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In Major Expansion, CIC Schools Join Google Scan Plan
Google and the 12 universities in the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) announced yesterday that they have entered into an agreement to digitize up to ten million bound volumes. In one swoop, the deal represents a two-thirds jump in the number of libraries participating worldwide in the Google Books Library Project, from 15 to 25. Under the agreement, Google will digitize "significant portions from CIC library general collections," with each university to contribute "collection areas of particular strength and distinction." The announcement comes just days after the BookExpo America conference in New York, where some publishers expressed their continuing concerns, some rather creatively with Google's Library scan plan.
The digitization initiative will include both public domain and in-copyright materials, said Wendy Pradt Lougee, university librarian at the University of Minnesota and member of the six-person team that negotiated the agreement with Google. As per its policy, Google will only make available "snippets" of in-copyright materials through its search engine. Public domain materials can be viewed, searched, or downloaded for printing in their entirety.
In addition, Lougee said that, as a part of the agreement, the consortium will be able to create a "shared digital repository" that will enable CIC librarians to access the full content and "collectively archive and manage" as many as five million public domain works held across the CIC libraries. Lougee said the agreement allows for "library digitization at a scale and scope that would not be possible within the limited means available to the individual universities." Under the contract each CIC institution will cover the costs of preparing the books for digitization.
Two members of the CIC already had signed deals with Google; the University of Michigan (UM), which is opening its entire collection to Google, roughly seven million volumes, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-M), which had agreed to the scanning of select, public domain titles. CIC officials said the ten million volumes to be scanned under the new agreement do not include those volumes already being digitized at UM and UW-M. The CIC includes the University of Minnesota, University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Indiana University, University of Iowa, Michigan State University, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University and the University of Michigan, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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Who Needs Google? Emory U. Libraries to Scan, Sell Books
So, if you want to scan your collection and make books widely available, to whom do you turn? Google, maybe Microsoft? Officials at Emory University have chosen a different route: scanning and selling their own books. Emory officials this week said they have purchased a Kirtas robotic book scanner, which can digitize as many as 50 books per day, turning each volume into a PDF file. After scanning, the titles will be uploaded to a web site where scholars can access them and, if they wish, buy "print on demand" (POD) editions through Amazon.com and eventually "other distribution channels." In return, Emory will receive compensation from the sale of copies, though Emory director for digital programs Martin Halbert stressed that the POD feature "is not intended to generate a profit," but to help the library recoup some of its costs "in making out-of-print materials available."
Many academic libraries have scanning centers, and Emory's plan to scan and sell books through POD is certainly an ambitious path for libraries, but one that comes with its own challenges and limitations in terms of time and money. The University of Michigan (UM), for example, has an active scanning center but decided the cost and time investment was simply too much compared to what Google offered them. "I think we probably had the most aggressive digitization project of academic libraries out there," James Hilton, associate provost for academic information and instructional technology affairs at UM told Library Journal in fall 2005, "and it was still going to take us 1000 years to make it through our collection at a cost that was staggering." In signing on to Google's scan plan this week, officials at the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) estimated the total cost of digitizing a book at approximately $60.
Still, the Emory plan represents a bold step forward for libraries into the scholarly publishing realm. Emory is one of a handful of academic libraries to establish a major online peer-reviewed journal, the web-based journal Southern Spaces. And Emory officials said they believe the libraries' will do much more publishing beyond making out-of-print books accessible. "The Emory libraries plan to use the program to support an array of scholarly publishing needs on our campus," said Rick Luce, vice provost for libraries. "We will be providing new opportunities for our faculty and students to disseminate their work, if they choose to do so, under the Emory banner."
Emory's efforts will surely be a hot topic at this year's American Librarian Association's (ALA) annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Emory's Matt Halbert chairs the ALA Digital Library Technologies Interest Group, and will lead a panel discussion on June 24, titled "Libraries as Digital Publishers: A New Model for Scholarly Access to Information."
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At BEA Panel, Publishers Praise Google Book Search
While some publishers have made clear their displeasure with Google's Book Search's (GBS) Library Project, others at one BookExpo America (BEA) panel last weekend sponsored by Google offered a different take. These satisfied customers of Google's publisher program, the scan plan in which publishers contractually participate, say it's already yielding positive results. The panel, moderated by Google's Tom Turvey, featured a cross-section of publishers: Kate Tentler from commercial trade house Simon & Schuster; Evan Schnittman from nonprofit Oxford University Press; Paul Manning from commercial STM publisher Springer; and Patrick Durando from professional publisher McGraw Hill.
"We were initially skeptical," conceded Tentler. "We were concerned about giving away too much for free. We were not convinced by the 'long tail' theory." But the numbers, she says, have since showed that the increase in "discoverability" for S&S books in GBS is very real. Books featured in the program show a 15.3 percent "conversion rate," which means that web surfers who clicked on an S&S book in GBS either bought a book or went to the S&S web site and, for example, subscribed to a newsletter. Conversion rates for other search engines languish around one to three percent, she said. S&S's numbers also showed more users were visiting S&S's web site through GBS, staying longer, and buying books directly from the site; indeed, 98 percent of titles in the program get views every month.
OUP's Schnittman echoed Tentler's remarks and posted his own impressive numbers: 37 million page views for OUP books in GBS over the past two years, and 321,000 clicks on the "buy the book" button. "Even if only ten percent of those clicks become actual sales," he noted, "that is a lot of money essentially out of nowhere." Manning said that Springer logs anywhere from 600,000 to one million book clicks a month, and that 75 percent of Springer's titles in GBS have had "buy the book clicks," though, of course, just a fraction of those convert to sales. Durando said McGraw Hill has logged over 60 million views, adding that the top 30 McGraw Hill titles viewed in GBS accounted for ten percent of the company's sales through GBS.
