Turning to Dust or Digital

Denise Troll CoveyAssociate University Librarian, Carnegie Mellon

Future of the Book Conference

Cairns, Australia – April 2003

Perilous Facts

Books are turning to dust on library shelves

Even if digitized, books can disappear or go dark, & licenses & technologies can trump legal uses

Stewardship of our heritage is endangered

Equitable access is becoming a platitude

Education & scholarship are in peril

The Copyright Absurdity

95% of books ever printed are still in copyright

< 3% are still in print

92% of the world’s books are neither generating revenue for the copyright owner nor easily accessible to potential readers

Solution:Copyright Permission for Open Access

Protecting

private interest

Promoting

public good

Digital Free-to-Read Feasibility Study

Statistically valid random sample

Couldn’t locate publisher for over 10% books

If located publisher, half didn’t respond

If got response, fewer than half gave permission

If got permission, fees or other restrictions applied

Overall success rate 22%

Success of Copyright Permission

Books

Total items 337

1. Copyright protected 94%

2. Publishers contacted 88%

3. Publishers responded 51%

Permission granted 43%

Overall success rate 22%Wayne

State

2000

Carnegie

Mellon

1999-2001

Articles

96

70%

70%

45%

90%

28%

Success Rate

Scholarly associations 45%

University presses 37%

Museums & galleries 31%

Commercial publishers 12%

Permission by Publisher Type

0%

25%

50%

75%

SuccessRate

No-Response

Rate

LibraryContent

Labor Cost to Digitize Books

$25 - $150 per book in the United States

– Digitization, OCR, metadata capture, & initial storage

– Not hardware, software, or catalog links

– Contingent on characteristics of book & scanner

Disbound book Bound book Rare book

Copyright Permission Costs

Permission cost – Fee for permission itself

– Hundreds of dollars per book

Transaction cost – Labor & related costs

– Hundreds of dollars per request

Wayne State

1,000 Articles

Permission $26,000 (51%)

Transaction $24,500 (49%)

TOTAL $50,500

Total Cost Millions Books

netLibrary $85 40,000

Questia $127 40,000

Free-to-Read Million Book Project

Digitize 1,000,000 books in 5 years– NSF - $3.6 million for equipment & travel

– India - $1.5 million for labor (1000 people for 5 years)

– Led by Carnegie Mellon Libraries & Computer Science

– U.S. Partners – Internet Archives, OCLC, & libraries

Collection Development

November 2001 (NSF)

– Collection of collections

• 200,000 indigenous Indian works

• 700,000 public domain works

• 100,000 copyrighted works – Books for College Libraries

November 2003

– Select more bibliographies

– Strategize logistics

Scanning Underway in India

Labor cheaper than in U.S., but high paid in India

Each scanner, 2 shifts a day = 4000 books a year

100 scanners – 400,000 books per year

Copyright Negotiations

Educate – Find online, but use print

– Online access increases use

– Open access doesn’t decrease, & can increase sales

– Copyright absurdity

Ask– Non-exclusive permission

to digitize & offer free-to-read

– Minimal system functionality

– Focus on out-of-print books

Give – Preservation-quality copies

– Metadata & OCR

Motivate– $$ Use in added-value,

fee-based services

– $$ Print on demand for out-of-print titles

– $$ Buy button for in-print titles

Initial Copyright Approach

Do not pay permission cost

Focus on out-of-print, in-copyright titles

– Books for College Libraries has 50,000 titles

– Begin with scholarly associations & university presses

Transaction cost per title is prohibitive

– Identifying & inserting titles in letters

– Negotiating & tracking permission per title

Epiphany & New Approach

Focus on publishers of quality books – Treat bibliographies as approval plan of publishers – Books for College Libraries has 5600 publishers

Ask for permission to digitize– All out-of-print, in-copyright titles– All titles published prior to a date of their choosing– All titles published # or more years ago– List of titles they choose

Follow-up with phone call or visit

Results of New Approach

Estimate transaction costs remain the same

– Shift $$ from clerical to administration

But acquire more books for $$ spent

– National Academy Press – 99% increase

• 26 titles in Books for College Libraries

• Permission for 3046 titles

– Brookings Institution – 96% increase

– Rand McNally – 60% increase

“More Bang for the Buck”

Indigenous Indian

Public Domain

In Copyright

Initial Current

Projections

Success rate (# BCL publishers)

# of books per publisher

Million Book Collection

3% (168) 1500 252,000

5% (280) 1500 420,000

20% (1,120) 1500 1,680,000

We could need to negotiate

with India for more labor

Current Status

100 letters sent

Hiring full-time staff & distributing negotiations

– 6% permission granted

– 5% permission denied– 21% negotiations underway

– 52% no follow-up or response

– 5% copyright reverted to author

– 1% no electronic rights

– 4% incorrect address

Copyright Workflow #1

N o

U p d a te p u b lish e r da ta b a se

S c a n & O C RC a p tu re m e tad a taR e tu rn bo o k s as n e e d edS e n d co p ie s to C a rn e g ie M e llon

L o c a te , a c q u ire , & sh ip to In d ia

Y e s

N e g o tia te p e rm iss ion U p d a te p u b lish e r da ta b a se

Id e n tify & c o n ta c t p u b lish e rs

India

Carnegie Mellon

Copyright Workflow #2

U p d a te p u b l is h e rd a ta b a s e a s n e e d e d

N o

U p d a te p u b l is h e r d a ta b a seU p d a te a d m in is t r a t iv e m e ta d a ta

Y e s

N e g o t ia te p e rm iss io n s

Id e n ti fy & c o n ta c t p u b l is h e rs

S c a n & O C RC a p tu re m e ta d a taR e tu rn b o o k s a s n e e d e dS e n d c o p ie s to C a rn e g ie M e l lo n

L o c a te , a c q u ire , & s h ip to In d ia

India

Carnegie Mellon

Metadata

Bibliographic - for delivery system– MARC record or Dublin Core

Administrative - for reporting system– Bibliographic metadata– Source library– Return requested– Copyright status – check renewal records– Permission status – used by delivery system – Copies sent to publishers, libraries, & mirror sites

Funding Copyright Permission

Foundation proposals not funded

UC Merced – $35,000 pending

IMLS – pendingIMLS

Copyright, collection development, & project management $234,700 $445,000

Acquisitions, shipping, & survey software $265,300

Outcomes assessment $78,000

TOTAL $500,000 $523,000

Cost share 51% of total project

Copyright Assessments

Number of copyrighted books in the Collection

Success rate of permission requests

Participating publisher

– Overall satisfaction

– Quality of the copies

– What they did or plan to do with the copies

– Impact on revenue & view of open access