Day 9 - Last day of Class

It truly felt as though these two weeks zipped by in a blink of an eye.  I have to admit to feeling very sad, emotional but also proud and pleased. I was definitely sad that the course was coming to an end, that I wouldn’t gather with this group again, but also proud of all that I had learned and accomplished within a two week time frame. After discussing our trip to Cambridge, we discussed the various publishers that we visited over the past two weeks.  We agreed that while they all had their strong points, some seemed to be more well rounded than others. For example, Sage and Berg do not have partnerships.  Also, ProQuest was the only publisher to consider libraries and librarians.

Joyce Ray, a former student of the course and lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, spoke about Digital Curation and Publishing.  She went over a nuts to bolts portrayal of what is entailed in the curation process.  She stressed the importance of organization from the very beginning of the process, including an item's provenance, which can be difficult since orphan works are prevalent and no idea where they actually originated.  Many steps have been taken in recent years to ensure that work is being digitized properly and the same way across the board. While selection was mentioned, it was not the main focus. The importance of data management was also covered. 

Other than Jonathan Bowen on day 2 of the Conference, she was the only one to directly mention visualization.  It is useful in helping people understand information by painting a picture.  In terms of usability, interface and the basics, it’s wonderful for linked data and helping to create relationships. Pratt has several classes on visualization.

Big data is hard to manage and surprisingly, to me anyway, small data is even more difficult.  There are usually four levels of data and it’s important to track back and keep up with the provenance, since special metadata is needed.  The other issue is storage.  At Purdue University, where Anthony's son Charles Watkinson is the director of the Purdue University Press, each researcher is given storage space and if they receive a grant, they are allotted even more space.  The University of Bath maintains researchers storage space for 10 years. After that, they will need to make arrangements to keep the information secure.  Lots can be lost if that does not happen.

Joyce also talked about the Open Archive Information Services (OAIS).  It’s a reference model dating back to 2003 where content, context and access are viewed at 3 individual bubbles that all overlap. In conjunction with the Trustred Repos Archives Checklist (TRAC), which has been adopted as the standard, all changes are documented and there is a great deal of clarity.  At the beginning of a data life cycle, the appraisal and selection process begins. With storage being expensive, one must realize they cannot save everything. 

The other point that was raised that had been on my mind was about storage. When Google started the Hathi trust with the University of Michigan (UofM), they often said that UofM shouldn’t worry about storage because it was all digital.  That was not the case. Not only where the tiff files so large that they considered saving them in the inferior jpeg format, but the way in which they were stored was also unacceptable.  Google has a history of using underground storage that has been labeled “cheap” that requires lots of water to keep it cool.  So it’s unstable and wasteful and dangerous to the environment. A consortium was created allowing several universities to split the storage, thereby saving the quality. As much as information specialists speak of the simplicity of the digitization process, little about it is simple. Following false or poorly thought out information can lead to a project's demise.

After Joyce's presentation, we were given the afternoon off to explore cultural sites of London. I spent the afternoon walking around Canary Wharf, Poplar and Hackney, reminiscing over my time in London 10 years ago. Quite a lot has changed in those areas. Old hangouts are missing due to the Olympics but not everything can remain the same. 

Canary Wharf

We then met up at Spaghetti House for a lovely dinner to celebrate the end of our course. It was the perfect end to share our stores of librarianship, great food and wine.

Day 8 - Cambridge

To Cambridge we will go! After a slow start, we headed north in our own minibus to Cambridge. This was my second time in Cambridge. The first visit was ten years ago and all I could remember was going punting on the river.

Patriotic ProQuest

Our first stop was to ProQuest which was a particularly important visit for me since just before leaving New York, I learned that I would be the ProQuest Student Trainer at Pratt! Therefore, I’ll be teaching their database including RefWorks and Pratt will gain free access to the Proquest Database until August 2013. It’s a major plus for both myself and the school.  That aside, I think it would be unbiased to admit that everyone appeared to be impressed by their presentation. It was clear that they put quite a bit of detail into their process and it’s thorough and well crafted. It is a part of their Library Advocacy program, which includes the Discover More Corps.

