STM Annual Frankfurt Conference
STM - Surviving our Mid-Life Crisis*: Forward from Forty
Mon, 12th Oct 2009
The Westin Grand Frankfurt, Konrad-Adenauer-Strasse 7, 60313 Frankfurt, Germany
Event Presentations
Videos provided by River-Valley Technologies - an STM member.
Michael Nielsen is a writer working on a book about how the internet is changing the way scientific discoveries are made. In a past life, he was a theoretical physicist who co-authored the standard text on quantum computing — now one of the ten most cited books in the history of physics. He wrote 60 scientific papers, including one of the first experimental demonstrations of quantum teleportation, named as one of Science magazine’s ‘Breakthroughs of the Year’ for 1998. In 2008 Michael gave up a tenured academic position to pursue his interests in writing and technology. He blogs at http://michaelnielsen.org/blog
Many established companies in the newspaper, music, and video rental industries are currently in distress, as new, internet-based business models disrupt old business models. Closely related industries such as the book and movie businesses are looking on nervously. In this talk, he’ll discuss the underlying structural reasons these disruptions are taking place, and make the case that a similar technology-driven disruption is likely to occur in scientific publishing.
What forces surrounding eBooks have made their transition to the electronic world possible? We adapted established publishing concepts learned from eJournals to create a unique eBook business model, tailored to the demands of librarians and their patrons. Success of the model can be measured by market penetration, usage of eBooks in libraries, and in comparison to eJournals. An eye to the future requires monitoring the developing needs of librarians, their patrons, as well as technological innovations. These are essential practices in ensuring an effective launch and continuous malleability of an STM eBook program.
With the shift from print to electronic journals largely behind us, the industry now turns it attention to a similar movement in the world of monographs. While many of the issues are the same, the selection and delivery of e-books present us with unique challenges. This presentation will provide insight into those issues from the library perspective, will analyse the successes and failures we’ve encountered along the way, and will also discuss various business models that are in place, including a trend toward patron-initiated purchase. The speaker will also discuss the need for multiple delivery options, including the need for options that are optimized for mobile devises.
With the launches of the Kindle, Kindle 2 and the Kindle DX, consumers can now purchase content and have their own documents delivered directly to their e-reader. David Naggar will speak about the development of the Amazon Kindle, looking in particular at the benefits and opportunities that the Kindle program offers to scholars and scholarly publishers. The presentation will include an overview of the recently launched Kindle pilots with a number of universities and colleges in the U.S.
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Derk Haank is the subject of this year’s interview session, as we question him upon the speed and direction of change in scholarly communication, and elicit his views on the future progress and shape of the industry. As the manager, successively, of Elsevier and Springer, he is almost uniquely able to comment upon the relationships of users, intermediaries and suppliers; the emergence of STM as a fully digital marketplace, and the ways in which the industry portrays itself to its customers.
‘The Chicago Collaborative was created from a conviction that we are at a pivotal moment in the history of scholarly communication. In libraries and editorial offices and publishers meetings across the globe, we are trying to figure out how to use the internet and the web and this startling array of new digital tools to once again push scholarly communication in a new direction.’ These lines from the Statement of Purpose indicate the vision of the recently formed Chicago Collaborative. This presentation will outline the background, current activities, and future plans of the Collaborative.
Our report examines how researchers interact with journal websites and whether enhanced access to journal articles has led to greater productivity, research quality and other outcomes. It finds that researchers are savvy when it comes to using e-journals, finding the information they need quickly and efficiently, and that higher spending on e-journals is linked to better research outcomes. Based on an analysis of log files from journal websites and data from libraries in ten universities and research institutions, our report starts to build a clear picture of how e-journals are shaping the information landscape - a picture that we'll add to as our research in this areas continues.
The following presentations are available for download.
Frankfurt Conference - Cleto - Thinking Outside the Book
Frankfurt Conference - Mouw - E-books One Librarian's Perspective
Frankfurt Conference - Nagar - Scholarly Publishing and the Amazon Kindle
Frankfurt Conference - Nielsen - Is Scientific Publishing About To Be Disrupted
Frankfurt Conference - Plutchak - The Chicago Collaborative
Frankfurt Conference - Rowlands - RIN E-Journals Update
