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Digital Content: Analyzing Demand in the Postsecondary Education Market Image of Noah Carp Author: Noah Carp, Affiliate Analyst A tectonic shift in content use is underway in postsecondary education. Both content adopters and suppliers are in the early phase of the continuum from 100% print content to a significant role for digital content. As postsecondary instructors and other content decisionmakers are increasingly interested in employing new digital formats to enhance teaching and learning, digital content providers, technology vendors, and other companies involved in bringing digital content to colleges and universities are simultaneously shaping a new higher education environment. The most pressing challenges for companies participating in this market are to assess the market opportunities, understand customer requirements, modify existing business strategies, and bring compelling offerings to the market. This report focuses on the demand-side of the market - faculty use and planned use of digital content. It uses primary research of faculty content adopters to identify perceptions and trends that will help shape supplier strategies for digital content. The report analyzes:

"Established in 1997, the California Digital Library has a wholly digital charter and two complementary but distinct roles. As an arm of systemwide library planning, CDL supports the University of California libraries in their mission of providing access to the world's knowledge for the UC campuses and the communities they serve. In so doing, it directly supports UC's mission of teaching, research, and public service. The CDL also maintains its own distinctive programs emphasizing the development and management of digital collections, innovation in scholarly publishing, and the long-term preservation of digital information."

How should we be rethinking the research library in a swiftly changing information landscape?\n\nIn February 2008, CLIR convened 25 leading librarians, publishers, faculty members, and information technology specialists to consider this question. Participants discussed the challenges and opportunities that libraries are likely to face in the next five to ten years, and how changes in scholarly communication will affect the future library. Essays by eight of the participants-Paul Courant, Andrew Dillon, Rick Luce, Stephen Nichols, Daphnée Rentfrow, Abby Smith, Kate Wittenberg, and Lee Zia-were circulated to participants in advance and provided background for the conversation. This report contains these background essays as well as a summary of the meeting.

his research will evaluate the potential of a new generation of electronic document readers that present information across multiple displays - a design that anticipates the future availability of fast, bi-stable, display technology. Despite the fact that e-book readers have been available to the general public for several years, paper remains far more popular as a medium for reading and annotating documents. Although electronic devices for reading can provide unique affordances such as a large storage capacity, keyword search, indexing, and some interactivity, they remain unpopular probably because they fail to offer several core affordances of paper such as efficient page-to-page navigation, quick access to multiple documents, and efficient handling of annotations. Starting from an existing proof of concept, this project will design a fully functional prototype that addresses a large spectrum of reading activities that include: reading a book or magazine, lateral reading, and active reading. A set of deployable prototypes will be used to evaluate the potential of the design through a series of longitudinal studies. In producing prototypes of a next generation electronic document reader, this project will systematically study the design parameters that might enhance the reading experience on such devices in a wide variety of scenarios encompassing a diversity of reading activities. It is possible that digital displays will become the predominant technology for consuming text information. However, digital reading devices will be used only if they combine physical design, software infrastructure, and interface features that support a wide variety of reading patterns. Increasing amounts of reading material (both classic and modern) are available through digital distribution. By making it convenient and enjoyable to access this wealth of digital content, this project will spur new interest in reading both for work and pleasure.

A study to design and evaluate e-book readers. May not be relevant to our study.

The INKE group is comprised of researchers and stakeholders at the forefront of computing in the humanities, text analysis, information studies, usability and interface design. The network is led by Canadian scholars, but includes members from the USA and the UK. It is comprised of those who are best-poised to understand the nature of the human record as it intersects with the computer. Our work is divided into four key research groupings: textual studies, user experience, interface design, and information management.

"The University of Michigan Press will be restructured as an academic unit under the aegis of Paul N. Courant, the university's dean of libraries. The idea, according to statement released by Michigan on Friday, is to position the press "to become a pioneer" in digital publishing-to make it a more direct collaborator in the central mission of spreading research "as widely and freely as possible.""

This page features the results of the collaboration between Google and the LOC to digitize Congressional hearings. I tried the Immigration collection, and found it easy to download and search the .pdf document. This is a great resource for researchers.