Schnittman likened GBS to an "endless marketing campaign." He then detailed a self-professed "fantasy" world for e-content in the Google age, which included everything from a subscription model for collections of OUP books that would automatically update to a radio-like model in which content is streamed and publishers are paid royalties "under an ASCAP-like model." Putting those wishes in perspective, he closed his remarks by asking that Google also provide him "a personal hovercraft."
Talk of the library aspect of the scan plan, meanwhile, was clearly avoided. Faced with a question about ongoing lawsuits against Google lodged by publishers and authors, Turvey deflected it as "a completely different program."
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One Hot Meeting: BEA in New York Sets Attendance Record
BookExpo America (BEA) organizers are no doubt familiar with the mantra: location, location, location. Returning to New York City, the publishing industry's home base, the show drew more than 30,000 attendees, according to preliminary estimates. Last year, 22,366 people attended the convention in Washington, DC. More than 3400 librarians came to New York, a hefty 30 percent increase over the 2200 total librarian attendance last year, thanks in part to a concerted effort by BEA organizers to reach out to librarians, with discounted registration, free shuttle buses, and special programming and events.
Librarians from all types of libraries were prominent at this year's event, held in the crowded, bustling Javits Center, both on the not-so-air-conditioned show floor, and in often overflowing meeting rooms. Librarians were also prominent in the show's program, which included author talks and signings and panel discussions on everything from book reviewing to blogging, Google, social networking and MySpace, and panels such as "Collection Analysis for Publishers: Are Libraries Missing Some of Your Titles" and "Discovering, Assessing, and Buying Graphic Novels for Your Library."
A healthy slice of publishers, roughly one-third of the audience, attended a panel on "How Libraries Buy," moderated by librarian Nora Rawlinson, who formerly edited both Library Journal and Publishers Weekly, now currently VP of library services for Hachette Book Group USA. Rawlinson advised librarians to use publishers' web sites and newsletters to get early information and suggested that "libraries potentially are big promotion vehicles for publishers." Leslie Burger, American Library Association (ALA) president and director of the Princeton Public Library, NJ, suggested that librarians refocus on books, adding that librarians should track pop culture and use supplementary review sources. She also said she was pushing for an increased emphasis on books at ALA conferences, including trade list previews, and reminded publishers to send their authors to libraries on book tours. "We sell books," she declared.
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Best Sellers in Business and Economics, October 2006–present, as compiled by YBP Library Services
(13-digit ISBNs included in brackets)
- Global Imbalances and the Lessons of Bretton Woods
Eichengreen, Barry
MIT Press
2007. ISBN 0262050846 [9780262050845]. $26.00
- China Shakes the World: A Titan's Rise and Troubled Future—And the Challenge for America
Kynge, James
Houghton Mifflin
2006. ISBN 0618705643 [9780618705641]. $25.00
- Soulful Science: What Economists Really Do and Why It Matters
Coyle, Diane
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 0691125139 [9780691125138]. $27.95
- Adam's Fallacy: A Guide to Economic Theology
Foley, Duncan K.
Belknap Harvard
2006. ISBN 0674023099 [9780674023093] $25.95
- Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review
Stern, Nicholas
Cambridge University Press
2007. ISBN 0521700809 [9780521700801]. $50.00
- In Spite Of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India
Luce, Edward
Doubleday
2007. ISBN 0385514743 [9780385514743]. $26.00
- Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies
Page, Scott E.
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 0691128383 [9780691128382]. $27.95
- Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Levitt, Stephen D.
William Morrow
2006. ISBN 0061234001 [9780061234002]. $27.95
- Affluent Consumer: Marketing and Selling the Luxury Lifestyle
Michman, Ronald D.
Praeger
2006. ISBN 0275992829 [9780275992828]. $44.95
- Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses
Mitchell, Stacy
Beacon
2006. ISBN 0807035009 [9780807035009]. $24.95
- Selling Women Short: Gender Inequality on Wall Street
Roth, Louise Marie
Princeton University Press
2006. ISBN 0691126437 [9780691126432]. $27.95
- Future of Europe: Reform or Decline
Alesina, Alberto
MIT Press
2006. ISBN 0262012324 [9780262012324]. $24.95
- Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook
Walter W. Powell
Yale University Press
2006. ISBN 0300109032 [9780300109030]. $65.00
- Surviving Large Losses: Financial Crises, the Middle Class, and the Development of Capital Markets
Hoffman, Philip T.
Belknap Harvard
2007. ISBN 0674024699 [9780674024694]. $27.95
- European Economy Since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond
Eichengreen, Barry J.
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 0691127107 [9780691127101]. $35.00
- Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World
Walker, B.H.
Island Press
2006. ISBN 1597260932 [9781597260930]. $25.00
- Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole
Barber, Benjamin R.
W W Norton
2007. ISBN 0393049612 [9780393049619]. $26.95
- How to Think About Information
Schiller, Dan
University of Illinois Press
2007. ISBN 0252031326 [9780252031328]. $35.00
- From Hire to Liar: The Role of Deception in the Workplace
Shulman, David
ILR Press
2007. ISBN 0801473314 [9780801473319]. $18.95
- World Changing: A User's Guide for the 21st Century
Steffen, Alex
Harry N. Abrams
2006. ISBN 0810930951 [9780810930957]. $37.50
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