17th International Conference on Electronic Publishing in Blekinge Institute of Technological, Karlskrona, Sweden, 2013, June 13–14.

Tags

Academic publishing, Institutional repositories, Open access, Open data

Spring is a busy time for academic institutions, not only because of the end of the study year, but also for the number of conferences that are organized and run. But one person can be at one place only, and on June 13th and 14th I happened to be in Karlskrona. I knew the city from Selma Lagerlöf’s The Wonderful Adventures of Nils (you can find the e-book in Project Gutenberg). In Karlskrona, Nils has been chased by the statue of Carl 11th and saved by the Old Man Rosenbom – a wooden statue for charity collection. The city is situated on several islands of the archipelago in the Baltic sea and grew as a strategic naval and military town in the region.

Any unversity can envy the location of the Blekinge Institute of Technology right on the coast in a green area and with local swimming places. However, the participants of the International Conference on Electronic Publishing have admired the view from behind the glass walls as it was quite windy and rainy, but also because their attention was kept by a number of interesting papers (at least those I was listening to, which  caught my interest). Most of the conference participants, as far as I could tell from my own communication and impressions, were from academic libraries and mainly working with institutional repositories or other forms of open access and publishing.

Though the title of the conference relates to electronic publishing, the latter was understood in a very broad sense by the conference organizers and participants. The subtitle of the conference was Mining the Digital Information Networks, so the main topics were related to open access texts and data, their discovery and use as well as re-use. The sections I have attended related to the topics of institutional repositories and open access publishing, collection and processing of open (and closed) access data, and digital preservation. Though no one was talking directly about e-books I have found some of the papers very relevant to the issues that are raised in e-books studies.

One of these related topics would be publishing of e-monographs and book related materials in open access repositories with subsequent access and discovery of these resources. Pekka Olsbo from the University of Jyväskylä (Finland) explored the relationship between the rankings of the universities and their institutional repositories. The evidence that he has presented from the Nordic and other countries is showing very convincingly that these ranks are positively related. Thus, the more open repository (the more pages are downloaded) the more beneficial it is for the visibility of the university and for the quality of studies and research. A team of researchers from Italian National Research Council (Rosa Di Cesare, Daniela Luzi, Silvia Giannini) presented a careful study of the needs for e-publishing library service for Humanities and Social Sciences. Jahn Najko from Bielefeld University (German) presented the analysis of publications from FP7 projects in PLOS. Victoria Reich talked about LOCKSS system and CLOCKSS archives as a system for preservation of digital publications for libraries. Looking at present situation of e-books (both published commercially and digitized outside copyright), it might be one of the solutions to preserve this so far extremely fragile object of our expanding digital universe. One of the presentations that I was very impressed with was delivered by Nicklas Lavesson showing the achievements of the hosting university in data mining for Swedish public authorities. It related to the areas as spread as police work, coast observation and cultural heritage, though not so much with e-books. I  looked also at the posters about the OpenAir+, an initiative supporting the EC’s open access policy (presented by Ulf Kronman from the National Library of Sweden). It also has a potential to include wider open access academic materials than just articles and reports from the FP7 and other framework programmes. As I have already said, one person can only be in one place, so I have obviously missed other interesting and maybe even more relevant papers. As I had not yet time to read the proceedings or watch the film (the conference was also broadcast live), I will stop recounting my fresh impressions right here.

Thus, though this years conference did not address the academic e-books to the same extend as in 2012 (see report in D-lib Magazine), it was nevertheless useful from the point of view of networking and looking into the neighbouring academic processes of e-publishing that will inevitable affect the future of academic books in general and their situation in academic libraries in particular.

News on e-books – a Flipboard magazine

Those who have signed up to this Flipboard magazine (for iPad, iPhone and Android devices) will have seen that it has quickly developed a large reader-base – 5,620 readers just a moment ago. A month after I created the magazine, there were 1,573 readers.

My colleague Elena Maceviciute has become a contributor, bringing her knowledge of other languages. I had already started “flipping” stories in German, French, Swedish, Portuguese and Spanish (Danish and Norwegian also pop up from time to time) – now Elena can add Russian, Lithuanian, Polish, and, at a pinch, one or two other eastern European languages, as well as doing a better job than I can do with the Scandinavian languages.

