Summertime and the Reading Is Easy
My nominee for a summer reading book, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. This is a humorous book set in San Francisco. It playfully describes the clash between the new technology and the old world of printed books.
The Gatekeeper Strategy in the Library Market
EBSCO is now, through the acquisition of YBP, the largest vendor to academic libraries of both serials and books. This is the beginning of a gatekeeper strategy, which will put EBSCO in a position to mediate a large proportion of the arrangements between publishers and libraries.
Guest Book Review: Disaster Planning for Libraries: Process and Guidelines
University of Utah Preservation Librarian Randy Silverman reviews Guy Robertson’s “Disaster Planning for Libraries: Process and Guidelines”.
How Does the University Press Remain Relevant?
The university press world is ruminating on its relevance in a broader community that does not always show strong report for press activity. Different presses have identified a number of approaches to the problem of increasing relevance.
Connecting to End-Users
Digital media enables us to collect a huge amount of end-user data, far more than we could gather for print publishing. This presentation summarizes the way that data can be used to foster growth and concludes that end-user data is likely to require the creation of a new class of products.
Can We Stop Talking about the “System” of Scholarly Communications, Please?
There are countless proposals for a new “system” for scholarly communications, but such plans are typically top-down and overlook all the creative initiatives by individuals working independently.
So You Think Your Bookcase is Overcrowded…
Want to see 500,000 books moved to a new location?
The Half-life of Print
Popular discussion of the enduring popularity of print often obfuscate the business issues of managing a company that is transitioning from print to digital.
Public Access: Getting Medical Information to Patients
Highlighting efforts by medical publishers to help get information into the hands of patients and caregivers.
Version Control; or, What does it Mean to “Publish?”
The Oxford English Dictionary’s overarching definition of the transitive verb “publish” is “to make public.” An early use, dating to 1382 is “to prepare and issue copies of (a book, newspaper, piece of music, etc.).” This is probably how most […]
The Enduring Mystery of the Academic Book Market
New research on book publishing shows that ebook usage is growing and that the academic and professional segment is maturing, while still growing at a steady pace.
5 Million Public Domain Ebooks in HathiTrust: What Does This Mean?
The HathiTrust archive now contains 5 million digitized books that are in the public domain and are freely available to all. Do we recognize how significant that is?
The Ubiquitous Bookstore
There is much discussion now about creating new online bookstores, especially for academic publishers. Some of these discussions, however, are not aligned with overarching trends on the Internet and risk creating something that appears to be out of date the moment it is launched.
Brian Dettmer: Old Books Reborn As Intricate Art
Artist Brian Dettmer celebrates the book as physical object through his art.
Guest Post: Karin Wulf on Open Access and Historical Scholarship
As we consider the future of scholarly publishing generally and of open access in particular, we need to keep in mind the deep differences between the humanities and the applied sciences when it comes to both the production and the consumption of scholarship–and the implications of those differences for new dissemination models.