Stephen Abram's Posts About Library Land
Public Libraries are often cited as the university of people. With so many people in distance education and online courses, this is getting to be an increasing part of their services portfolio which many take quite seriously.
Here’s an internesting infographic:
“Accredited” Online Colleges
http://www.onlinecollege.org/2012/05/11/accredited-online-colleges/
Stephen
“Download the full report PDF here, or you can get it as an ebook in EPUB or Kindle format.
I don’t think many publishers are sitting there saying ‘What are our digital experiments, how are we measuring them let’s see how they’re working.’ I’d like to pretend I was structuring it that way but effectively I’m going ‘What can we do with this book. What are we doing that’s interesting? Let’s have a go and see what works.’[1]
The risk of undertaking a long-term research project in an area like digital publishing is that the goalposts are constantly shifting. When I first put together my proposal for the Unwin Trust Fellowship in early 2011, the Australian publishing industry was a significantly different place to what it is now. Most publishers were lucky to have around 2–3% of sales in digital, and there were still a few Australian publishers who weren’t selling ebooks at all. Amazon’s Kindle was available to Australians, but only by ordering internationally. The sight of an e-reader on public transport was a novelty. Nobody had heard of the Kindle Fire. REDgroup retail had only just gone into voluntary administration, and it was unclear then precisely what the fallout from the loss of almost a quarter of Australia’s book retail presence would be.
Although it’s hard to come by hard data about ebook sales in Australia, as I write this, anecdotally, every publisher I’ve spoken to saw exponential growth over the Christmas period. Ebooks went from being an experiment to worth millions of dollars in just a couple of years. There are multiple variations of the Kindle available in stores in Australia, and most publishers appear to be working with most major ebook channels to sell their books.
Internationally, the story is very different too. When I left for London I was told that US publishers were still light years ahead of the rest of the world, and that anything I learned from the UK would still be at least 18 months behind the true frontier in digital. But over Christmas, UK digital sales grew by almost 500%[2] and many US publishers reported a plateau in digital sales for the first time since 2007[3], causing many analysts to speculate that the UK industry is catching up to the US, at least in terms of market penetration.
The original proposal was to undertake a series of case studies of experiments in the digital space in order to have a close understanding of their success or failure and hopefully to draw some conclusions from these. As such, the project was structured around close working relationships with a number of key players in the UK publishing industry. I spent two weeks each working with Pan Macmillan’s digital team on the launch of their digital backlist imprint Bello; at HarperCollins with The Friday Project team on Authonomy and its new digital-only list and at Faber & Faber on their drama online project (in collaboration with Bloomsbury). In between placements I recorded many interviews with key players in the industry and visited the Frankfurt trade fair to attend the Tools of Change conference. All of my experiences were enormously helpful for both this report and my general understanding of the state of digital publishing in the UK and to a lesser extent in the US. As I conducted the interviews and compiled this report it became clear that there was significant overlap in certain key areas of experimentation within (and outside of) publishing houses in London. As such, the core of this report focuses on these key areas, and goes into specific case studies where the information gathered justifies it.
I’ve identified these key areas as pricing, interactivity and multimedia, partnerships, platforms and workflow. Within these areas of experimentation I’ve explored a number of case studies, including children’s publisher and interactive multimedia specialist Nosy Crow, Faber & Faber’s transformative partnership with Touch Press, HarperCollins’s Game of Thrones Enhanced Edition, Pan Macmillan’s Bello, The Friday Project’s Confessions of a GP, the revolutionary new digital publishing platform Unbound and Faber & Faber’s in-house digital workflow. Most information was gathered directly from sources in the form of recorded interviews and emails, but I have used sources from blogs and trade press to enhance this research where appropriate.
In addition to the limits mentioned above, the report also focuses mostly on trade publishing experimentation. Although I did interview a number of smaller companies working with disruptive business models and on experimental interactive projects, I felt that these were still very much book start-ups attempting to buy into the trade rather than step away from it (or dismantle it). To an extent this focus on publishers wasn’t self-imposed – although I tried I could not get an interview or speak with representatives from the largest digital book retailer in the UK (Amazon – ranging from 70 – 90% of the ebook trade, depending on who you speak to). Without their input, I felt that it would not be useful to go into detail on experimentation in digital retailing. Although other retailers are engaged in some genuinely exciting experiments, ultimately I didn’t feel I was adequately representing the market and my time was better spent concentrating on digital product experiments rather than innovative sales channels.
This might make a good poster for application season – which seems to be year round now. My survey showed that college tests and choice is a top 10 reference question in public libraries.
College Admissions: What Really Matters?
