to the demands for self-publishing or the ideas that people have. This has become a multibillion dollar market place at the retail level in the last 10 years, due to the tool sets available. 
