Communications / PSP...Links

PSP . . . Links

A periodic alerting service leading you to information relevant to the professional and scholarly publishing industry

No. 68, August 15, 2011

Table of Contents

1. What’s New on the PSP and AAP Web Sites?
2. PSP Education and Training Programs
3. Other Programs of Interest
4. New Job Postings
5. Suggested Reading
6. Publishers invited to submit list of imprints for new AAP website


1. What’s New on the PSP & AAP Web Sites?

On the AAP Website
New Publishing Industry Survey, BookStats, Details Strong Three-Year Growth in Net Revenue, Units
BookStats Also Examines Trends in Print and Digital Formats, Sales Distribution Channels
http://www.publishers.org/press/44/

Publishers Applaud House and Senate Votes Excluding Ordinary Children’s Books and Printed Materials from Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act
http://www.publishers.org/press/43/

2. PSP Education and Training Programs

Guest Speaker
The PSP Committee has invited guest speaker Patricia Payton, Senior Director of Publisher Relations and Content Development for Bowker to their next meeting on Friday, September 9th from 12:30-1:30pm at the AAP/NY offices. Bowker offers a free program that will allow for improved discoverability of all frontlist and backlist titles. They accept digital editions and print only titles, where a PDF is available. This data will then be indexed and keywords stored behind the scenes for retrieval by users. Without making this content viewable, Bowker shows the most relevant terms within the work for users and ranks importance of the word to the work. In this talk, I will share with you some reference findings on the extent of metadata created by our machine indexing versus what publishers are sending in ONIX.

If you or a colleague would like to attend this talk in person, or via webinar, please email spinto@publishers.org.

Programs:
Space is limited – fewer than half the available slots remain!
PSP Journals Reboot:
Problem Solving in an Evolving Journals Landscape
(formerly PSP Journals Boot Camp)
September 20th-22nd, 2011
American Geophysical Union (AGU) Offices
Washington, DC
PSP Journals Reboot is appropriate for junior to mid level staff with an interest in broadening their knowledge of journal publishing beyond their current job function in all job categories, including acquisitions, finance, production, circulation, sales, and marketing. Attendance is limited, as experience has shown that for this intensive course the best learning environment is achieved with fewer participants to ensure a more interactive, hands-on experience.
More Information
Program
Registration Form

Fall 2011 Seminar Series on Selected Topics in Electronic Publishing
Tuesday, September 27th – 12:00-1:30pm
Tuesday, October 25th – 12:00-1:30pm
Tuesday, November 15th – 12:00-1:30pm
Tuesday, December 13th – 12:00-1:30pm
Association of American Publishers
New York, NY 10003
Due to popular demand the PSP Electronic Information Committee (EIC) is holding it's fifth series of the Seminar Series on Selected Topics in Electronic Publishing with new topics and new speakers. The programs are targeted to staff new to electronic publishing at member organizations and address the transition underway from print to the electronic side of scholarly and professional publishing.
In-person spaces are limited to 18 but webinar spaces are unlimited
Course Information
Registration Form

Social Media and Networking in PSP 2.0
Wednesday, October 19th, 2011
12:00-3:00pm
Association of American Publishers
New York, NY 10003
Social Media and Networking in PSP 2.0 was developed in response to the overwhelming positive feedback received from Social Media and Networking in PSP 1.0. This seminar takes things a bit further with presentations to illustrate how technology and social media are actively shaping our behavior and becoming an integral part of our daily lives. While the seminar is still designed to provide a high-level view at how social media and social networking are used in today’s publishing environment, and how you might harness it to enhance your offerings, brace yourself for what the future can potentially offer.
Course Information
Registration Form

Professional, Scholarly & Academic Books:
The Basic Boot Camp
Thursday, October 20th, 2011
9:00am-5:00pm
Wolters Kluwer Offices
Philadelphia, PA 19103
The Professional/Scholarly Publishing (PSP) Division of the Association of American Publishers presents a unique opportunity to learn about book publishing. If you have less than three years’ experience in professional, scholarly, and academic publishing—or are considering a career change—this workshop will provide an indispensable overview of the industry.
More Information
Program
Registration Form

Save The Date!
PSP 2012 Annual Conference
Prospering with Digital: Making Investments Pay
February 1-3, 2012
Mayflower Hotel
Washington, DC
PSP 2012 Pre-Conference Program
PSP 2012 Annual Conference Program
Online Registration Form
Fax/Mail Registration Form
Hotel Information
Additional Information

For more information on all of these seminars, please visit www.pspcentral.org

All details are posted on the PSP website www.pspcentral.org. For more information contact spinto@publishers.org.