I can’t provide a link to a Website for this, since Flipboard is not available for desktop machines (yet) – but, if you have an appropriate device you can easily check it out – simply put “News on e-books” in the Flipboard search box and one of the first things on the list will be the magazine.

The quality of e-books

Tags

e-books, Hertzberg, hygiene factors, motivational factors, quality

Posted by Tom Wilson on behalf of Arūnas Gudinavičius

Both publishers and researchers, exploring digital books, are facing a problem: how can one determine the quality of the digital book, what features determine the users’ opinions of  quality? Are these qualities of equal value and should they all be implemented? Are some more important than others that we should be taken into account first? These were the topics of my dissertation.

The practical significance of the problem is noteworthy as well as being an input to improving the quality of digital books, to meet customers’ expectations.

I studied this problem from the user’s perspective with regard to users’ expectations and assessments. By differentiating the criteria according to their importance to the users, I wanted to  build a quality assessment instrument for digital books that would reveal the specifics and expressive characteristics of the digital book. I adapted quality criteria from the MINERVA and Zhang and Dran toolboxes to digital books, trying to focus them on users’ needs. I used Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory (Herzberg, F. 1966. Work and the nature of man. New York.)for division of the digital book quality criteria into two groups – “motivating” and “hygienic”.

Every criterion of the instrument is given a certain weight to show its importance, and character, identifying which group it belongs to: “hygienic” or absolutely necessary for the convenience of a user or “motivating” or adding to the pleasure and comfort of a reader. Each criterion was evaluated according to its significance for the user of the digital book.  How the number of books one read (experience), personal qualities and a reading device determine the extent of influence on the user opinion and certain criteria being classified as motivating or “hygienic” factors were also determined.

The analysis of both individual quality criteria and generalised (in categories) showed the same trend in the results: in the case of the non-fiction book, experts discerned more “hygienic” criteria than in the case of the fiction book. This suggests that, by taking a non-fiction book into their hands, digital book users expect to find more quality criteria implemented in it than in a fiction book, and are dissatisfied should they not find them.

In turn, more motivating factors (whose absence does not cause dissatisfaction) were attributed to the fiction book. The findings show that the quality elements of the digital book, motivating to use the book and generating user satisfaction (but not causing dissatisfaction in case of their absence) are more desirable in the fiction book rather than in non-fiction.

The “hygienic” criteria most strongly expressed for fiction are related to the visual appearance and navigation of the digital book, while the most strongly expressed motivating criteria are associated with pleasure of usage and the possibilities the user is offered. Here, a desire to reach one’s goals with the least possible effort seems to show up (lazy user theory). In comparison, the “hygienic” criteria prevail in the case of non-fiction and are chiefly related to possibilities and navigation aids offered to users. These findings suggest that, unlike the case of fictionk, the user does not expect to find quality criteria of the motivating character in the non-fiction book.

The research confirmed that the digital book quality criteria are of different significance to the digital book user. The quality criteria most important to the user in the case of fiction relate to its visual appearance, easy and convenient reading, format compatibility on different reading devices and universally established usage of navigation principles. The qualitative aspects that appeared to have been of low importance were those related to copyright agreements between the text author and publishers and also interactive possibilities offered. Meanwhile, in the case of non-fiction the users’ least possible effort principle was revealed: the most significant qualitative aspects are related to implementation of many convenient and universally accepted information management and navigation possibilities, easy and convenient reading as well as format compatibility for different reading devices.

[Arūnas Gudinavičius recently defended a dissertation on the topic of e-books at Vilnius University. He is a lecturer at the Faculty of Communication at Vilnius University teaching courses in Basics of Digital Publishing, Media science and Digital Publishing. He was involved in the production of the first e-book in Lithuania and has had extensive training internationally, including at the Interactive Systems Research Center (University of Maryland, USA), Leipzig University of Applied Sciences (Germany) and Human Interface Technology Laboratory New Zealand (University of Canterbury, New Zealand).  His dissertation is Digital book quality from the user's perspective (in Lithuanian). A summary in English is available.]

Parents (and particularly mothers) use public libraries in the USA more than other adults.

