University of California Press Blog

Keeping an Eye on the Music Industry

Today, the New York Times posted an article MySpace and Record Companies Create Music Site, which is not surprising and probably long overdue. The more options and opportunities that media has for delivering electronic content easily to the user, the better off our industry will be.

A while back, I promised to blog about a session I saw at the O'Reilly conference on what the book industry can learn from the music industry. Here, finally, is that post.

Far and away the best session I attended at O'Reilly's Tools of Change for Publishing conference was DRM, Digital Content, and the Consumer Experience by Kirk Biglione of Medialoper. Publishers are constantly thinking about issues of digital rights management (the industry term for any effort to use technology to protect copyrighted work). My  own opinions change from day to day as I receive new information and watch trends. After this talk, I became pretty convinced the Biglione was onto something.

The first thing Biglione pointed out is that the book industry is simply waiting for its iPod moment. Kindle may not be it, but the next generation of devices may be. All media will be digital, and if we let fear of piracy and fear of changing business models stymie us, we will be left behind.

DRM of any kind, from the most "secure" to the mildly obtrusive (watermarking, for example), simply doesn't prevent pirates from being pirates. Instead, it prevents legitimate users from accessing the content that they desire in the form that they prefer and without frustrating obstacles. DRM can be very frustrating to customers, thereby preventing them from taking advantage of legitimate content purchasing venues. DRM often malfunctions, so there is also a cottage industry that now provides tools to help users break DRM systems.

Publishers are trying to learn from the music industry. As you know, the music industry spent over ten years suing their best customers instead of investing in a better way to legally deliver (and even charge for) the music that their customers wanted in a digital form. To attract the music industry to its system, Apple developed one of the better DRM solutions (which they are now dismantling, by the way). As a result, Apple iTunes now controls the digital music space while the music industry continues to sue and decline. The industry was so concerned with iTunes DRM that it gave up its control over pricing and distribution.

Yet publishers are not learning from the music industry. Our trade organizations have already launched a number of lawsuits against libraries, search engines, and bookstores, i.e. our best customers. You may have also heard that the publisher of the latest Harry Potter book decided not to release it as an ebook for fear of piracy. This means that they have not distributed (or sold) a single ebook. However, if you were to google "Harry Potter ebook" you would find so many pirated copies it would make your head spin. In effect, they have made their legitimate users into pirates and lost millions of dollars and potential customers in the process.

In the end, customers want a wide selection of reasonably-priced, inter-operable, DRM-free content, and in the digital age, the customer will win. We need to respect and trust our customers and spend our effort on delivering a better product.

At the end of the day, I fear that the damage is greatest when our best users can't easily get to the content. We should invest the money we might spend in lawsuits  to develop better systems to also allow users to easily purchase, license, and credit content that they would like to borrow.

Laura Cerruti is Director of Digital Content Development at UC Press.

What Publishers Talk About When They Talk About Content Part II: Reflections from TOC2008

The themes at O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference 2008 (TOC)  were similar to those at PSP, which I blogged about a week ago in "What Publishers Talk about When They Talk about Content." TOC did have some new spins on these themes, and there were a few memorable sessions and quotes that are worth relating here.

1. “The biggest threat to publishers is obscurity, not piracy.” —Bill Burger, Copyright Clearance Center. Kirk Biglione of Medialoper continued the theme in his session titled “DRM, Digital Content, and the Consumer Experience: Lessons Learned from the Music Industry.” I was so taken by this presentation on digital rights management, that I’m going to devote another entire blog entry to it. Stay tuned, but check out the powerpoint.

2. “Content is not King. Context is not King. Contact is King.” —Douglas Rushkoff. Social networking was also very big at this conference, especially the idea that readers use content to connect with other people. University presses have always understood that our content started, finished, or continued a conversation. How can capitalize on the opportunities of the digital age to provide even more such opportunities for scholars?

