Publishers #1 short term problem

["Colin Steele" <Colin.Steele@anu.edu.au>]

Re the recent emails by Sandy Thatcher and Alex Holzman, we are 
clearly in a period of historical transition as also reflected in 
my chapter 'E-books and scholarly communication futures' in 
Woodward and Estelle's 'Digital Information' (London, Facet, 
2010). Preprint at 
(https://dspace-sub.anu.edu.au:8443/jspui/handle/10440/1024) 
The chapter concludes

"Who will own, however, what we read and at what price, 
particularly in the academic world? When I worked in the Bodleian 
Library, Oxford, new readers had to read an introductory 
statement which includes the words: 'I hereby undertake not 
to...kindle therein any fire'. Back to Fahrenheit 451? The Amazon 
Kindle reader and Google Book Search both bring many advantages 
in terms of access to a variety of text and form, but we need at 
the same time to continue kindling the flames of public access to 
knowledge to ensure the digital era provides as many 
opportunities for the freedom of expression as possible.

The challenge for twenty-first century scholarship, which 
includes e- books, is to implement an infrastructure for the 
digital world untrammelled by the historical legacies in the 
frameworks and costings of print culture. In academic monograph 
and textbook production, digital online access will become the 
norm, more often than not supplemented by data and multimedia 
additions. Print ,however, will not die, given the likely 
explosion of cheap POD outlets. Readers will still be able to 
judge a book by its POD cover.

E-book futures are still clearly evolving and cost and ease of 
access will be crucial issues. A discernible trend is, however, 
emerging with open access e-book environments. If e-outputs and 
their impacts become embedded in promotion and tenure and 
research assessment exercises, then more institutions will assume 
responsibility for harvesting and providing global access to 
their scholarship, scholarship that combines authority with 
public accessibility. A suitable vision for the twenty first 
century? 'Let those who are not old, - who are still young, 
ponder this well' (Trollope, 1866)"

While texts will be born digital, many will be available through 
increasingly ubiquitous and cheaper POD machines. It is Rrelevant 
in this context that Melbourne University launched on April 8, 
its Custom Book Centre, an initiative of the the Bookshop and the 
University Library. 
(http://www.bookshop.unimelb.edu.au/cbc/p?X.7)

Richard Charkin, the CEO of Bloomsbury (which includes Bloomsbury 
Academic publishing) was recently in Australia and some of his 
comments on e-books, copyright and distribution practices are 
relevant to this thread. See

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/entertainment/good-books 
-will-always-succeed/1782622.aspx

Issues in relation to siloed, territorial copyright are relevant. 
Just as the former territorial divisions of the DVD market are 
now rendered redundant by global DVD players, it makes no sense 
to limit global access to text based on historical territorial 
print copyright agreements. As Charkin says, many of Bloomsbury's 
e-book sales were to "rural and remote areas, from Bolivia to 
Timbuktu".

Colin Steele
Emeritus Fellow
Division of Information
The Australian National University