We started class with a discussion of the history of electronic publishing and a look at the current landscape.
Current facts:
An large, and increasing, amount of a library's budget is spent on electronic resources (including eJournals, citation/abstract databases, eBooks, collections of data, visual and music resources, and software collections). In academic libraries, a large percentage of budget goes to electronic serial subscriptions. The prices for serials subscriptions is going up, while library budgets are not keeping pace. Paid access to electronic resources has a variety of business models--for example paying an annual fee, a per-use charge, or paying for connection time (old model). Some resources are "free" but ask for donations. Some resources are supported by author pay, where contributing authors support the publication.
History:
Databases were the first electronic resource. Dialog was an early database that users could submit queries to (through a trained human intermediary). According the timeline published on Dialog's website, Dialog was created in 1967 and became available as the first commerical online service in 1972. Intermediary users of Dialog were trained in query formulation, because there was a charge for queries/time used. Queries returned citations, not full-text.
In the 1970's and 1980's more databases came online, including business and legal databases. Magnetic tape became a popular, searchable, storage format. Connect time billing was a common business model. End users continued to go through libraries or businesses to get access to commercial online services, which searched databases.
1980's to 1990's Personal computers changed the way users interacted with computers. Emergence of Internet led to wider access to electronic resources. CD roms introduce the era of end-user searching, as opposed to intermediary searching. The 'serials crisis' evolved, as prices for serials went up, and library budgets could not keep up. The cyclical relationship between libraries, users and publishers is threatened by the serials crisis. Publishers have very high profit margins, and have a sort of monopoly on information.
2000's: Steady rise in use of electronic resources. Libraries start licensing electronic resources. Serials crisis continues.
Landscape;
In this first unit we discussed various players in the electronic publishing industry and what their historical and current roles were.
- Library (example: UW)
- Library Consortia (example: WiLS, OhioLink). Groups of libraries that get together to leverage buying power.
- Scholarly Publisher (example: ACS, Nature)
- Commercial Publisher (example: Elsevier, Emerald, Wiley/Blackwell, Wilson, Springer). Large companies that publish academic journals in a for-profit model.
- Intermediary/Aggregator (example: Ebscohost, Gale, Proquest, Ovid, Ingenta, Highwire, InfoTrac, Engineering Village) Brings together collections of databases, hosts content, allows cross-database searching, assists with intermediary tasks.
- Intermediary (example: SWETS). Services: help with resource acquisition and maintenance, including licensing, statistics, link-resolve access, etc. Directory of intermediaries.
- Online Provider (example: JSTOR, Ebsco, Dialog, Project Muse, WestLaw, Proquest)
- Software Vendor (example: CrossRef)
- Information Vendor (example: LexisNexis, Dialog)
All of these companies have just been a blur of background scenery and logos in all my database searching. It is nice to start to separate them out into distinct entities, with (sort of) distinct roles. There seems to be overlap in the companies and their roles. Ebsco, for example is an online provider, an intermediary, and an aggregator.
The general idea that I take away is that there are several providers. Some provide just one service, some provide a "buffet" of services that libraries can choose from. Each provider has its own business model, and often interacts with other providers in an information supply chain.
References:
In addition to the class reading, I also read this article in an open access journal about the serials crisis, and found it useful and interesting:
McGuigan, Glenn S., and Robert D. Russell. "The
Business of Academic Publishing: A Strategic Analysis of the Academic
Journal Publishing Industry and its Impact on the Future of Scholarly
Publishing." E-JASL: The Electronic Journal of Academic and Special
Librarianship (2008)Print.
Class readings:1. Miller, Ruth H. (2000). "Electronic Resources and Academic Libraries, 1980-2000: A Historical Perspective." Library Trends, 48(4), 645-670.
2. Tenopir, C. and D.W. King (2000) Toward Electronic Journals: Realities for Scientists, Librarians and Publishers. Special Libraries Association: Washington DC. Chapter 2 and 15 "History of Traditional and Electronic Scientific Journal Publishing" and "Transformation to Electronic Publishing" .
3. Roger C. Schonfeld, (2005) "JSTOR: a case study in the recent history of scholarly communications", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 39 Iss: 4, pp.337 - 344
4. Armstrong, Chris & Lonsdale, Ray. (2006). “A general overview of the e-resource industry.” The E-Resources Management Handbook. UKSG Publishing. http://uksg.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.1629/9552448-0-3.1.1
5. Turner, Rollo. (2006). “The vital link: the role of the intermediary in e-resources.” The E-Resources Management Handbook. UKSG Publishing http://uksg.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.1629/9552448-0-3.3.1
6. Chambers, M. B. & So, S. Y. (2004). "Full-text Aggregator Database Vendors and Journal Publishers: A Study of a Complex Relationship." Serials Review, 30 (3), 183-193.
7. Mabe, Michael. (2006). “(Electronic) Journal Publishing” The E-Resources Management Handbook. UKSG Publishing. http://uksg.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.1629/9552448-0-3.6.1
8. Pentz (2001) “CrossRef : a collaborative linking network” Issues in science and technology librarianship iss:29 http://www.istl.org/01-winter/article1
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