3. Other Programs of Interest
ALPSP International Conference 2011
September 14th –16th
Oxford, UK
http://www.alpsp.org/ngen_public/article.asp?aid=335158

SSP IN Conference: Innovation, Globalization and Collaboration
September 18th – 20th
Arlington, VA
https://www.resourcenter.net/Scripts/4Disapi2.dll/4DCGI/events/318.html?Action=Conference_Detail&ConfID_W=318&

4. New Job Postings

• Columbia University Press seeks an enterprising Acquiring Editor with broad experience in the social sciences to manage and develop our highly respected publication programs in Social Work, Criminology, and Psychology. The editor will demonstrate proficiency in text, professional, and trade acquisitions and project management, and will work closely with Columbia faculty, authors, series editors, and press staff to improve the program's academic recognition while meeting Press financial goals. A proven track record acquiring successful textbooks in at least one of the fields is a prerequisite for the job.

• Wiley is seeking a Production Editor I to work with the Production Manager or Associate Manager to plan and manage production of assigned titles from receipt of manuscript through archive, print and electronic product review. Responsible for overseeing all phases of the production process including login, collection of Copyright forms. copyediting, typesetting, design, author corrections, composition, proofreading, printing and online publication and to ensure the timely delivery of materials for publication. Ensure that titles are produced according to quality and schedule and that gross margins and publication targets are met.

• The American Institute of Physics (AIP) has an opening for an Inside Sales Representative to create commercial plan and implement the AIP sales process to achieve sales revenue budget for an assigned territory. Contact institutional customers via phone and email to promote new subscriptions, subscription renewals, and content-based products and services. Develop knowledge of the marketplace and identify trends to effectively position products and services. Create effective proposals in response to queries and requests for pricing. Provide, facilitate and interface with internal resources for account management, customer service and billing support.

• The American Institute of Physics (AIP) is seeking a Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) for the Publishing Center located in Melville, New York, reporting directly to the Vice President of Publishing. The CCO will have overall accountability for the delivery of AIP Publishing’s commercial strategy worldwide and be successful at achieving revenue growth; including growth from existing markets and new markets as well as developing effective channel strategies for each market segment and product type.

For full details, please visit http://www.pspcentral.org/jobOpenings/jobsOpenFrame.cfm to view these and other exciting career opportunities. To post a position please contact spinto@publishers.org.


5. Suggested Reading
(Please note: some links may require passwords)

Web Sites of Interest
The Institutional Repository Bibliography (IRB) presents selected English-language articles, books, technical reports and other scholarly textual sources that are useful in understanding institutional repositories.
http://digital-scholarship.org/irb/irb.html

Articles of Interest

Accessibility
AAP Provides Longdesc Feedback to W3C
WebAxe – 8/7/11
Recently theAssociation of American Publishers(AAP) submittedfeedback on longdescto the W3C HTML 5 Working Group. It's very well written and thought it should be shared. I obtained permission to publish the response. Here is the main part of it.

BookStats
Industry Sales Rose 3.1% in 2010; Trade E-book Sales the Big Winner
Publishers Weekly – 8/9/11
Total book publishing revenue rose 3.1% in 2010 to $27.9 billion and posted two-year growth of 5.6%, according to figures released Tuesday byBookStats, the new joint AAP, BISG program developed to create a comprehensive analysis of industry-wide sales.

Publishing’s Net Sales Revenue Rose 5.6% from 2008-2010
GalleyCat – 8/9/11
The Association of American Publishers has released its three-yearBookStats report, a statistical study of bookselling trends from 2008 until 2010–providing a snapshot of the industry’s growth during this recession.