From: OnlineCollegeCourses.com
Stephen
Watchers, carers, and administrators: the smart homes of tomorrow
Your home will be watching . . .
Stephen
Working Moms are a big target audience for many types of libraries:
What It’s Like To Be A Working Mom
http://www.infographicsarchive.com/education-careers/what-its-like-to-be-a-working-mom/
Happy Mothers’ Day
Stephen
Delivering Web to Mobile
Mark Power, JISC CETIS
From the Introduction:
The use of mobile devices for the consumption and use of Web content and services has grown steadily over the last few years and continues to do so, with analysts predicting that mobile will soon exceed the traditional desktop PC as the most common means users interact with the Web and other Internet services.
This report looks at the growth of mobile, the state of the Web and gives an overview of approaches to delivering content and services optimised for the mobile context. This includes approaches to Web design for responsive sites, leveraging access to device functions and capabilities and the use of Web technologies to build mobile applications.
The following areas are covered in the report:
State of the Mobile Web (including UK HEI findings) Mobile Web Browsers Responsive Web Design Mobile First Progressive Enhancement Server-side Device Detection Dedicated Mobile Site? Mobile Web Apps HTML5 Device APIs HTML5 Frameworks “Hybrid Apps”
Direct to Full Text (22 pages; PDF)
If you’re not following Gary Price’s InfoDocket at its new home at Library Journal yet, you’re missing a lot.
Stephen
There are reasons why professionals don’t really have a nine to five day. From the Heart of Innovation blog and Mitch Ditkoff:
100 Reasons Why You Don’t Get Your Best Ideas At Work
http://www.ideachampions.com/weblogs/archives/2012/04/since_1986_i_ha.shtml
“1. Too much to do, not enough time.
2. Too many distractions and interruptions.
3. You work in a risk averse organization.
4. Sleep deprivation.
5. Mental clutter.
6. Fear that someone will steal your idea.
7. You don’t think of yourself as creative.
8. Boring meetings that put you in a bad mood.
9. You’re not measured for the quantity or quality of ideas you generate.
10. Stultifying routine.
11. You are worried about layoffs and don’t want to draw undue attention to yourself.
12. Poor ventilation — not enough oxygen.
13. The last time you came up with a great idea, you were either ignored or ridiculed.
14. It’s not in your job description.
15. It’s not in the strategic plan.
16. It’s not in the cards.
17. It’s not in the Bible.
18. Your manager has made it clear that he/she does not have the time to consider your ideas.
19. Lack of immersion. Lack of incubation.
20. No one’s ever told you that they want your ideas.
21. You are understaffed and don’t have the time to try an innovative approach.
22. You are angry at the company.
23. You get no input from people outside your department.
24. Your company has just been acquired and you don’t want your new overlord to succeed.
25. You know there’s no one to pitch your new ideas to — and even if there was, it’s a long shot they would listen.
26. You’re concerned that your great idea is so great that it will actually be accepted and then you will be expected to work on it in your spare time (which you don’t have) with no extra resources made available to you.
27. All your great ideas are focused on trying to get Gina or Gary, in Marketing, to give you the time of day.
28. You’re a new parent.
29. You’ve got other projects, outside of work, and have no energy left to think about anything else.
30. They don’t pay you enough to think creatively.
31. You’re expected to leave your mind at the door when you come to work.
32. No incentives or rewards.
33. You don’t have the intrinsic motivation .
34. Actually, you don’t want to be working at all — and you wouldn’t be working if the financial meltdown didn’t happen.
35. You have not identified a challenge or opportunity that inspires you enough to think up new ideas.
36. No timely feedback from others.
37. There’s no one to collaborate with.
38. Constantly changing priorities.
39. “Work,” for you is synonymous with things you have to do not want to do, thus creating two parallel universes that never intersect.
40. You haven’t read my award winning book yet.
41. It’s too noisy.
42. Endless hustle and bustle.
43. You can’t stop thinking about new ways to improve your Match.com profile.
44. You’re too busy tweeting.
45. You have the attention span of a tse tse fly.
46. Just when a good idea pops into your head, you dismiss it as “not good enough”.
47. Your left brain has become a kind of Attila the Hun in relation to your Pee Wee Herman-like right brain.
48. You didn’t get the memo.
49. You are too busy deleting spam.
50. The brainstorming sessions you attend are pitiful.
51. You believe that new ideas are a dime a dozen.
52. You’re not paid to think. You’re paid to DO.
53. Actually, you don’t have a job.
54. You are hypoglycemic.
55. You’re not allowed to listen to music at your desk.
56. You have no sense of urgency.
57. Your office or cubicle feels like a jail cell.
58. You’re too busy filling out forms.
59. Not enough coffee.
60. Drugs are not allowed in the workplace.
61. Existential despair.
62. There’s a call on Line 2.
63. You have no time to incubate or reflect.
64. You’ve got to show results fast.
65. You know your boss will, eventually, get all the credit for your great ideas.
66. You’ve just been assigned to another project.
67. Brain fatigue.
68. You haven’t tried Free the Genie yet.
69. You don’t feel valued or appreciated.
70. You deciphered a much talked about sighting of a Crop Circle in England as meaning: “Stop coming up with good ideas at work.”