3. Passionate users tend to be experts, and it’s the feedback loop on their content makes them care. —Kathy Sierra, author of Creating Passionate Users. Although Sierra’s presentation was a little thin, it did get me thinking. Scholars are the ultimate in experts, so how can we provide them with the feedback loop and make them passionate users of our content?

4. Changing organizational structures for the digital age is difficult and painful. —Kenneth Brooks, Cengage Learning. Okay, he didn’t say it that way, but the underlying pains quickly became clear during his talk. In an informal conversation after the session, a fellow university press colleague expressed puzzlement that most of university press “digital publishing” has ended up in marketing. There was good reason for this early on, but the time has come that it needs to begin to infiltrate other departments. Among university presses, our production departments will need to acquire new skills, and we need to move many of the tasks that somehow fell on the shoulders of our marketing staff into our production departments. I’m certainly not proposing that we follow in the footsteps of a corporate publishing giant, but is there anything we can learn from the scorched-earth methods of Cengage so that our staff can be happy about these transitions? Or is change always difficult?

5. Pre-publishing and community-based pricing models. —Bob Pritchett, Logos Bible Software. Unlike a traditional book or journal product, new digital products require a significant investment. The models that Logos employs to make sure that there is a market for its products could be a helpful way for university presses to venture into this new territory with less risk.

6. Find ways to monetize around content—and that doesn’t mean advertising. —Tim O'Reilly. In his keynote, O'Reilly brainstormed revenue models built around content (even free content). Later in the day,  Scott Gray (O’Reillys School of Technology) argued  for publishers to create essential, niche products that can be priced high to maximize revenue. One of their methods has been to add an educational component around their content. For me, this was a lightbulb. A group of us here at UC Press have been talking about the University as Publisher; here is O’Reilly taking the view of Publisher as University. I think we can learn much from what the School of Technology  is doing. Note that O’Reilly has considered opening up their learning platform for others to use.

Laura Cerruti is Director of Digital Content Development at UC Press.

What Scholarly Publishers Talk About When They Talk About Content: Reflections from PSP 2008

The theme for this year's annual conference of the Professional/Scholarly Publishing (PSP) division of The Association of American Publishers (AAP)  was “Interactivity 2008: Communities, Content, Connectivity.” I noticed nine distinct themes running throughout the sessions. They are as follows:

1.    Social-networking. People are using content to interact with others. In the context of that interaction, content creates identity, particularly online and particularly as personal and professional spaces merge. Publishers need to be in the conversation.

2.    User-generated content. Users now expect to participate. Publishers risk missing out on the opportunities, not only to enrich core content but to capitalize on the added value that users bring to the content. (Example: Sermo)

3.    The New Peer Review. Publishers should consider integrating new, democratic methods of peer review. New methods of quality review may never fully replace traditional peer review, but publishers need to be aware of new ways that users are determining the quality and usefulness of content. This includes voting, search engine optimization, impact (citations), commenting, referrals, and head-to-head competition (Example: Helium).

4.    eBooks. We are reaching the tipping point for ebooks. If it's not online, it doesn't exist to the new generation of students. Publishers may also want to integrate ebook content with other kinds of content, especially journals. The argument for XML is also growing as users begin to read this type of content using devices such as cell phones, which need the flexibility of XML text.

5.    Consistent User Experience. When librarians talked about digital access to traditional publications such as ebooks and ejournals, they complained about the amount of time they spend teaching their users to use a new and different platform. They called for fewer more consistent platforms and discouraged all but the largest publishers from building their own platforms.

6.    Complementary Tools. Publishers should not try to compete with robust search and social networking tools or hardware and software, such as FaceBook, YouTube, and Kindle. Nevertheless, it's important that publishers understand these new tools and figure out a way to make their content work with and on these tools.