New Statistics Show Publishing Isn’t in a Death Spiral After All
eBookNewser – 8/9/11
The AAP (American Association of Publishers) has just launchedBookStats, a new program to provide an in-depth study of publishing industry statistics. Today marked the first release of details from BookStats’ comprehensive report.

New Statistics Model for Book Industry Shows Trade Ebook Sales Grew Over 1,000 Percent
Library Journal – 8/9/11
A new annualsurveyof the total U.S. book publishing industry released today shows growing revenue and, even without numbers from 2011, exponential e-book sales.

Publishing Gives Hints of Revival, Data Show
New York Times – 8/9/11
TheAssociation of American Publishersand the Book Industry Study Group collaborated on the report and collected data from 1963 publishers, including the six largest trade publishers.

New Stats: Book Publishing Is Growing; E-Book Revs and Sales Up Over 1,000%
PaidContent – 8/9/11
One positive story in a week of terrible economic news: BookStats, a new annual statistical survey of raw sales revenue and unit data provided by nearly 2,000 publishers that is being released today, shows a lot of bright spots for the U.S. book publishing industry.

Some Good Numbers for Book Publishers
The Atlantic – 8/9/11
Just as we were convinced the Internet had killed the publishing industry, it looks like people are still paying for reading.

The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories
FlavorWire – 8/9/11
Things are definitely looking up for the publishing industry, according to a new survey byBookStats.

Study Finds Publishers’ Sales Grow, Indie Booksellers Weather Challenging Times
ABA Bookselling This Week – 8/9/11
Publishers’ net sales revenue grew by 5.6 percent and unit sales were up by 4.1 percent over the past three years, according to BookStats, a statistical survey of the U.S. publishing industry, produced jointly by the Association of American Publishers and the Book Industry Study Group.

Copyright & Intellectual Property
Allegedly cost-free piracy takedown service now available
PR Web – 8/11/11
Copyright Enforcement Group (CEG) today announced plans to launch a comprehensive anti-piracy takedown service, entitled WWW Takedown™, to cover Rapidshare, Cyberlockers, User Generated Content (UGC), Direct Download, Tube, Streaming, Auction and other Unauthorized Distributor and/or Reseller Websites by the end of 2011.

Cary Sherman takes over as CEO of RIAA
The Hill (blog) – 8/8/11
The Recording Industry Association of American named current president Cary Sherman chairman and chief executive. Sherman's area of expertise is reconciling developing technologies and intellectual property laws.

The mystery man behind Megaupload piracy fight
CNET News – 8/4/11
MegaPorn, MegaVideo, MegaLive, MegaPix and Megaupload, sites and brands created by Kim Schmitz, are either part of the simple and successful Internet file-storage business he founded in 2005, or they're an extension of a vast online piracy empire that includes some of the most visited video sites on the Web.

Last Round of Filings Made in Georgia State U. Fair-Use Lawsuit
Chronicle of Higher Ed – 8/4/11
The plaintiffs and the defendants in the fair-use lawsuit that has pitted three academic publishers against Georgia State University have now filed their finalpost-trial briefs.

Shock, awe: British government agrees that copyright has gone too far
Ars Technica – 8/4/11
The British government todaypledged(PDF) to enact significant changes to copyright law, including orphan works reforms and the introduction of new copyright exceptions. And the tone of the comments was surprising: the government agrees that "copyright currently over-regulates to the detriment of the UK."

UK shakes up copyright laws, scraps plan to block websites
Reuters – 8/3/11
Britain said Wednesday it will introduce a digital exchange where licenses for copyright works may be bought and sold, as part of a revamp of its 300-year-old copyright laws.

Government scraps plan to block illegal filesharing websites
The Guardian – 8/3/11
Business secretary Vince Cable says site blocking is too cumbersome and unworkable, and work is being done on other ways to tackle online copyright infringement.

Myths About Fair Use
Inside Higher Ed – 8/2/11
Academics potentially enjoy some of the greatest benefits of U.S. copyright law’s doctrine of fair use — which lets them use copyrighted material without permission or payment, under some circumstances. Now if only they knew they did. In Peter Jaszi’s and my research forReclaiming Fair Use, which charts the resurgence of fair use and explains how to use it, we came across as much mythology as knowledge among our colleagues.

