stephen rhind-tutt, president, successful models for digital content march 23, 2009
TRANSCRIPT
Stephen Rhind-Tutt, President,
Successful models for digital content
March 23, 2009
Overview
• The challenge• Towards a better business model
• Partnerships, licensing, ‘openness’• Community, discipline focus• Indexing and Organization• Workflow
Alexander Street Press, LLC
• Founded in 2000• 70 people• Based in Alexandria, VA• Specialize in publishing large scale electronic collections – books, music, video, magazines• Over 1,500 business partners
Disciplines
Performing Arts, Drama, and Film
Diversity Literature
Women’s History
Religion
CounselingMusic
Social and Cultural History
Sociology
Black Studies
American Civil War
The Challenge
The Challenge
By 2012 the web will contain
• 90% of published works prior to 1923
• Majority of works published to 2012
• > 20 Billion pages of e-mail, phone logs, databases, blogs and websites (currently 12 Billion)
• > 10 Billion photographs
• > 40 Million pages of facsimiles of manuscripts
• > 50 Million audio files
• > 500 Million video files
Nature of the network
• Atomic• Interconnected • Interdependent• Value of the Connection = Value of the object• Free lives alongside for fee
• Pliable• Constantly evolving• Practically unlimited in size
Free Page
Free Page
Free Page
Free Page
For fee Page
Free Page
Free Page
Free Page
Free Page
With literally billions of pages…
What tools will we need ?
• Beyond paper
• Higher editorial value
• High functionality
• Semantically Organized
• More comprehensive
• Individually customizable
• Discipline, community centric
• Web/network centric
Licensing/Partnerships/Being Open
Summary
•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.
•Success is a function of being ‘of the community’ rather than owning the community
Integration is unavoidable
Loosely Held Tightly Held
Free Websites
Loosely integrated
Tightlyintegrated
Refuse to License
License widely
License widelyand be a Licensor
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
•Visibility
•Permanent URLs
•RSS feeds
•OpenURL
•Design for multiple interfaces
•Open to crawling
•Published APIs
•Welcome linking
•Ask others to do the same
Individual unit vs. database
1990
2005
2015
Books, DVDs, CDs, Newspapers
Databases
Blogs, Articles
2020
Community & Discipline focus
Disciplines
• 250,000 tracks of music• 200,000 pages of scores• 100,000 pages of reference works• 300 opera DVDs• Fully indexed and organized• Growing all the time• Sold as a subscription to academic libraries
Newsletters
Journals
Monographs
Textbooks
Academic Tools
External Publishers Free Websites
Lay Tools
One search
Search returns 81 related items:• Metadata on the composition• Symphonic performances (audio)• Operatic performances (video)• Original score• Related reference materials• [journal articles?]
Search for title = “magic flute”
• A tool to create, cite and share online content
• 4 basic steps– Choose (any) piece of content
– Annotate it
– Set permissions (personal, institutional, public)
– Share via email or via electronic reserve with a single permanent URL
• Over 150,000 individual playlists created by 45,000 academics and scholars
• Currently works for video and music
Playlists
Video
Video
Video
Web
Grove
Reference
Score
Playlists
Student at Texas Tech University
Course instructor at Wellesley College
Indexing & Organization
‘Semantic’ Indexing
Collection
Series
Book or Volume
Chapter
Page
Word
Where ?
When ?
What ?
Who ?Traditio
nal indexing >
‘Semantic’ indexing >
The ‘right’ information
CAB – (Husbandry)
Agricola (Agriculture)
OSH-ROM(Occupational Health and Safety)
Biosis (Species)
Long term factors influencing combustion and burn rates in North American forests. David Jones, Journal of Forest Husbandry, Sept 1999.
Semantic Indexing…
Client Therapist Symptom TherapyDrug nameGeneric nameDosageDSM Code…
DocumentAuthorPub. DateJournal TitleDoc. Type…
GenderMarital StatusOccupationAge RangeSexual Orient.…
GenderExperienceEducation Lvl.School of Therapy…
PhysicalMentalDSM Code…
Semantic Indexing…
Client Therapist Symptom TherapyDrug nameGeneric nameDosageDSM Code…
DocumentTextAuthorPub. DateJournal TitleDoc. Type…
GenderMarital StatusOccupationAge RangeSexual Orient.…
GenderExperienceEducation Lvl.School of Therapy…
PhysicalMentalDSM Code…
All male therapists mentioning the word ‘drink’ to female clients
Semantic Indexing – Search Power
• More than a way to answer questions• A framework by which users can be guided to
understand, explore, discover and learn.• A route-map to guide users through data - saving time
and effort.• Delivers answers that cannot be asked elsewhere
• The strategic high ground in any discipline• Provides unique, high value added for users• Competitive advantage in licensing content
Semantic Indexing…
Customer Workflow
Utility of information
Civil War Research Database
Civil War Research Database
Whom did he serve with?
Where did they fight?
What happened to him?
Extract from ‘A fortnight with the Sanitary’ Atlantic Monthly, Feb 1865
The American Civil War Online
Letters & Diaries
Websites
Photographs
Music
Newspapers
Utility of information
Utility of information
• Interactive Tables• Graph Digitizer• Equation Plotter• Diagram Viewer
• Integrated Periodic Table• Unit Converter• Slide Show Viewer• Browsable Tables of Contents
Evolution of publisher tasks
Fading Growing
Typesetting Printing
Print Monograph Print Directory
Public Domain ReprintsSimple, One database Search
Rare and unpublished material
Linking
Licensing
Free materials
Semantic indexing
Process integration
Unified Search software
Workflow tools
Warehousing
Community BuildingAsset Management
Commissioning
Editorial
QualitySelection
www.alexanderstreet.com