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Stephen Rhind-Tutt, President,

Stephen Rhind-Tutt, President, “Where are we?  Where are we going?  A survey of the electronic publishing landscape” SSP November, 2007. Overview. About us Aggregation and discovery Adding value Web 2.0. About us. About Alexander Street Press. Founded in July 2000

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Stephen Rhind-Tutt, President,

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  1. Stephen Rhind-Tutt, President, “Where are we?  Where are we going?  A survey of the electronic publishing landscape” SSP November, 2007

  2. Overview • About us • Aggregation and discovery • Adding value • Web 2.0

  3. About us

  4. About Alexander Street Press • Founded in July 2000 • Scholarly, electronic publisher in the Humanities • Based in Alexandria, Virginia • 70 employees • 1000+ licensing partners, including Warner Bros., Penguin Putnam, Faber & Faber, Macmillan, University Presses, etc… • Special collection partners include AAS, Library of Congress, NYPL, Wisconsin State Historical Society, South Hadley Historical Society, and many more. • Sell to libraries around the world

  5. The Portfolio Sociology World Literature Religion Performing Arts, Drama, and Film Social and Cultural History American Civil War Black Studies Women’s History Psychotherapy Music

  6. Our Mission To craft electronic products of exceptional utility and quality, using the skills of librarianshipand traditional publishing“To give voice to those who would otherwise be silent”

  7. Surrendering control • Loss of proprietary gateways to content • Expensive, new technologies • Most content not created by publishers • Large new players with enormous network advantages • Mission statements that are the same as publishers/librarians

  8. Aggregation and Discovery

  9. What stage is the web at? 1913 1931 1954 1985 2018 1995 ?

  10. Car in 1904 • ‘Quadricycles’, ‘Phaetons’, ‘Horseless Carriages’, ‘Autocars’, ‘Motor cars’ ? • Horsepower to weight ratio - Electric, Hydrogen or Gasoline ? • Materials – Wood, Steel, or combination ? • Production line – Custom or mass produced ? • Starting Systems – Manual or electric ? • Legal – UK law restricting speed to 5 mph • Education – Would population be able to master the machines ? • Costs – Typically in excess of $2,000 (Source: Various Articles in The Living Age, 1904)

  11. Car in 1920 • Motor cars • Horsepower to weight ratio - Gasoline and clearly going to improve in future • Materials – Steel • Production line – Mass produced • Starting Systems – Electric • Legal– Building of highways • Education – No longer an issue • Costs – Model T cost $400

  12. Electronic Journals vs. books…

  13. Portals make most use of the medium...

  14. Understanding electronic products Value in the electronic world is about... Performance “The manner in which or the efficiency with which something reacts or fulfills its intended purpose” Webster’s Unabridged

  15. Aggregation and Discovery

  16. Remixability • No one site will contain all information • Effective publication is a function of delivering the right content, in the right way to the right people. • To do this we will need high quality access to content across different publishers, libraries and websites. Discoverability – Aggregation – Value added

  17. Nature of electronic publications Page Page Page Page Page Page Page Page Page • Pliable • Constantly evolving • Without place • Practically unlimited in size • Atomic • Interconnected • Interdependent • Connection vs. the object

  18. It’s about the links… • Links document intellectual pathways through data • Indexing links adds value substantially • Links • Prevent duplication of indexing, content and commentary • Links are expensive to create and maintain • Versioning is critical to scholarship. • Some links confer authority • ‘Links are intrinsically bidirectional’ (Ted Nelson)

  19. Loss of control issues Option A: Link to resource • Low cost • Lower utility • Changing URLs prevents access. “We won’t license…it’s on our site already and we don’t want to lose the usage…” • Option B: License resource • High cost (royalties) • Loading cost • High functionality • Permanence in collection

  20. Integration is unavoidable Loosely integrated Free Websites Refuse to License $ $ Loosely Held Tightly Held License widely and be a Licensor License widely $ $ Tightly integrated

  21. Building the network… • Unhelpful • Legal warnings not to link • Changing links constantly • Disabling links • No permanent URLs • No crawling • Randomly changing URLs • Insisting on one interface and one access point • Unattached pages • Helpful • Citations visible to the outside world • Permanent URLs • RSS feeds • OpenURL • Design for multiple interfaces • Open to crawling • Published APIs • Welcome linking • Ask others to do the same

  22. No silos! OpenURL links directly to ASP content Search via library catalog (direct or federated) Search via ASP interface e.g. RILM, Grove Music Online OpenURL links directly to other databases Search the library catalog Search the web

  23. Result of an external search

  24. Unlock the value… Search Tool Newspapers Images Place: Alexandria, Virginia Personal Work Bench Grant’s Memoirs Films Music Books Discipline Tool

  25. www.inthefirstperson.com • Free index to first-person narratives • The most comprehensive archive of social history yet created • Perform in-depth field and keyword searches across scholarly materials that are freely available on the Web • Also indexes for fee letters, diaries, oral histories, memoirs, and autobiographies within Alexander Street Press databases • Access thousands of personal narratives from the English-speaking world, in a single search

  26. www.inthefirstperson.com OPAC or Google Free: Materials submitted by the user community Hogan Jazz Archive Students of the Sixties Free: Public Web collections, semantically indexed by Alexander Street ($) Alexander Street collections containing first-person materials