With Final Filings, Parties in GSU E-Reserve Case Await Verdict
Publishers Weekly – 8/1/11
Publishersare not seeking monetary damages, but are asking for an injunction that has drawn intense criticism from the academic community. In the latest filings, the parties issued responses to each others proposed conclusions of law.

Google
Google Books scores a deal in France
Christian Science Monitor – 8/8/11
The deal with French publishing giant Hachette will allow Google to scan and digitize thousands of books that Hachette has published, including both more recent books and books that are out of print. Google Books will sell these digital editions in its e-book store, Google Editions.

After Much Ado, a Google Book Deal in France
New York Times – 8/7/11
A few days ago Google signed an agreement with the publisher Hachette Livre under which tens of thousands of French-language books will be pulled out of ink-on-paper purgatory and provided with a digital afterlife.

Google Says It Hires FTC Intellectual Property Expert Michel
Bloomberg – 8/2/11
Google Inc. (GOOG), under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission for its dominance of Internet searches, said it hired Suzanne Michel, one of the commission’s top intellectual property officials.

Higher Education
Students cut costs by not buying textbooks
Albany Times Union – 8/11/11
The price tag of a college education is influenced by a variety of factors. Even though books are a smaller part of the overall bill, more students are risking their grades to save money by not buying some books, according to the Student Public Interest ResearchGroups.

Debt, Dropouts and Degrees
Inside Higher Ed – 8/4/11
As concerns grow about student debt and college completion, colleges and universities have been ranked in any number of ways:by sticker price, net price,cost to the taxpayer, graduation rate, default rate and more.

Libraries
Problems with e-books: suggestions for publishers
Jrl of the Medical Library Association – 7/11
Electronic books are the focus of a great deal of attention recently. The path of e-book development and adoption by the library community seems different than that for e-journals. The article focuses on the major issues confronting health sciences librarians with regard to the purchase of e-books.

MultiGrain Discussion: ILL
Against the Grain NewsChannel – 7/13/11
Interlibrary loan faces more competition than ever and while some may argue that users will never pay the fees asked by services like “Get it Now” or “On Demand Books” they might not have to.

Open Access & Institutional Repositories
How many research papers are freely available?
Nature News Blogs – 8/1/11
The proportion of research papers freely available is slowly and steadily creeping upwards, with the proportion of papers indexed on the (largely biomedical) PubMed repository reaching above 28% in 2009.

Hindawi Receives More than 4,000 Submissions in a Single Month for the First Time
Press Release – 8/3/11
Hindawi, publisher of more than 300 open access journals, spanning a wide range of subjects in science, technology, medicine and the social sciences, announced that it received more than 4,000 submissions in July 2011 for the first time in a single month.

Universities Join Together to Support Open-Access Policies
Chronicle of Higher Education 8/2/11
The University of Kansas has had a faculty-approved open-access mandate in place since 2009. What it hasn’t had is a group of like-minded institutions to share ideas with about how to support such policies.

Rogue Downloader's Arrest Could Mark Crossroads for Open-Access Movement
The Chronicle of Higher Education – 7/31/11
The arrest of Aaron Swartz instantly became a new focal point in the long-running debate about how to restructure scholarly publishing.

The impact of free access to the scientific literature: a review of recent research
Jrl of the Medical Library Association – 7/11
The paper reviews recent studies that evaluate the impact of free access (open access) on the behavior of scientists as authors, readers, and citers in developed and developing nations. It also examines the extent to which the biomedical literature is used by the general public.

Professional & Scholarly Publishing
Universities Get Advice on How to Avoid Ghostwriting Scandals in Research Articles
Chronicle of Higher Ed – 8/911
Universities have long struggled with the problem of researchers who let industry-financed ghostwriters draft biased summaries of their work for publication in medical journals, and they're now getting some blunt advice on how to stop it – sometimes from the ghostwriters themselves.