Tags

children, e-books, library use, parents, Pew Research

At the beginning of this month, the Pew Research Center published a new report on “Parents, children, libraries and reading” which states that “Parents… have a special relationship with libraries”, using it more than non-parents and looking for more technology-related developments, along with more comfortable spaces in which to spend their time.

Little is said about e-books, other than that parents of young children are more likely to borrow e-books than are other adults – 9% compared with 5%, but they are also more likely to visit the library to use the Internet – 40% to 27%.

“Parents are also more likely than other adults to think libraries should definitely offer a broader selection of e-books (62% vs. 49%) and definitely offer more interactive learning experiences (54% vs. 43%).”

Parents also show greater interest in a variety of new types of service either already offered or discussed by public librarians in the USA: these include online reference services and facilities for trying out new technology gadgets.

Not surprisingly, because higher income families are more likely to possess these facilities at home, “parents living in households earning less than $50,000 are more likely… to say that they would be ‘very likely’ to take advantage of” developments such as making e-readers available, classes on downloading and on using e-readers, and the availability of a “digital media lab”.

News on e-books: a Flipboard “magazine”

Last month I created a Flipboard “magazine” on the subject of e-books: it now contains more than 130 articles, culled from Flipboard news items.  It would contain more, if the bookmarklet created by Flipboard to enable one to “flip” other news items into the magazine actually worked.  At the moment, it doesn’t, so I’m restricted to what Flipboard makes available.

This is a rather better solution to following news on e-books compared with using a Google Alert on the subject: the latter covers masses of local American newspapers and most of the items relate to e-books being loaned by the local public library, or courses being offered on how to download.  Flipboard covers rather more useful sources and I can choose which news items to incorporate into News on e-books.

If you don’t use Flipboard you can download it freely from the Apple App Store.

If you use Flipboard, you can find the magazine simply by putting “News on e-books” into the search box and a link to it should appear below the search box.

Rather amazingly, the magazine now has 1,573 readers, and there have been 35,937 “page flips” as at 17:00 on 6th May. Clearly, a lot of people are interested in this subject!  [Update: on Monday 13 May it has 2,064 readers.]

“Science roulette” in Gothenburg

Tags

e-books, Gothenburg, Science Festival, science roulette, Vetenskapsroulette

Posted by Tom Wilson for Elena Maceviciute

April 26 at 15:00 Tom and I went to take part in the Science festival in Gothenburg, an annual event for science popularisation organized by the City Council of Gothenburg, academic communities and other actors united under the aegis of the International Science Festival Gothenburg.

We participated in the “Science roulette”. For those who have not been to Gothenburg it may be interesting to learn that Liseberg, one of the biggest entertainment parks in Scandinavia, is situated there. It has an impressive ferris wheel, that was used for the Science roulette. During the event, the cabins of the wheel are occupied by one or two scientists. The public queues to get inside the cabins, but they cannot choose who they will meet inside – hence, for them, it’s a gamble, since the topic of conversation while the wheel is turning twice (approximately 15-25 minutes) can be anything!

This year 43 researchers and science enthusiasts focused on topics in physics and history, astronomy and linguistics, biotechnology and cultural heritage, engineering and philosophy, mathematics and magic, nano-science and medicine, biology and culture. Apart from people from Gothenburg universities and other academic institutions we met an amateur astronomer and a magician. Both were enthusiastic about their subjects and wished to attract attention of everyone who listened. In general, that was a gathering of enthusiasts, including us. The topic of e-books was so interesting to others that we found ourselves talking about it to at least two or three colleagues – occasional entertainers as ourselves before the event started.

It is quite interesting to find oneself among those 98% of people who do not read e-books. Just some days before I have expressed a wish to spend some time in this environment as my nearest colleagues and friends one or another way are knowledgeable and involved in e-book usage. For someone whose everyday life focuses on e-books it seems quite incredible that only some 2% of Swedish readers also read e-books (unpublished SOM data) or that on an average day only 0.5% of the Swedish population read them (Nordicom).

But there we were – meeting those who do not read e-books. This is no crime or any sign of ignorance, just the reality as it is at the moment. E-books only start to spread and there is no guarantee that they will have any great success despite rapidly growing production and usage percentages. When something starts from nothing it is bound to show an impressive growth. Even at present when e-book technology and equipment become much more usable and affordable, it is relatively expensive. Thus, it is absolutely natural that only very few are using these technologies, while most of the others find other things to do with their money and time than starting to acquire new gadgets and skills.