This was the only publishing facility that allowed us to tour their office, which is the busiest outside of the US. It follows an open floor plan where the workers sit in the open and can easily share ideas. It was also nice seeing people carrying trays of tea, especially after hearing at OUP about how having group tea time makes for a more productive office.

ProQuest is in the middle of their Cultural Heritage in Partnership program which digitizes early European books before 1700. They are also working on the film holdings from the British Museum that were turned over to the British Library, damaged by war. The biggest part of the project is the expansion of the Early English Books Online (EEBO) project. It is the partnership with the Royal Library of Danish Royal Library, Copenhagen and the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze in Italy, National Library of the Netherlands and the Wellcome Library in London. More than 12,000 books have been digitized to date with 4 million pages being scanned per year.  The project includes inserts and specialist approach with full metadata. They even have works by Gallileo with his notes written in the margin. The works will be free in the home countries but paid beyond those boundaries.

Group at ProQuest

For the Queen’s Diamond Jubillee, ProQuest launched Queen Victoria’s diaries. They date back to her childhood and include work throughout her life even before she was Queen including handmade drawings.  141 volumes in partnership with the Bodleian and Royal Archives are included.
While ProQuest has a reputation for being strong with technology and historical databases, they are also building the Arts sector by creating full archives for the entertainment industry, featuring Billboard, Variety and Spin magazines.  They will be fully searchable and include the cover and ad space.  They’ll also be fully indexed. Overall, I think everyone was impressed by ProQuest’s presentation. They seemed to have given a great deal of thought into libraries, archives and building their brand.

Punts in Cambridge

After ProQuest, we headed to the Granta riverside pub for lunch with a view. Seeing the punts brought back a lot of memories. Anthony led us to Kings College Chapel which was breathtaking with its stained glass. Since Anthony attended Cambridge, he was well versed on the history of the colleges and able to point out details that we would have missed. He even showed us where he lived while a student.  

Patricia Aske at Pembroke College

We then arrived at Pembroke College Library where we spoke with librarian Patricia Aske. Patricia was very generous in her tour including and even let us touch rare books and showing us gifts to the college. As at Oxford, the colleges are all operated independently. The books can only be circulated to students of the college. Students receive long loan periods while most books loaned to faculty last for 1/2 day and have hefty fines.  She spoke of the challenges of what is often a limited budget. Some of the treasures the Victorian building hold are Lancelot Andrewes' bible and Ted Hughes' poems featuring animals.

Day 7 - Independence Day

Independence day was spent learning more about Open Access journals and security in e-publishing.

After recapping our day in Oxford, Anthony mentioned the following four points for Value Added Journals:
Investment
Organization 
Sustainability - Having everything in one big repository has not worked very well.  LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe), CLOCKSS (Controlled LOCKSS), and Portico. e-Depot, was created by the National Library of the Netherlands, also known as the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, or the KB. It seems as though everyone is in a hurry to save things that are already available in print. As multimedia items such as video come into play, that becomes tricky since the machine needed to play it may be obsolete.
Selection - Librarians select but trade journals do as well.

This lead to the question of what is a book? These items are not books but have the same function as one.  They add the value of production, branding and selection. We also spoke about the lack of open source textbooks.  From a development standpoint, they are terribly expensive due to the amount of editorial content.  Perhaps it’s something that can work if they follow a non-profit model and take advantage of the functionality of the web, but it has not be attempted as of yet. We also briefly mentioned the rise of gray literature with Open Access Journals.

Graham Bell, the Chief Data Architect at Editeur, a standards organization, spoke about the behind the scenes approach to trade books and e-books.  He explained the low cost of ISBNs and how each country and region has their own process of obtaining and applying for them.  He also covered, from his company’s standpoint, why it is necessary to have a different number for each product as well as each format. Ruth Jones spoke a few days before about why she thinks the ISBN system is antiquated so it was interesting to hear a different point of view. It’s not that there is not a standard in the industry but that there are many of them!

Graham also went on to poll the class on our use of e-books and determined that we are ahead of the curve since a large number of us do most of their reading on e-readers such as the Nook and Kindle. More than 3 times the number is Americans are heavy users as compared to UK readers.
One thing he mentioned was the financial competition within organizations. E-books are considered big users of money, since they take some to develop, while print are the money makers. Those in print divisions are unhappy with money going towards e-literature since it has yet to show a return.