  27. Context and selection

  28. Search Power

  29. Organized Results

  30. Adding value

  31. Electronic publishing… • Not just reproducing paper… • Electronic versions are often deliberately changed to improve performance • Reduced color and clarity for faster display • Change size for improved screen display • Transcriptions for increased searchability • Citations for improved searching • Mark-up interspersed with text itself • The connection is more important than the object

  32. Digital Surrogates… Black & White Dirty OCR 100 dpi Page 99.995% rekeying Grayscale JPG Transcriptions Letter 100 dpi 24 bit color 600 dpi Citation Thumbnails 48 bit color TIFF MARC Record Facsimiles Collection EAD Finding Aid TCP-IP Mobile Web Repository Semantic Indexing

  33. Mixing text and mark-up… • Printed Reference: • Xitztum JL, Galinski W: Are microbiological mechanisms • relevant for the development of atherosclerosis? • Clin Immunol90 153-156, 1999 • Example 1: • <reference_data id=“r0173159” rnum=“159”> • Xitztum JL, Galinski W: Are microbiological mechanisms relevant • for the development of atherosclerosis? • <emph type=“ital”> Clin Immunol </emph> • <emph type=“bold”> 90 </emph>:153&ndash;156, 1999 • </refdata> • Example 2: • <artref id=“i0012” anum=“159”> • <authors><author><surname>Xitztum</surname><finitials> JL</finitials> • </auther><author><surname>Galinski</surname><finitials>W</finitials> • </author></authors><title>Are microbiological mechanisms relevant for the development of atherosclerosis?</title><journal>Clin Immunol</journal> • <volume>90</volume><pagerange><spage>153</spage><epage>156</epage> • </pagerange><pubyear>1999</pubyear></artref>

  34. Native Format TIFF PDF HTML SGML XML Distributing Page Images Re-purposing Searching Component Reuse Enforce Standards Interchange Relative Cost 0 .25 - .75 per page .50 - 3 per page 2 - 5 per page 2 – 8 per page 2 - 6 per page None Excellent Very Good Good Limited Evaluating different formats Format Use Source: Don Bridges, 48th Annual STC Conference, Presentation, May 2002. www.dclabs.com

  35. Functionality vs. Preservation High VRML Flash Functionality TIFF $10/image XML $1.50/page ASCII JPG 8 cents/page High Low Level of Mark-up

  36. ‘Semantic’ Indexing Word Page Chapter Book or Volume Traditional indexing > ‘Semantic’ indexing > Series Who ? What ? Collection When ? Where ?

  37. The ‘real’ world Venue Director Production Author Theater Dramatis Personae Producer Location Performance Play Lighting Set Designers Production Company Performers Texts Ephemera Production Stills Criticism Scenes Characters Playbills Cast List Acts Posters

  38. The virtual world… Resources Play Director Theater Production Co. Character Scene Etc… (45 fields) Company Name Productions Performers Etc… (14 fields) Production Director Theater Cast # of Perfs.LightingCostumes Etc… (47 fields) Author Birth date Death date Birth Place Death Place Nationality Occupation Awards (38 fields) Theater District Location Capacity Style Etc… (18 fields) Texts KeywordAuthor Date WrittenDate Published Production (67 fields) Characters Plays Age Author Performer Etc… (30 fields) Scenes Where When Setting Subject Etc… (41 fields)

  39. The virtual world… Resources Play Director Theater Production Co. Character Scene Etc… (45 fields) Company Name Productions Performers Etc… (14 fields) Production Director Theater Cast # of Perfs.LightingCostumes Etc… (47 fields) Author Birth date Death date Birth Place Death Place Nationality Occupation Awards (38 fields) Theater District Location Capacity Style Etc… (18 fields) Texts KeywordAuthor Date WrittenDate Published Production (67 fields) Characters Plays Age Author Performer Etc… (30 fields) Scenes Where When Setting Subject Etc… (41 fields)

  40. Traditional vs. Semantic Indexing • Give me articles from journal xxx prior to 1990 • Give me documents that discuss battles where more than 100 people were killed? • Give me all scenes set before 1850 that portray lynching? • Which authors cite Genesis most frequently?

  41. ‘Semantic’ Indexing • Identify and divide texts into content elements (e.g. letter, diary entry…) • Identify key concepts for these elements • (e.g. authors, sources, battles, encounters…) • Index both elements and associated concepts • Integrate to form a cohesive whole • Unique ways of browsing through concepts • Unique ways to ask questions

  42. Tables of Contents

  43. Search functionality

  44. Web 2.0 – what relevance?

  45. Participation • Playlists on ASP’s music products – 19,000 users • Over 100,000 playlists created so far • 800 created by ASP • 38,000 user created • 70,000 derivative playlists

  46. Playlists

  47. Playlists

  48. Never ending value… Processintegration Workflow tools Semantic indexing Commissioning? Linking Community building Asset management Free materials Editorial? Rare and unpublished material Licensing Unified search software Simple, one database search Public domain reprints Interactions? Warehousing Quality? Print directory Selection? Print monograph Printing Typesetting Growing Fading

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