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 | ARL Finds Journals Caught in Transition
A new report published this week by the Association of Research Libraries concludes that publishers and libraries are caught in "an extended transition zone" between print-only and e-only journals. The report, "The E-only Tipping Point for Journals: What's Ahead in the Print-to-Electronic Transition Zone," authored by former SPARC executive director Richard K. Johnson and library consultant Judy Luther, asserts that the demands of "dual-format" publishing and the additional costs of keeping e-journals "operating within the bounds of the print publishing process" is taxing the status quo for all stakeholders: publishers, libraries, authors, and readers.
"The question of when dual-format journals will complete the transition to single-format (electronic) publishing is taking on increasing urgency," the authors note.
Approximately 60 percent of some 20,000 active peer-reviewed journals are now available in electronic form, and the e-journal is now unquestionably the preferred format. "Online use of library-provided journals exceeds print use by a factor of at least ten," the report notes, citing a University of California study. Meanwhile, with the economies of the e-only collection "still speculative," what is clear is that the costs of supporting print and electronic "hybrid" collections are "straining library resources."
Economics, however, is not the only factor extending the transition, the reports concedes, noting preservation challenges, and the potential loss of key readers. "Society publishers," the report acknowledges, "are concerned with broad readership and thus fear sacrificing a portion of current readers and ultimately limiting the audience for authors by discontinuing print subscriptions."
The report, which seeks to identify the forces that have led to the current "extended transition," is based on published resources as well as interviews conducted between June and August 2007 with two-dozen academic librarians and journal publishers. Commercial publishers, researchers, and students were not interviewed.
While there exist "competing perceptions, considerable speculation, and few indicators to suggest how many readers and subscribers are truly tied to print," the report concludes that the future is electronic. "The role of the printed journal in the institutional marketplace faces a steep decline in the coming five to10 years," the report notes. "Financial imperatives will draw libraries first—and ultimately publishers also—toward a tipping point where it no longer makes sense to subscribe to or publish printed versions of most journals."
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SPARC, ACRL To Examine Student Perspectives at ALA Midwinter
At the 16th SPARC/ACRL Forum to be held January 12 at the upcoming American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia, SPARC will offer a student perspective. The session, "Working with the Facebook Generation: Engaging Student Views on Access to Scholarship," will feature "tech-savvy students, who live and breathe information-sharing," and are "critical to changing the way scholarly communication is conducted."
The student focus acknowledges a vital, emerging front for the organization. Previous efforts have centered on open access and faculty awareness of scholarly publishing, and lobbying for public access. Students coming up in today's academe are "not bound by traditional modes of research exchange," notes a program description, and are "using all the technologies at their disposal to engage in scholarly discourse," including blogs, wikis, and tagging tools.
"The forum is part of a year-long effort," SPARC executive director Heather Joseph told the LJ Academic Newswire. "It's clear that this generation is growing with technology at the center of how they communicate. They operate with assumptions and values related to sharing that we want to be explicit rather than tacit. Plus, they're the beneficiaries of more open communication. It's only natural that they would want to get involved. They get it."
By reaching out and engaging students, could SPARC grab a more active role in influencing attitudes about information and scholarly communication before students enter an environment where professional advancement and tenure become prime motivators? "Students are already aware of these pressures," Joseph noted. "We can't protect them from what they already know. One of the best ways to deal with the pressures is to have them be educated and positioned to press for alternatives."
The forum will be held, Saturday, Jan. 12, 2008, from 4-6p.m. at
Pennsylvania Convention Center, room 204 A/B, followed by an open discussion of key issues that surface at the forum on Sunday, Jan. 13, from 4- 6p.m. at the Marriott Philadelphia, room Franklin 11. The event will be also available via a SPARC Podcast at a later date. For more information, visit the SPARC web site.
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| Librarians: Not the Last Chapter for North Carolina Festival for the Book
Could it be the end of the story for the North Carolina Festival for the Book? The Charlotte News & Observer is reporting
that the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNCCH) library is "passing" on its 2008 turn to organize the biennial literary festival—hosted on a rotating basis by UNCCH, North Carolina State University (NCSU), and Duke University—apparently unable to commit to organizing the event while in the midst of executing its strategic plan. The popular event is a major undertaking. Last year's festival at Duke operated with a reported $280,000 budget (half of which reportedly was raised by the university). The 2004 event, at NC State (Raleigh), cost $150,000. UNCCH hosted the 2002 festival, which operated with a $200,000 budget.