Throughout Graham’s entire presentation, the one thing that surprised me, and most of my classmates, was the fact that DRM has not been applied to music, especially that offered by the Apples iTunes store for the past 3-4 years.  These days, instead of being about Digital Rights Management, it's more about the enforcement. For example, the publishing industry is not worried about one user sharing their ebook with a friend. However, if that friend sells them in mass, with your watermark embedded in the book, then you have a problem.  Large scale exploitation will not be tolerated.  While making an ebook is not necessarily difficult, if the approach is lacking either content, structure or appearance, part of the triangle will fail. The last piece is metadata. Because if no one can find your book, it doesn’t matter if the other 2 pieces are stellar.  

Rhodri Jackson, the Senior Publisher of Law Journals and Oxford Open at Oxford University Press, spoke about some of the issues mentioned at the Conference last week, namely The Cost of Knowledge Protest against Elsevier and the Finch Report.  He also mentioned some of the competitors of OUP’s Open Access project such as PLoS ONE and SOAP.  
Most of the information he offered had been covered during our visit to Oxford and the conference but it was still nice to hear the perspective of someone in the industry.The one thing he did mention was what is the role of librarians in the OA model? As a whole, librarians have been quiet. The questions of how do libraries pay for OA content was asked. Is it through membership, institutional funds?

After lunch, we headed to SAGE Publishing to meet Martha Sedgwick, Senior Manager of Online Products, and Alicia Warren, Project Manager, to discuss their innovations in Publishing.  I was surprised when Martha stated that most people find their products via Google Search. While it’s possible to subscribe and search for full text directly via one of their platforms, 60-70% of their users find the product via free web search. With that high of a number, perhaps it makes sense not to spend the money creating a dedicated program.  They spend money instead on metadata and searchability to appear at the top of search programs. I couldn't help but get the feeling that they want to be known as the biggest. They compared themselves to Bloomsbury and OUP in a we’re bigger and better than they are. It was a turnoff.

Their main focus seems to be Innovation by spending R&D budget and investing in new data sets. They have expanded their online products team from 4-13 in the past year and created new product streams such as print digitization, OA journals (social science based) and realizing that data has a value. They use Persona Cards for market research. Different characters have stats such as age, user group. Sage also runs a program to track users usage on the computer for one hour. How do people use their program, how long, what do they do if they’re frustrated, etc are all tracked. They also spend time working with the National Institute of the Blind on accessibility.  Improving response times, workflow and archives for those with disabilities is important. They also use DOI and linked data to relate articles and keywords which are sharpened the more you search on their site.

Day 6 - Exploring Oxford

The trip to Oxford, our first as a group outside of London, was highly anticipated by all. Anthony set up a full day of events with a bit of free time scheduled at the end. Jokes are often made of American being a “Young Country”; however, it is not until you have set foot in Oxford and on the Oxford University campus that you understand how true that phrasing is.  With a history of teaching dating back to 1096, one quickly understands why.

Class approaching OUP

After our two hour ride from London, we met Anthony at the bus center and walked over to the Oxford University Press (“OUP”). Any thoughts of their offices being settled into old stone buildings was soon diminished as we stepping inside their light, airy offices.  Artifacts of printing presses and cabinets filled with OUP’s products are placed around the office. There was a cafe on the first floor and several seating areas with people having tea and meetings in the open.  The feeling of it being a warm place to gather and share ideas was proffered.  

Printing Press

At the OUP, we met with Claire Dowbekin, the Head of Library Relations and Communications, Global Academic Business at OUP.  She gave an overview of the OUP platform, including historical annotations. She stressed the Press’ determination to follow the mission statement.  I was most surprised, and impressed, by the Delegates of Press whose job it is to approve all publications before they are sold.  The group, which meets bimonthly, is invited into their position and hold it, with tenure, until they give it up.  They are expected to be of a high academic level and uphold the mission statement. From time to time, the Delegates reject certain works being published.