7.    Beyond Text. The next generation of students and researchers will NOT be text-centric. Whether or not we want to accept it, the next generation of students will not prioritize text as a learning tool. Audio, Video, Static, Images, and 3-Dimensional spaces need to be integrated with text into the development of new digital publications. (Example: Vectors)

8.    Marketing As a Service. New technology enables marketing to become a dialog rather than a monologue across both online and offline channels. Marketing needs to have methods for tracking the dialog, responding to it with automated yet customized outreach and follow up, and recording it for future use. By making marketing more relevant for the individual customer, the organization can build trust behind the brand.

9.    New Organizational Structures. Publishers need new kinds of staff, new kinds of cross-genre and cross-channel organizational structures, and new kinds of job descriptions in marketing and product development. All staff need to understand the synergy between offline and online. All staff need to be more focused on up-front analysis and responding on the fly to the user.

I have also just returned from O'Reilly's Tools for Publishing Change conference. Stay tuned for more thoughts and impressions.

Laura Cerruti is Director of Digital Content Development at UC Press.

Amazon Kindling New Interest in eBooks?

Amazon's unveiling of their new ebook reader, the Kindle, has generated much attention in both publishing circles and in the general media.  Everybody seems to have an opinion about the Kindle.  The most recent high-profile discussion of the merits of the Amazon Kindle was a piece by Randall Stross in the January 27th edition of the New York Times.

From the beginning, Amazon has been betting that the Kindle will be to book lovers what the iPod has been to music lovers.  Whether the Kindle really catches fire (no pun intended) or lands on the ash heap of failed attempts to digitize the general book business, I do think the conversations about books that the unveiling of the Kindle have started have been profitable for both consumers, publishers, and other people involved in the book trade. 

UC Press has agreed to participate in the Kindle program, and Amazon is in the process of preparing a few dozen files for inclusion as downloadable ebooks for the Kindle reader, so we don't currently have a big stake in this.  But from the media attention that's been lavished on this homely little ebook reading device, one would think that the future of the book business hinged upon its success.  Is it all hyperbole?

From the time I first saw a prototype of the device, I had my doubts that people would want yet another gadget, let alone an expensive gadget, in order to read digital books.  This is, unfortunately, a limitation of today's digital book reading technology.  The very technology that currently makes digital books more readable on screen, E-ink technology, requires a different display than your computer monitor, cell phone, or PDA use.  Indeed, Joe Wikert of John Wiley and Sons recently blogged about this on the Teleread ebook blog, positing that the ideal gadget for reading digital books would be a laptop that is somehow e-ink enabled.

Ultimately, though, Randall Stross's piece in the New York Times, spends less time discussing the technology behind the Kindle and more time discussing how the fate of reading book length treatments of anything in this country might be joined at the hip with wider adoption of electronic reading devices.  The book industry (it has been pointed out many times before) is one of the few entertainment industries that has stubbornly resisted digitization.  This is partly attributable to intellectual property issues with digital books and with borrowed material contained within books themselves, which isn't so much an issue for, say, musical compositions, unless they contain tons of samples.  It's also partially attributable to a sense that a book is in and of itself an aesthetic object, and avid readers from the time they start reading beautifully illustrated, four-color children's books are brought up with this mentality.  And, well, frankly, things just don't move along very quickly in the book business.  But, mostly, readers just haven't take to reading books online, although they're increasingly reading tons of other stuff online.

While none of these things is likely to change overnight, I think that the heat is being turned up by a younger generation that is accustomed to reading on screen and wants instant gratification.  But whether ebooks are ultimately widely adopted turns on not the technology itself but whether or not avid readers (those 20% of the population who buy the overwhelming number of the books sold in this country) begin to turn to ebooks.  Gadget collectors and technophiles won't make or break the ebook business–avid readers will. It also hinges upon whether this country will continue to produce avid readers of books, and some anecdotal evidence from a recent Frontline piece on social networking suggested we might be having some difficulty in this area.