Nevertheless, among those that we have met there was not a person who did not know what an e-book is and what technical equipment can be used for it. Several owned an iPad or used it regularly (but not a dedicated e-reader). I include in this number also a little two-year old girl soundly sleeping, while we talked with her mother who told that her little daughter uses iPad quite skilfully. There was a group of students using a digital course book in one of their undergraduate courses and a woman of an elegant age who new in detail the situation of e-books in Swedish public libraries: how you can download them, that they disappear in 28 days and a reader does not have to return them or pay fines ever, that libraries pay to the publishers 20 crowns for each loan, etc. Though she has not used them herself, her daughter recommended it as the best way to get reading matter.

As one can expect in these events, the public was quite curious about the scientific and technological advances and their knowledge of them most probably was much higher than on the average among the population.

The experience was very interesting from the point of view of the necessity to adapt our presentation when talking to each new group. But there were two highly successful elements in our conversations.

Everyone admired the demonstration of the e-book by Edward O. Wilson “The Life on Earth” that comes together with an iPad. It was created to demonstrate the capabilities of an e-book and includes all possible elements: embedded video, animation, picture galleries, highlighting and noting capacities, self-evaluation tests, embedded images changing perspectives and size and what not. Everyone was exclaiming with delight and admiring these features, immediately assessing their usefulness for education or entertainment. Even my attempts to dampen their enthusiasm by pointing out how expensive is the production of such books and subsequently how high their price will be on the market, did not make any impact on the overall impression.

Another highlight was the e-book demonstrated by Tom. It is produced by himself as a publisher from the very beginning. I will not go into the details of how the idea was born, but start with the end result. The e-book was in the proofreading stage, which means that it can be demonstrated as a whole product. It is created from scratch using iBook Author software. Though it does not have all fancy features of the “Life on Earth” (as it does not need them), but it is a solid looking serious book of 250 pages, with eight chapters, figures, reference lists, and even some art. It also has an ISBN as any respectable book should have. The fact that it was created by a gray-haired gentleman who demonstrated it as his first work of this kind, was most probably as remarkable for the public as the item itself. It cut through all these myths and stereotyping of older people as incapable of mastering modern technology. Here in this cabin, two people of a certain age were sitting demonstrating the front edge technology that none of these young guys were even aware off.

I cannot be sure how much the people leaving our gondola were impressed or affected by our conversation. The main message we wanted to convey was about our own interest in the changing world of the books, how the new technologies are met and appropriated by it, what forces are inhibiting their spread; also questioning the value of the change for different participants willy-nilly caught up or freely involved in it. I hoped that our entertaining discussions have sown a seed of understanding of this wonderful part of life.

What I can say with much more certainty is our own thoughts and feelings after the event. We were quite tired after going round on the ferris wheel for an hour and a half constantly conversing with the three changing groups of people. I felt very grateful that Tom was by my side (originally, I had to be there alone) and shared the job.

But we also felt inspired by the interest that our short-time co-travellers showed to our topic, their fascination and understanding of its complexity. Consciously or not, but they were picking up the issues that are relevant to our project. One of the students seeing the technological aid of marking the text and conversing with his supervisor about the commented issues directly, somewhat disappointedly pointed out that he doubts if the teaching staff has enough time to engage in these interactions. The young mum speculated that the lack of e-books for young children might be explained by parents preference for physical books that they can explore together with their kids. The older lady pointed out that the conditions of e-book lending through libraries are not fair and limit the access to them for library readers.

Thus, the members of the public have put the social and human condition ahead of technological wonders. But none of them disputed the value of e-books, and to my great surprise none had a strong opinion on what will be the future of a book. Though they might have been affected by the fact that we were researching e-books and tried to avoid a possible conflict that a strong expression of an opinion might lead to. Sweden is famous for avoiding conflicts of all sorts.  And that is one of the reasons I like this country for – being positive gives everyone a high-degree of satisfaction and confidence. That we have felt to a high degree after leaving the entertainment park Liseberg.