With a staff of more than 5,500, most of which are outside the UK, their goal is always towards the mission statement. Next, Claire Bebber, the Institutional Marketing Manager, spoke about the online reference program started in 2008 with the Museum, Libraries and Archives Association, now under the Art’s Council.  They proposed that if 90% of the public libraries signed up for the three programs that they would receive a deep discount.  98% signed up thereby saving more than £3million.  The common thread that appeared was to think of the staff, the end users.  From the meetings held with librarians, the printed materials were created.  From online and offline quizzes to as they put it “arts, music, people, works everything!" is available for free from any computer, at the library or at home, or from the user’s mobile device.  They give the users what they need, keep the message simple and experiment.  Claire stressed that the most important thing to do was to persevere.  

At the Bodleian, We received a brief, fifteen minutes long, but insightful tour of the building. We did not see one building which is undergoing renovations since its contents are offsite 30 miles away. However, we did see where the original building was held as well as where students would have their oral examinations. The exams were given orally, since paper was very expensive, making difficult to compare the students to one another.

We were also told by our guide that only 3 of the original books survived, one by Aristotle and 2 others also philosophically based as they were free from religious persecution.  Due to its Legal Deposit system, it receives more than 5,000 items weekly, which presents a major storage issue for the library. Signs are posted about the library declaring that nothing be removed. We were also not allowed to bring in anything big enough to carry out books. Our bags, purses, etc were placed into a locker on the first floor before we could proceed within the building.
 
Before being granted access to the library, new readers are required to agree to a formal declaration. This declaration was traditionally oral, but is now usually made by signing a letter to the same effect — ceremonies in which readers recite the declaration are still performed for those who wish to take them, these occur primarily at the start of the University's Michaelmas term. The English text of the declaration is as follows:


I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, nor to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document or other object belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the Library, or kindle therein, any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I promise to obey all rules of the Library.

After the requisite tour of the gift shop, we proceeded to a meeting with Clive Hurst, the Head of Rare Books at the Bodleian. He explained in great detail the curation and presentation of the Charles Dickens’ exhibit, which he was not allowed to show us directly since the exhibit was free to the public.  Since the library does not own all of the items, several pieces are on loan, not an easy feat since 2012 is the bicentenary of his birth, those items are in demand. Special features were put into place such as blowing up objects such as a note handwritten by Dickens as a child to a friend or using small magnets to hold posters to the wall. Even his wife Catherine’s cookbook received a spotlight.

I finished the day with a tour of New Gate College with a small group of students, led by Anthony. Since Anthony has a long history with Oxford, he was able to show us areas such as the garden, complete with a well maintained section of the City Walls, the dining hall which was quite stately, and provide us with a breakdown of the purpose, such as vicar, students housing, etc. Before heading to the bus, Deimosa and I toured the Ashmolean Museum, the oldest museum in Britain.

Day 5 - Back to Class

After our free weekend, it was back to class.  Vickie, a student at UCL, sat in on our class to gain information for her dissertation on e-textbooks.  While she’s in the beginning stages of the research and writing process, it was great hearing another student’s insight on e-publishing, especially from a British perspective. The beginning session was in relation to monographs and the costs associated with producing them.  

Ruth Jones, the Director of Publisher Business Development at Ingram Content Group, came to speak to us about the changes affecting the e-publishing market on a global level. Having a background in the British Library and publishing made her speech compelling since her experience is well rounded.  The amount of e-books being sold in the US is astonishing. I was also surprised to learn that the sale of books increases by 12% once they go from print to web since the file server is updated daily and the books are always available.  With e-literature literally being at our fingertips with books smart phones, the market is booming. Also, since the price of e-books is often lower than print, mobile devices from laptops to tablets to smart phones will continue to rise. Metadata made another appearance. With mobile device usage being on the rise, would metadata guidelines need to be updated? Would publishers sell more content if it was more easily searchable via mobile devices?