2007 Digital Future Report Source: Center for the Digital Future, Annenberg School, University of Southern California The Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School is pleased to present the results of the sixth year of our project, "Surveying the Digital Future." The six years of longitudinal research comprise an absolutely unique data base that completely captures broadband at home, the wireless Internet, on-line media, user-generated content and, now, social networking.

"And Now for Something Completely Different: Our Future from Outside the Box an ALCTS Symposium at ALA Midwinter 2010 Friday, January 15, 2010 from 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Boston, Mass. Event Code: ALC2 Several cutting-edge thinkers will prepare short opinion pieces on future trends/issues/developments that are likely to impact research, instruction, and scholarly communication. These essays will serve as the foundation for panel discussions between some of these thinkers, selected respondents, and attendees on emerging roles for libraries and librarians, particularly collections and technical services librarians. This symposium will build upon the themes developed in the ALCTS Symposium, "Living Digital.""

in March 2001 AALL President Bob Oakley appointed the "Special Committee on the Future of Law Libraries in the Digital Age." The Committee is charged with considering the implications of electronic publishing for the future of law libraries, including those serving law firms and corporations; federal and state courts and agencies; and law schools. Over the course of the past year, members of the Futures Committee have worked to complete a variety of tasks: * Researched and prepared "Trends Briefings" identifying seven significant trends external to libraries that are shaping the face and the future of law libraries

The e-Depot is a digital archiving environment that ensures long-term access to digital objects which would otherwise be threatened by rapidly evolving software and hardware platforms as well as media decay. It is the dedicated archiving environment for the KB's national electronic deposit collection. In addition, it will include the Dutch web archive and digitised master images. In line with the international nature of information provision, the KB has extended its e-Depot services to publishers worldwide. The e-Depot is supported by sustained research and development efforts geared towards maintaining the integrity of stored digital objects.

"During the last several years CUL's online collections have grown considerably. Not only has the number of titles available online increased dramatically, but there has been a significant shift among many researchers in how those collections are being used. In her March 2006 memorandum to Cornell's Deans, Directors, and Department Heads, Sarah Thomas explained the rationale for reviewing part of CUL's journal collection for electronic-only access:"

"In recent years, Americans have grown accustomed to living amid the smoking wreckage of various once-proud industries-automakers bankrupt, brand-name Wall Street banks in ruins, newspapers dying by the dozen. It's tempting in such circumstances to take comfort in the seeming permanency of our colleges and universities, in the notion that our world-beating higher education system will reliably produce research and knowledge workers for decades to come. But this is an illusion. Colleges are caught in the same kind of debt-fueled price spiral that just blew up the real estate market. They're also in the information business in a time when technology is driving down the cost of selling information to record, destabilizing lows. In combination, these two trends threaten to shake the foundation of the modern university, in much the same way that other seemingly impregnable institutions have been torn apart. In some ways, the upheaval will be a welcome one. Students will benefit enormously from radically lower prices-particularly people like Solvig who lack disposable income and need higher learning to compete in an ever-more treacherous economy. But these huge changes will also seriously threaten the ability of universities to provide all the things beyond teaching on which society depends: science, culture, the transmission of our civilization from one generation to the next."

"While speaking at a seminar on 'Future Libraries and Librarians' at AMA, Janice Lachance, chief executive officer, SLA, said, "Our research reveals that certain sections have issues against the term 'librarian' and it conveys an outdated image of these professionals. The term is not in line with the value, the librarian brings to a user in an organisation." "

"The ARL has hired two consultants, October Ivins of Ivins eContent Solutions and Judy Luther of Informed Strategies, to study at-risk, peer-reviewed journals with no electronic incarnation or good e-subscription model. The team is assessing 4,000 such journals "to see if there isn't an opportunity for the libraries to help" them survive, Ms. Luther explained. She and Ms. Ivins described the study at a working session of the ARL's Scholarly Communication Steering Committee, chaired by James G. Neal, university librarian at Columbia University, and again at a briefing for the wider meeting."