Authorship Rules for Medical Journals Flouted by Pharma Industry, Experts Say
Science Daily – 8/9/11
Rather than ensure the proper attribution of authorship, rules set up by leading medical journals to define and credit authorship of published articles are exploited by the pharmaceutical industry in its attempt to conceal and misrepresent industry contributions to the literature.

Grant to analyze texts of digital works
Inside Higher Ed – 8/11/11
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has awarded a $600,000 grant to Indiana University and the University of Michigan to develop an infrastructure for facilitating research involving the digitized works held in the HathiTrust Digital Library.

The Nobel Curse
The Scientist – 8/9/11
Nobel Prize winners’ research published later in their career finds a tougher reception by the scientific community.

Does academic journal content want to be free?
Create Equality – 8/9/11
Last month, hacker activist (hacktivist?) Aaron Swartz wasindictedfor downloading 4.8 million proprietary academic articles from the JSTOR database via the MIT guest network. For ThinkProgress commentator Matthew Yglesias, the case raised issues about the distribution of knowledge.

The Sometimes Folly of Peer-ReviewedJournals
MedPage Today – 8/8/11
These are rapidly published in electronic form with no page or length limitations and free, open accessto all, unhampered by advertising or subscription requirements.

Executive Profile: Dr. Howard Bauchner, editor in chief of JAMA
Chicago Tribune – 8/1/11
The times they'll be a changin' at the prestigious publication, with 'intelligent innovation,' use of social media and, perhaps, content beyond English — and tailored not just to doctors.

Is the Academic Publishing EcosystemUnbalanced?
Agnostic, Maybe – 8/1/11
The world of academic publishing has got to be a case study in scholarly symbiotic relationships waiting to happen -- or a study on parasitic relationships.

Peer Review Needs a Makeover
The Scientist – 7/29/11
A UK parliamentary panel says peer review is still valuable, but should be supplemented by open review processes, preprint servers, and online repositories.

General Interest
Looking a gift horse in the mouth: The Gates Foundation
Examiner – 8/7/11
Who says giving away $$$$$$$$$ is easy? Seattle's Gates Foundation is raising eyebrows in the education world because they are certainly big and now some critics are saying that they are bad. Here is information about theGates Foundation.

How Google Dominates Us
New York Review of Books – 8/18/11
Google is where we go for answers. People used to go elsewhere or, more likely, stagger along not knowing, but nowadays you can’t have a long dinner-table discussion before someone will pull out a pocket device and Google something.

Time for book publishers to fight dirty
The Chicago Tribune – 8/4/11
Why hasn't America's publishing industry launched an ad campaign as seductive and aggressive as the Kindle's? Not to market front-list titles or authors, but to market the paper book form itself?

The Perils of Self-Publishing
The New York Observer – 8/3/11
Despite the hype, the fundamental rules of publishing have not really changed very much.

Children's Books Finally Receive Exemption from CPSIA Testing Requirements
PW – 8/2/11
On Monday, three years after the August 2008 enactment of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), publishers of ink-on-paper books and other printed materials suddenly received news they’d been hoping for from the outset. Both the House and Senate passed an amendment to CPSIA that exempts “ordinary” children’s books, along with a few other classes of products (e.g., all-terrain vehicles and motorcycles), from the law’s testing provisions.


6. Publishers Invited to Submit List of Imprints for New AAP Website
In response to the call for publisher “imprints” to place on www.publishers.org/about, Gail Kump, AAP Membership Director, has received near unanimous response from publishers to extend their exposure and brands. If you have an imprint and have not submitted to Gail, please do so by contacting her at gkump@publishers.org. An imprint is defined: One single publishing company may have multiple imprints; the different imprints are used by the publisher to market works to different demographic consumer segments. In some cases, the diversity results from the takeover of smaller publishers (or parts of their business) by a larger company. Many PSP members will not have an imprint when publishing only under the name of a press or professional society.

For further information, contact:
Gail Kump
Director, Membership Marketing
T 212-255-1041
F 212-255-7007
GKump@publishers.org
Association of American Publishers, Inc.
71 Fifth Avenue, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10003

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PSP Contributing Staff:

Sara Pinto, Director

Kate Kolendo, Project Manager

John Tagler, Executive Director