Alison Jones, a Director at Palgrave Macmillan, spoke about more trends in e-publishing. It was nice to hear her say that print is still growing. There has been a lot of emphasis towards print being dead, but we all know that is not true. She spoke about MRM, Journals, Monographs, Textbooks and Trade publishing. Vickie received lots of information about the high piracy rates in e-textbooks. E-textbooks are more adaptable to the British market since their curriculum is more standardized.  Whereas in the US, even schools within the same district are teaching the same subjects from different books, that does not happen as much in the UK.  Something that was very enlightening was the talk about dynamic books, being able to customize, add, remove chapters and fit books to curricula.  To counteract piracy, new types of DRM are being applied to not just prevent piracy but to track those who pirate information. Hidden watermarks featuring information date of purchase are applied to each product.  This information is then used to persecute the guilty.

After lunch, we trekked to Bloomsbury Publishing which turned into a mini tour of the area since the office has recently moved from Soho Square to Bedford Square. Upon our arrival, we were kindly greeted and welcomed by Emily Ardizzoni, the editorial fashion assistant at Berg Fashion Library. Bloomsbury bought Berg. The chat was based on access and content. They put together a great presentation about their database, which Pratt has access to.
By working with their tech partner, ifactory, they are able to craft a website to host their content. In terms of discoverability, they allow a certain amount of content to be available outside the firewall, such as their topic pages which are used to draw customers in.  For the image partnerships which they are expanding, there’s no licensing involved. They pay for the content once and don’t sell it to other companies.  They are also big on functionality and sustainability such as making the site user friendly to those with disabilities and using focus groups to build content.
Next, we heard a presentation about their Fashion Photography Archive (FPA) which will launch in September 2013. They purchased 750,000 slides from Irish born photographer Niall McInerney. Berg is looking to create an educational resource that is reliable, accurate and properly indexed.  The care they are taking in the quality assessment process is phenomenal. The great thing about Berg is that they are not just interested in hosting content but in how the end users and students will use their product. The FPA will be linked to the Berg site as well as the career portal which will not only lists jobs but internships and steps that students can take to land that dream job.

Free Weekend

Eurostar to Paris. Weekend filled with old friends, wine, escargot, unusually sunny weather and Beaux Arts architecture. Nothing to see here folks.

St. Pancras Station

Gare du Nord

A sunny weekend in Paris

Amazingly fresh fruit

Day 4 - Bloomsbury Conference - Day 2

The group was busy on Twitter again during Day 2.


Again, the Finch Report was a major player in the conference.  One point that really stuck with me was that in the UK, if you receive public funds to conduct your research, you need to must make your findings public, for free, as well. By 2014, this will be mandatory. I have not heard murmurs of the same law passing here in the US. Access is a major point of contention for many.  With technology growing at a fast past, huge populations are being left behind. This is not to say that since the research will be available, that many will be able to understand it; however, it is a beginning.

Anne Welsh, a Lecturer in Library and Information Studies at UCL, was one of the few to mention libraries and librarians.  Rather than having libraries be based solely in their academic realm, librarians are reaching out to include to communities around them. Anne covered strategies that can be and are being used to collaborate academic communities among academics and those that rely on them. 
 
Professor Jonathan Bowen, of London South Bank University and Museophile Ltd. mentioned visualization and altmetrics.  With sites such as Google Scholar, mentions and citation information is tracked, computed and used faster than ever.   The Erdos number was mentioned to see just how connected the scholarly world. It's fascinating. By linking co-authors, countrymen tend to look like six degrees of separation.

I was impressed by Amara Thornton's presentation on linking the past to the present through archaeology.  Thinking of how to engage the past through standard techniques while tying them into modern technology. A chat I had with Tula and Bowen during a break I mentioned that what was informal becomes formal as we work and learn, our level increases.  As the process continues, what one knows this year is much more involved and intelligent than what we knew in the previous year. 

One of the speakers made a comment regarding the convoluted nature of medical reports. While walking, I had a conversation with a fellow classmate who thought that simplifying information for patients was unnecessary and insulting to the professional who spent countless dollars and hours creating said reports. It gave the impression that information follows an elitist attitude. That if you want to be able to understand your medical report, legal papers, et cetera that one should attend a higher education facility.  To say that that idea is unfair is an understatement. As a future information professional, knowing that some feel as though it’s ok for the masses to be in the dark, or to not understand the information presented is asinine.