[Photos by Tom]

A new Library Act for Sweden

Tags

Library act

An article in Hällekis Kuriren outlines some of the provisions of the new Library Act which comes into force on 1 January, 2014.  The provisions of interest to us are that libraries will continue to lend e-books and that those loans must be free of charge to readers.

Also of interest is the identification of certain groups in society as deserving priority service:  those suffering from any handicap, those whose mother tongue is not Swedish, and Swedish minority groups – essentially, I imagine, the Sami.  This requirement in the Act will clearly lead to a demand for e-books in a wide range of languages.

In this article, no mention is made of any inclusion of e-books within the Swedish equivalent of the Public Lending Right, but examination of the Act itself may reveal further information.

The factors affecting the future of publishing

Here’s an article worth reading; “The three forces that are shaping 21st century book publishing: scale, verticalization, and atomization” by Mike Shatzkin. Briefly,

“There are three overarching realities that are determining the future course of book publishing. They are clear and they are inexorable:

Scale, and its close cousin “critical mass”, is the ability to use size as a competitive advantage in any endeavor;

Verticalization, or being in sync with the inherent capability of the Internet to deliver anything of interest in an audience-specific way; and

Atomization, or the ability for any person or entity to perform the most critical component of publishing — making content available and accessible to anybody anywhere — without capital and without an organization dedicated to distribution.“

Now read the rest.

IFLA/CILIP seminar: “E-books in Libraries: A Global Question of Survival?”

Tags

copyright, e-books, growth rates, publishers, VAT rates

The presentations from this seminar, held at CILIP in London, in association with IFLA, are now online.  In the Introduction,  Gerald Leitner focuses on the core of the problem, noting that “It is a significant, and in our view unacceptable, change that the acquisition policy of libraries may be decided by the publishers and that free access for the citizens is decided by the publishers.” and calls for joint action to resolve the problem.

A number of country-focused presentations then follow:  Nick Stopforth of Doncaster Public Libraries in the UK presents the perspective of the Society of Chief Librarians, but, unfortunately, there are no data in his presentation on the current situation in the UK. Michael Dowling, Director of the ALA, on the other hand, presents much useful data on the situation in North America, noting, among other things that e-book availability in public libraries doubled between 2007 and 2011.

From Chile we learn that broadband provision is much lower in South America generally than the average in OECD countries and that there has been very little growth in mobile connections (in 2007 Latin America had 11% of global mobile connections, while in 2011 it had only 10%). Through agreement with publishers, Chile evolved a model of e-book provision in higher education which has led to a sixfold increase in downloads of e-books.

Yasuyo Inoue from Japan presents data on e-book use in public libraries  noting that usage is very low for a variety of reasons, including, significantly, cost.  He appears to hold out not very much hope that the situation will improve, commenting that it depends upon the nature of e-book content (much, at present, consists of manga comics), availability of funds in public libraries, revision of the copyright acts, and recognition of the ‘showcase’ role of libraries.

Dr. Maisela Maepa, of the University of South Africa, presents on the e-book market in South Africa, focusing mainly on academic libraries, since the take-up in other sectors is very small.  The lack of e-books in local languages is a barrier to further use and the mobile phone is likely to be the main reading device because of its penetration.

Klaus-Peter Böttger of EBLIDA reports on the situation in Europe generally, but very little of what was said can be gained from the slides, other than that the difference in VAT between print books and e-books is an issue for many European countries (only Denmark, Spain, France, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Roumania, and Slovakia have the same VAT rates for both forms).

Fiona Bradley of IFLA presents for Margaret Allen on the situation in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, identifying very similar problems to those existing in the USA (lack of availability of popular titles, limits on loans, etc.) and noting on-going discussions among the various interested parties.

For Sweden, Niclas Lindberg (Secretary General of SBF) gives an account of the present condition of libraries, in relation to e-books, which is already well known to members of the e-books research team, noting that talks between SBF and the publishers’ association had broken down.

Michael Dowling gives a second presentation on the campaign for e-books in libraries, in which the American Library Association is playing leading role.

Vincent Bonnet reports on the EBLIDA campaign in Europe – although colourful, the slides do not contain much information about the campaign.