The festival was founded in 1998, sponsored by the Center for the Study of the American South at UNCCH. Resource issues derailed the festival, but it returned in 2002 after local university librarians, led by 2005 Library Journal Librarian of the Year Susan Nutter of NCSU, revived the festival with a plan to rotate hosting duties among UNC, NCSU, and Duke. Despite resource issues, however, Nutter told the News & Observer it's too early to close the book on the festival, and suggested that the campuses "pool their own library programs under the literary festival name," an idea that UNCCH librarian Sarah Michalak, and Duke University director Deborah Jakubs seemed to embrace. "Don't write us off yet," Jakubs told reporters.
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| Institute for the Future of the Book Lands $400K MacArthur Grant
The Institute for the Future of the Book (if:book) has received a hefty $400,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation, which if:book director Bob Stein said will facilitate the completion of the long-awaited Sophie, a set of digital authoring tools. Stein told the LJ Academic Newswire that Sophie 1.0 could see a release as early as February '08. The grant continues the MacArthur Foundation's support of if:book. MacArthur helped found the institute with a 2004, $500,000 grant to its parent institution, the University of Southern California, Annenberg Center for Communication.
Sophie is designed to enable people to create "robust, elegant rich-media, networked" documents. "We have word processors, video, audio and photo editors but no viable options for assembling the parts into a complex whole except tools like Flash which are expensive, hard to use, and often create documents with closed proprietary file formats," notes a Sophie product description. "Sophie promises to open up the world of multimedia authoring to a wide range of creative people."
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Best Sellers in Sociology, February 2007–present, as compiled by YBP Library Services
(13 digit ISBNs in brackets)
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Children at Play: An American History
Chudacoff, Howard P.
New York University
2007. ISBN 0814716644 [9780814716649]. $27.95
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Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture
Savage, Jon
Viking
2007. ISBN 0670038377 [9780670038374]. $29.95
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Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur
Kiernan, Ben
Yale University Press
2007. ISBN 0300100981 [9780300100983]. $40.00
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Comrades! A History of World Communism
Service, Robert
Harvard University Press
2007. ISBN 067402530x [9780674025301]. $35.00
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Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History
Ulrich, Laurel
Alfred A Knopf
2007. ISBN 1400041597 [9781400041596]. $24.00
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Sexual Citizens: The Legal and Cultural Regulation of Sex and Belonging
Cossman, Brenda
Stanford University
2007. ISBN 0804749965 [9780804749961]. $50.00
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Generation Digital: Politics, Commerce, and Childhood in the Age of the Internet
Montgomery, Kathryn C.
MIT Press
2007. ISBN 0262134780 [9780262134781]. $29.95
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Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture
Keen, Andrew
Doubleday
2007. ISBN 0385520808 [9780385520805]. $22.95
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Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers, and Warriors Shaped Globalization
Chanda, Nayan
Yale University Press
2007. ISBN 0300112017 [9780300112016]. $27.50
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Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home
Ed. by Pamela Stone
University of California Press
2007. ISBN 0520244354 [9780520244351]. $24.95
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Ending Slavery: How We Free Today's Slaves
Bales, Kevin
University of California Press
2007. ISBN 0520254708 [9780520254701]. $24.95
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Welfare State Nobody Knows: Debunking Myths about U.S. Social Policy
Howard, Christopher
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 069112180x [9780691121802]. $29.95
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What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism
Krueger, Alan B.
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 0691134383 [9780691134383]. $24.95
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Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World
Clinton, Bill
Alfred A Knopf
2007. ISBN 0307266745 [9780307266743]. $24.95
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Justice, Gender, and the Politics of Multiculturalism
Song, Sarah
Cambridge University Press
2007. ISBN 0521874874 [9780521874878]. $85.00
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Next Catastrophe: Reducing Our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters
Perrow, Charles
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 0691129975 [9780691129976]. $29.95
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Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men? A Debate
Farrell, Warren
Oxford University Press
2008. ISBN 0195312821 [9780195312829]. $39.00
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Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild
Siegel, Deborah
Palgrave Macmillan
2007. ISBN 1403973180 [9781403973184]. $75.00
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Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration
Pager, Devah
University of Chicago Press
2007. ISBN 0226644839 [9780226644837]. $25.00
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Politics of Same-Sex Marriage
Rimmerman, Craig
University of Chicago Press
2007. ISBN 0226720004 [9780226720005]. $60.00
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