71. Every extra minute you have is spent on Facebook.
72. There’s too much stress and pressure on the job.
73. Naysayers and idea killers surround you.
74. Inability to relax.
75. It’s summertime.
76. You’ve got this weird rash on your leg and you think it might be Lyme’s disease or leprosy.
77. What you think of as a great idea and what your manager thinks of as a great idea are two entirely different things.
78. You know you won’t get the funding, so why bother?
79. You’re just trying to get through the day.
80. Every time you get a great idea, it’s time to go to another meeting.
81. You only get your great ideas in the shower and there are no showers at work.
82. Your head is filled with a thousand things you need to do.
83. Relentless deadlines.
84. Too much input from others.
85. You have to stay focused on the “job at hand”.
86. You’ll only end up making the company richer and that is not what you want to do.
87. Those bright, annoying, overhead fluorescent lights.
88. No one besides you really cares.
89. You’ve just been assigned a project that is boring the hell out of you.
90. There is no one to brainstorm with.
91. Your husband/wife is complaining that all you ever do is work — or talk about work.
92. No alcohol.
93. Your cultural upbringing has taught you that it is not your place to conjure up new ideas.
94. Your job is too structured to think outside the box.
95. People seem to be staring at you and that makes you self-conscious.
96. You’re too busy complaining about the organization.
97. Wait! How come they’re taking so much out of your paycheck?
98. You’re only working there to beef up your resume for the next job.
99. A vast right wing conspiracy.
100. You let too many of the aforementioned 99 phenomena have their way with you. Your resulting assessment of the corporate environment not being conducive to the origination of great ideas then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
The antidotes are here:
100 Simple Ways to Be More Creative on the Job
http://www.ideachampions.com/weblogs/archives/2010/07/post_7.shtml
Stephen
From a BISG News Release:
“E-book consumers’ preference for tablets is accelerating rapidly as dedicated e-readers drop in popularity, according to the Book Industry Study Group’s (BISG) closely watched Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading survey. The second installment in Volume Three of the study shows that, over the course of just six months, consumers’ “first choice” preference for dedicated e-readers such as those from Amazon and Barnes & Noble declined from 72 percent to 58 percent. Tablet devices are now the most preferred reading device for more than 24 percent of e-book buyers, up from less than 13 percent in August 2011. Further, the increase in tablet preference was not primarily for Apple’s iPad (which rose by just over one percent), but for non-Apple tablets – overwhelmingly from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. These non-Apple devices increased from five percent to 14 percent over the same period.
[Clip]
The Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading study, powered by Bowker Market Research, points to a buoyant book market. Nearly 30 percent of respondents in the February 2012 survey reported an increase in dollars spent on books in all formats since they began acquiring e-books, while nearly 50 percent reported an overall increase in the volume of titles purchased in any format. The numbers are even rosier for the e-book market: more than 62 percent of respondents reported an increase in dollars spent on e-books, and more than 72 percent said they have increased the volume of e-titles they are buying. Some publishers are reporting that even when overall revenue has declined, profitability—particularly for e-books—has increased.
In addition to “Power Buyers” (those who acquire e-books at least weekly), this report looks at the behavior of “Casual Buyers,” who purchase one or two books a month. The study reveals that this second generation of e-book and e-reader adopters is catching up with Power Buyers in a number of ways. More than 27 percent of Casual Buyers now exclusively purchase e-books rather than print, compared to 30 percent of Power Buyers. Further, Casual Buyers are only slightly more likely to play games (37 percent versus 35 percent) or watch video content (23 percent vs. 21 percent) on their devices. However, Casual Buyers lag significantly behind Power Buyers on the uptake of multi-function devices. Only half of Casual Buyers use a tablet regularly, compared to 83 percent of Power Buyers.
Read the Complete News Release”
Stephen
Infographic: Being Connected via Mobile – “Just-In-Time” Life Scenarios
Read more: http://www.marketingtechblog.com/mobile-scenario-infographic/#ixzz1uZMbE4WM
Kuno Creative has released an infographic created from the latest Pew Internet mobile research.
Stephen
Recent Comments