Experts On E-Books

11:00am – 11:10am – Introduction

11:10am - 11:45am Laying the Groundwork: Platforms, Devices, & Interfaces

The market for e-books and digital content is continually evolving and adapting, while simultaneously becoming increasingly global in terms of its interdependence and reach. Many determinants of this evolving and decentralized information environment are beyond the control of any one actor, institution, or organization and rely on interoperability between content providers, technology enablers, and eBook distributors to deliver engaging e-book experiences to end users.

While traditional print publishing was in the control of publishing houses and the reading experience mostly standardized, the shift to digital publishing diversified the publishing industry and allowed for new players to enter the market, position, and differentiate themselves.

The quest for market share, revenue, and relevance in this new reality has had both positive and negative effects on the user experience and accounts for many of the challenges that must be addressed for the market to achieve sustainable growth.

In this dynamic and maturing marketplace, there is significant scope for scholarly publishers and libraries to act as the architects of their own future, review their strategies, and adapt to the digital transformation and expectations of their users.

11:45am - 12:15pm Reader Usage and Behavioral Data: Observing Readers in Their Natural Habitat

Publishers never knew if book buyers were actually reading their books. This is changing now. Amazon, Apple and Google have hoards of ebook reading data, but don’t share them. Jellybooks is changing that and enabling authors and publishers to collect reading data by embedding tracking software inside ebooks to record reading data on 3rd party reading platforms. The approach is similar to a “Google Analytics for ebooks” and hence Jellybooks has been called “Moneyball for Publishing” by the New York Times. The data tracking is totally transparent to the reader who is in control of the process. Managing data privacy is actually the easy bit. Publisher fear about data-based decision making replacing gut-instinct is the more challenging frontier. The times are changing though and more and more publisher are putting reader analytics and audience insights to good use in their operations.

12:15pm- 1:00pm Content Presentation: What Jane Saw: Because Some Scholarship Cannot Fit Inside A Book?

Join Professor Janine Barchas from the University of Texas as she walks you through her digital reconstructions of two museum spectacles witnessed by Jane Austen (in 1796 and 1813). She will explain how this visualization project, which proved “bigger than the breadbox of an article” and yet so different from the traditional scholarly book, came about. She will also give us a peek in to the VR project that is next for What Jane Saw.

Take a look before the talk at: www.whatjanesaw.org

1:00pm - 1:45pm Lunch

1:45pm - 2:15pm Making The Metadata Work

Download the OCLC White Paper Referenced by Chip Nilges: Success Strategies for Electronic Content Discovery and Access 

In the print world, metadata carries only part of the discovery and accessibility “payload.” A user looking for a print title needs only enough metadata to find the record describing a book that meets his or her needs and where it is on the library or bookstore shelf. In the digital world, the demand on metadata is far greater, because the entire process of finding, evaluating, choosing, and often “consuming” the book happens online. The Web has also created many new channels for book discovery and many different business models for selling it. Each channel and each business model carries with it new requirements for metadata and how it’s shared to support discovery, acquisition and access.

While the metadata needs to do more for electronic media, and do it in more places, this doesn’t mean that traditional practices for creating and using high quality print title metadata have lost value. However, traditional practices need to be augmented in a variety of ways to support new business models and new types of usage.

This presentation will outline best practices for ebook metadata management based on OCLC’s experience in working with the world’s leading publishers and global libraries to support digital workflows.

2:15-2:45 Business Models: New Challenges & New Opportunities.

The speaker has confirmed that he will be addressing the following:

• Trends in E-books Acquisitions & Collections Matrix
• E-Books Impact on Traditional Library Resource Sharing
• Demand/Patron-Driven Acquisitions Challenges & Solutions
• Changing Collections Goals & Changing E-Books Licensing Needs

2:45pm -3:15pm The Integrity of the EBook The EBook as a Scholarly Work in an Ephemeral Medium

The value of books in academic research depends to a great extent on values and conventions that have evolved through the history of print publishing. The transition to eBooks may turn out to be as significant a change as the introduction of the codex or the printing press. As professionals devoted to the creation, curation, and discovery of online book content, we have to discern what should be preserved and what should change among those print-based values and conventions. For publishers, the questions are especially acute. As we move to a medium that is (perceived to be) almost free of cost how do we define and defend the value of our work? Can we fully embrace the new technology and preserve what makes eBooks books?

3:15 - 3:30 Break

3:30 - 4:00 Project/Case Study I -- OpenStax

OpenStax is a non-profit initiative of Rice University that aims to improve both the access to high-quality educational experiences and learning outcomes. Building on 17 years of experience in open education resources (OER), OpenStax is publishing a library of free, open, professional-quality textbooks for the most highly enrolled college courses. Over the past four years, OpenStax textbooks have been adopted at 27% of all degree-granting colleges and universities, saving 1.5M students $145M. This talk will overview the past, present, and future of OpenStax as we move towards sustainability and introduce an adaptive learning platform to deliver customized instruction to students.

4:00 - 4:30 Project/Case Study II -- Knowledge Unlatched

Knowledge Unlatched is a collaborative effort by libraries and publishers that offers a path to open access for ebooks. Designed initially to provide open access arts and humanities books KU is a global initiative that has succeeded in unlatching over 100 books that have averaged an amazing 3000 downloads per title across 175 countries. Building on the success of the Pilot and Round 2 KU is expanding the number of titles available with KU Select 2016. KU’s evolution will be discussed along with challenges unique to open content and plans for sustainability through future growth.

4:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Roundtable Discussion moderated by Todd Carpenter