Nonetheless, Amazon is in an excellent position to deliver the goods to these avid readers.  People may argue about Amazon's use of a proprietary format and digital rights management to lock down Kindle ebooks, but for users who just want to get on with the business of reading and who don't care much about managing their ebook collections, these features make this system easy to work with.  This could be the real upside to what Amazon has done.

If the Kindle itself hasn't delivered the future of the ebook, the conversations generated by its introduction have at least given us a glimpse. 

University of California Press Journals + Digital Publishing Implements New Features for Libraries: RefWorks & LOCKSS

University of California Press Journals + Digital Publishing Division is pleased to announce that its Caliber and AnthroSource online content platforms are now compatible with RefWorks citation manager. Also, AnthroSource will be made available for archiving through LOCKSS which ensures the long-term preservation and security for the over 40,000 articles that are a part of the premier online resource for anthropologists. In the short time since the launch of both sites, the Press has made a number of improvements and refinements as a response to customer demand. The addition of RefWorks to the existing roster of citation managers and the participation in LOCKSS comes as a result of requests from users and librarians and highlights the Press's commitment to providing user-friendly content that is secure.

RefWorks allows for the easy management of references and quick generation of bibliographies and footnotes. These tools dramatically reduce the reference management burden on scholars and researchers, decrease the chance of errors, and offer significant flexibility when making changes.

LOCKSS (for "Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe") is open source software that provides librarians with an easy and inexpensive way to collect, store, preserve, and provide access to their own, local copy of authorized content they purchase. Running on standard desktop hardware LOCKSS converts a personal computer into a digital preservation appliance, creating low-cost, persistent, accessible copies of e-journal content as it is published.

With the growth of digital collections, there is an increasing need to ensure the longevity of electronic archives. Smaller publishers also face the challenge of keeping pace with these sophisticated technological requirements. LOCKSS resolves both these issues.

"It's always important to listen to our customer's changing needs and maintaining electronic resources is a an area of concern for librarians. Joining LOCKSS is an excellent solution: it helps UC Press keep pace with technological demands and continue to meet our customers' requirements." says Rachel Lee, University of California Press Library Relations Specialist. "RefWorks is a very popular citation manager and we've had many requests to add this functionality to AnthroSource. We strive to make our content as user-friendly as possible; RefWorks represents another step in this direction."

UC Press Signs Agreement with Portico

University of California Press Journals & Digital Publishing Division has entered into an agreement with Portico for the long-term preservation of its journal content. Portico provides a permanent archive of electronic scholarly journals, ensuring that they will continue to be secure and accessible in the future. Following on from the existing Portico agreement to archive digital content for Anthrosource, the premier online collection of anthropology scholarship from the American Anthropological Association, UC Press now has its entire list of journals archived by Portico. By adhering to industry standard archiving methods, Portico meets library demands for a trusted, reliable third party archive. UC Press has designated the archive as an official delivery platform for post-cancellation access claims.

UC Press's ongoing relationship with JSTOR and the new agreement with Portico are evidence of its commitment to a strong long-term preservation strategy. The Press is very enthusiastic to be working with both organizations to ensure that its publications will always be available in a digital format.

"Partnering with Portico affirms our commitment to permanent archiving. We want authors, librarians and scholarly society clients alike to feel confident that UC Press is doing everything possible to assure the content we publish will be available in perpetuity." --Rebecca Simon, Associate Director for Journals and Digital Publishing

For more information about University of California Press Journals & Digital Publishing, please visit www.ucpressjournals.com.

For more information on Portico, please visit www.portico.org.

New Website for Journals and Digital Publishing Division

Marking the beginning of many improvements to the usability of its websites, the Journals and Digital publishing Division recently launched http://ucpressjournals.com. This new site is the home for general information for over 50 journals available both in print and online. Visitors can subscribe, purchase back issues, join or renew their membership to societies, search and get easy access to online editions of journals, or learn about various publishing services provided.

The new site was developed in cooperation with 4Site Solutions, LLC of Oklahoma City, OK.