Group items tagged

A 2004 article about the estimated costs for the print-to-digital transition at the University of California. Discusses the idea of a central print repository to back up electronic journals. Some numbers discussed, but not many.

"When CSUMB was founded in 1994, the initial intent articulated by then-CSU Chancellor Barry Munitz was to create a virtual library, full of electronic content, that students could access from anywhere. While that 1994 view of information delivery assumed that traditional information resources would disappear or significantly diminish, print publications and other physical media such as DVDs have, in fact, increased annually over the past decade. Thus, ten years later, the CSUMB Library effectively delivers both electronic information and a significant component of traditional print and multimedia from inadequate space in half of a small former military building located off the main campus quad."

"Latest figs from AAP (Association of American Publishers) put ebook sales up 173.9% through end July 2009. A caveat to this …ebook sales made up just 0.6% of overall book sales in 2008 - according to Bowker - which explains the steep growth. So - the ebook sales graph shows a lovely looking curve, but the steepness is really to do with the starting point. Growth always looks impressive from a zero base! Let's look at the ebook market another way. If you read the headline about Amazon's Kindle, this sounds a bit like a revolution. Day one of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol and the Business Insider reports: "Kindle version of the book on top!" (The Business Insider 16.09.09) Steve Windwalker at the Kindle Nation blog says this could be "the biggest story of 2009 in the book trades." As he points out, the most popular book in the world is selling more copies as an electric version than a print version at the most popular bookstore in the world. Or, another version of the story - one week later - in the same news source: Kindle verdict: nothing special" The Business Insider, 22.09.09 "The Lost Symbol sold just 100,000 in e-books format according to Doubleday. Overall Doubleday sold 2 million copies. The 5% ratio of e-books to print is about in-line with the average for book sales."

"A study of academic libraries finds that going from print to electronic journals can save money, if it's done right, but challenges remain\nBy Roger C. Schonfeld & Eileen Gifford Fenton -- Library Journal, 3/1/2005"

Subject search of Academic libraries Automation yields many relevant books about transition from print to digital

overview of print to digital transition

"The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has published "The E-only Tipping Point for Journals: What's Ahead in the Print-to-Electronic Transition Zone," by Richard K. Johnson and Judy Luther. The report examines the issues associated with the migration from dual-format publishing toward electronic-only publication of journals."

"Earlier this week the University of Michigan Press announced it is shifting its center of gravity from print to digital publishing, at least for monographs -- a change that will be reflected in its catalog within two years. It is the shape of things to come. Or rather (given what I've heard at the annual meetings of the Association of American University Presses over the past few years) the shape of what everyone has known is coming for some time now, without quite relishing the prospect."

"digital publishing seems to be getting more expensive while we wring costs out of print as we draw it down."

This article mostly covers the process of mass digitization. One of the recommendations at the end of the article states, " A "digital lending right" should be created to provide universal access to all out-of-print works, through collaboration between national governments and creative communities. This would remove a barrier to the mass democratization of information access and make a contribution to the survival of some threatened languages."

This is an article discussing how the University of Hong Kong Library manages their collections budget to get the best electronic and print resources on the same budget.

2006 San Jose State University study discussing the preferences of print vs. electronic resources in the university's library. Different disciplines prefer different formats. Access the full article through ScienceDirect.

This lengthy New York Times Magazine article discusses mass scanning projects and their impacts in many areas: linking, tagging, and accessibility, among others. Ultimately, author Kevin Kelly imagines that all digitized books will be linked together as on universal book. He discusses the impact of copyright law on existing works and the inevitable out of print "orphans," and Google's plan to scan all the orphans and allow snippets to be accessed under the fair use doctrine. This assumption by Google that it can scan first and find copyright owners later results in a lawsuit that the author describes as a "clash of business models." Business models based on copies are obsolete as business models based on value and searchability take their places.

Abstract "Commercial publishing interests are presenting the future of the book in the digital world through the promotion of e-book reading appliances and software. Implicit in this is a very complex and problematic agenda that re-establishes the book as a digital cultural artifact within a context of intellectual property rights management enforced by hardware and software systems. With the convergence of different types of content into a common digital bit-stream, developments in industries such as music are establishing precedents that may define our view of digital books. At the same time we find scholars exploring the ways in which the digital medium can enhance the traditional communication functions of the printed work, moving far beyond literal translations of the pages of printed books into the digital world. This paper examines competing visions for the future of the book in the digital environment, with particular attention to questions about the social implications of controls over intellectual property, such as continuity of cultural memory."

This recent survey completed by 6500 students at over 400 universities shows that digital textbooks are gaining ground on paper. 51% of students often use electronic textbooks over print.

Essay derived from 2006 conference on future of academic libraries. Examines challenges and opportunities in transition from print to digital.

Predictions that etextbooks on the way--studies of student uses of e-textbooks

This author proposes and innovative method of pricing e-textbooks so that the publisher still maintains an adequate revenue stream and the individual cost per student is far lower than purchasing a printed textbook.

In an information world in which Google apparently offers us everything, what place is there for the traditional, and even the digital, library? In a library environment which is increasingly moving to the delivery of online rather than print resources, what of the academic library's traditional place at the heart of campus life?

"The digitization of millions of books under programs such as Google Book Search and Microsoft Live Search Books is dramatically expanding our ability to search and find information. The aim of these large-scale projects-to make content accessible-is interwoven with the question of how one keeps that content, whether digital or print, fit for use over time. This report by Oya Y. Rieger examines large-scale digital initiatives (LSDIs) to identify issues that will influence the availability and usability, over time, of the digital books these projects create. Ms. Rieger is interim assistant university librarian for digital library and information technologies at the Cornell University Library." The paper describes four large-scale projects-Google Book Search, Microsoft Live Search Books, Open Content Alliance, and the Million Book Project-and their digitization strategies. It then discusses a range of issues affecting the stewardship of the digital collections they create: selection, quality in content creation, technical infrastructure, and organizational infrastructure. The paper also attempts to foresee the likely impacts of large-scale digitization on book collections.