There’s no such thing as free (high quality) digital content
At the event “Why pay for content?” organised by the Publishers Association, representatives from the publishing sector, JISC, and academics, put across opposing views on whether we should pay to access content on the internet or it should be freely and openly accessible to everybody. The content in question referred mainly to textbooks and research/reference material for higher education.
However, about 10 minutes into the debate, the opposing speeakers seemed to agree on one fundamental point: the question posed, “Why pay for content?”, was not the right one.
Rather, we should be asking “Who should pay for content?”.
Some key issues from the presentations and debate that emerged were:
• there was general agreement that for the creation and online delivery of high quality, authoritative content, someone has to pay (commercial publishers, government funding, authors, users), somewhere along the food chain
• the view was put forward that the “free at the point of use” model was the preferred one, but still somebody had to pay, at some point
• business models that are being experimented with by open access initiative, have tended to shift the cost of content to the delivery of “added extras” or “value added ” features (eg print on demand, delivery of content in different formats or for different platforms, various degrees of personalisation etc…), while basic content accessible on screen comes for free (see eg Flat World Knowledge )
• if somebody has to pay, then how much should content cost? Commercial publishers agreed that the economics of different sectors would determine this, based on how much value (ie quantified positive outcomes) the purchase of high quality content would bring to one’s business
• why aren’t academics depositing their research outputs into open access repositories even if research into this suggests they are not opposed to it? Views ranged from the need to provide researchers with more stimuli or financial rewards to deposit, to mandating it, to allowing for more experimentation (not clear in what, though…)
• a commercial publisher advanced the notion that there is still not enough evidence that free access will deliver more impact, rather the “brand” has proved to be more effective in delivering impact, so it’s not a matter of business models per se
• the landscape is varied and paid-for content and “free” content coexist and will do so for, at least, the medium term future
The issues are many, and the jury is still out on what delivery and sustainability models will eventually prevail.
But in one thing there seems to be consensus: in the majority of cases there is a cost to the creation of high quality, authoritative and reliable content.
Millions more newspapers pages to be available on Google
Today Google announced that they are launching:
“an initiative to make more old newspapers accessible and searchable online by partnering with newspaper publishers to digitize millions of pages of news archives.”
This adds to the large amount of existing online newspaper content, by publications such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, that is already being crawled by Google.
In addition, Google has entered a partnership with ProQuest and Heritage that will allow even more newspapers pages to be digitised and made available online. As the ProQuest press-release explains:
“ProQuest will contribute content to the partnership, and will introduce newspaper publishers nationwide to the program. ProQuest will also supply from its microfilm vault newspaper content that can be delivered effectively in the less formal framework of the open web.”
Newspapers content will be available through Google News Archive Search:
“Search results include content from a number of sources, including both partner content digitized by Google through our News Archive Partner Program and online archival materials that we’ve crawled. Search results can include content that is freely accessible as well as content that requires a fee. Articles related to a single story within a given time period are grouped together to allow users to see a broad perspective on the topics they are searching. “
Public libraries digitising music
During a recent meeting on digitisation in the EU, the JISC Digitisation Programme came across this interesting digitisation model from the Rotterdam Central Record Library
- The library in Rotterdam owns 300,000 CDs (including mainstream stuff)
- They are digitising every CD
- CDs are then lent digitally, ie via Internet, to library users (for free)
- Users can use the tracks for a limited period before DRM kicks in and blocks use
- Publishers were initially suspicious but have been won over because users are now getting access to stuff that they never knew of before - and then they buy it if they like it
Public-private partnership delivers thousands of images for free
Thanks to a public-private partnership between the Bodleian Library and ProQuest, thousands of images from one of the world’s most important collections of printed ephemera are being made freely available to all UK universities, further education institutions, schools and public libraries.
The John Johnson Collection: An Archive of Printed Ephemera, part of the JISC Phase Two Digitisation Programme, is now available at http://johnjohnson.chadwyck.co.uk and http://johnjohnson.chadwyck.com.
This first release comprises more than 6,300 images, drawn from the five key areas that will eventually be covered in the final collection for a total of about 150,000 images, including theatrical ephemera from the 19th Century Entertainment category, the Booktrade, Popular Prints, Advertising and material on Crimes, Murders and Executions.
The web site provides information on how to access the collection through your institution or public library.
‘Read all about it’
The JISC-funded 19th Century Newspapers digitisation project was highlighted in today’s Guardian as part of a growing number of online newspaper archives which constitute an invaluable resource for historians and researchers.
Stephen Hoare commented:
“The digitisation of the British Library’s 19th-century newspaper collection - the most comprehensive archive ever to go online - was launched in November 2007 after three years of preparation and scanning. The archive covers billions of words and its two million computer-readable pages are a historian’s treasure trove. It represents 48 titles such as the Morning Chronicle, the Graphic, the Examiner and a cluster of Chartist publications.”
Read the full article on The Guardian web site.
On “Good Terms”
Next week (6 December) will see the launch of the beta version of Electronic Ephemera: Digitised Selections from the John Johnson Collection at Online Information 2007, London.
This new e-resource is part of the JISC Phase Two Digitisation Programme and features selections from the Bodleian Library’s John Johnson Collection, one of the most important collections of printed ephemera in the world spanning the entire range of printing and social history between 1508-1939.
Delivered through an innovative public-private collaboration between the Bodleian Library and ProQuest CSA, the project is an example of a variety of business models that feature in the JISC Digitisation Programme. The event will also provide some background on the working of successful partnerships and the benefits to the wider academic community that such collaborations can bring.
In the news: Guardian launches digital archive
More than 150 years of Guardian and Observer back copies have been made available online with the launch of the paper’s digital archive.
The archive allows users to search for free the full text of the newspaper from 1821 to 1975 and the Observer from 1900 to 1975 (a second phase early next year will see the addition of the Observer from 1791 to 1899 and both papers from 1976 to 2003). There is a fee for viewing articles in full and downloading.
The Guardian marks the occasion with a special supplement which details the process of bringing the newspapers from Stockwell Deep Level Shelter to screen and explains its choice of the company Olive Software in Tel Aviv to do the digitisation: ”Olive Software’s secret ingredient is its system of ‘componentisation’ - a set of mathematical algorithms that allow its computers to learn how to make sense of the cacophony and thus, in effect, to learn how to read a newspaper”.
It also invites novelist AS Byatt, director Richard Eyre and journalist Katharine Whitehorn to delve into the archive and share their impressions. They approve.
Until November 30, the paper is offering 24 hour free introductory access to the archive.
In the news: first world war archive
Another National Archives/geneology.co.uk digitisation project makes the news today. The Guardian reports that the pension records of almost a million soldiers who served in the first world war have for the first time been made available on the internet, allowing descendants to access a wealth of information about anyone who was injured or discharged due to illness. Full story here: Internet archive puts flesh on the bones of first world war soldiers’ experiences.