Phil Bradley (President of CILIP) reports on the organization’s lobbying efforts in relation to the committee undertaking the review of e-lending for the Government. He notes that the value of the e-book market in the UK in 2011 was £92 million, that this was a  366% increase on 2010 and that the growth came from readers mainly in the 45-54 age group. As of July 2012, 71% of English public libraries were lending e-books, 81% of Welsh libraries and 57% of Scottish libraries.  Academic libraries offer access to more than 21 million e-books.

Finally, Stuart Hamilton of IFLA reports on that organization’s efforts in campaigning for the rights of libraries and readers in the e-book market.

UK Government-appointed committee on e-book lending reports

Tags

e-books, e-lending, PLR, Public Lending Right, public libraries, UK, UK Government

The UK Government’s committee on e-book lending has now reported. 

Briefly, the report recommends that public libraries in the UK should be able to lend e-books remotely, but that the lending should be restricted in the same way that physical books are restricted. That is, one copy of an e-book can only be loaned to one person at a time and e-books will be assumed to deteriorate and require replacement at a similar rate to physical books. 

Given the lobbying that has gone on, these recommendations are hardly surprising and probably the best that could be achieved: business will always get its way with government, issuing dire warnings of the total collapse of the publishing industry, thousands out of work, etc., etc.  The countervailing arguments, that libraries are the show case for publishers, that readers are buyers of books as well as borrowers of books, appear nowhere in the report.

The major recommendation is that e-books should be subject to Public Lending Right, just as physical books.  This is a major advance, partly because authors will get some reward for loans, but also because it signifies that a book is a book, whatever the format. This conclusion undermines the publishers’ desire to treat them the same way as computer programmes, licensing their use, rather than selling them.

 The UK Government’s response to the report is hardly madly enthusiastic. It receives, rather than accepts, the recommendations and, on the application of PLR to e-books, notes:

 “Government will consider commencing the appropriate provisions of the DEA [Digital Economy Act] 2010 to extend PLR to audio, e-audio and e-books.”  and

 “If remote loans are becoming the primary method of E-Lending in from public libraries, then a fit for purpose PLR should reflect these habits and recompense authors as for other loans from public libraries. Extending the PLR to incorporate remote lending will require primary legislation, and is an amendment we will seek to pursue in future parliamentary sessions, subject to considering whether that would be compatible with the Copyright Directive.  Any increase to PLR funding would need to be considered against evidence of increased loans within the increased remote scope.”

 Which is tantamount to saying that PLR may be extended when the economy improves.

Ultimately, the kinds of restrictions placed on e-book lending will not survive: subject to these restrictions in harsh economic times, libraries, if they decide to engage in e-book lending at all, will obtain free e-books from the numerous sources that are available and will buy independently published and self-published works negotiating more open lending rights.

The Committee itself consisted of William Sieghart, the Chairman,  publisher, entrepreneur and philanthropist, Janene Cox (President of the Society of Chief Librarians; Roly Keating, Chief Executive The British Library; Caroline Michel, Chief Executive Peters Fraser & Dunlop (a literary agency); Stephen Page, Chief Executive Faber & Faber (publisher); and Joanna Trollope OBE, Author. That is, only one person with a professional library background for a committee exploring e-lending in libraries.

In the course of the review 28 people appeared before the committee, presumably to give evidence, make the case, etc. Of these, almost half (13) were publishers’ representatives; four for HarperCollins, three for Random House, two for Hachette, and one each for Bloomsbury, Little Brown Book Group, and Penguin (now merged with Random House). In addition, there was a representative of the Publishers’ Associations.  One person appeared to represent readers, he is associated with the Web site Anobii – a social site about books and reading, but we find that the company providing the service is supported by… “HarperCollins, Penguin and The Random House Group”. So, no independent view there! As far as I can determine, only one librarian appears in the list, Nick Stopforth of the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster.

Of the 174 public library authorities in the UK, only fourteen submitted written evidence to the Committee, although submissions on their behalf may also have been made by the nine local authorities that responded­–however, the fact that only 13% of authorities could be bothered to make a submission is, perhaps, an indication of the level of interest in the subject, with many libraries now cutting back not only on staff and branch libraries, but also book buying.  The possibility of being able to afford e-books in addition is probably remote. Submissions were also made by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, the National Public Library e-books Group of the Society of Chief Librarians, Public Libraries News, The Library Campaign and Voices for the Library.