Newspapers at cost per page?

Reacting to the newspaper industry crisis, Shira Ovide of the Wall Street Journal Blog announces:

A top executive at Hearst, which publishes 16 newspapers including the Houston Chronicle and Seattle Post-Intelligencer, said the company is mulling how much of its online offerings to keep free, while reserving some content exclusively for people who pay.

This new pay model is something publishers have discussed for a while now and implementing it won’t be easy. As with reprint permissions, different rates for educational use and trade use are difficult to monitor. Journalist Alan D. Mutter offers his insights:

Judging from the terseness of the announcements, the statements seemed to be more aspirational than the result of lengthy and detailed strategic planning…It’s a journey publishers absolutely have to begin. After years of giving everything away for free on the web, it won’t be easy for them to start charging for at least some of the content they spend small fortunes to produce. But there is no other choice.

Warner Crocker in his blog sounds off on Hearst’s attempts at an e-reader. His readers also reflect on the increasing demand for electronic reading of news over print.

It’s difficult to say if these new strategies will pay off, but as more and more newspapers face closures, something does have to give. Time will tell if Hearst’s client will be willing to pay for the content they consume, and if more publishers take notice and change their own models.

 

 

Google Book Scanning and Scholarship

A recent New York Times article describes the book scanning Google has undertaken with both copyrighted and out of copyright books. Litigation aside, I do think it’s interesting to note the concerns of some librarians who fear the way education will change if digital reading continues. A Yale librarian suggests:

I have to say that I think pedagogically and in terms of the advancement of scholarship, I have a concern that people will be encouraged to use books in this very fragmentary way…

 This is a sentiment I will likely pursue in my master’s thesis. I think we all read newspapers online quite differently than over coffee with a printed version. Fragmentation and mere sound bytes cannot accurately portray the sentiments intended by the authors.

In terms of access to rare books, I think digitization is a positive step. And I have to admit the convenience factor is a large benefit, since starting my master’s program I’ve done almost all of my research using online databases.

I for one, don’t think books are in danger of extinction, but I do know that their uses in varied forms will increase. Blogger and former book review editor for the Phili Enquirer, Frank Wilson, further demonstrates the possible forms of the Google Search project.

Digital Distinctions

The debate about Open Access will continue to render librarians, publishers, and academics in various directions. 

Meanwhile, Michael Jensen reacts to a recent article about the success of free peer-reviewed online journals. He has some interesting distinctions between journal and book publishing when discussing open source platforms:

Journals are about throughput. Books are about craftsmanship. This is not to demean either publishing variant — they both serve key scholarly needs. But in much of the discussions on these topics, too often “open access” is thought to mean the same thing for every kind of document.

Having worked for a number of publishers who produced both books and journals I do agree that journals by their very nature lend themselves more aptly to digital states. And it does behoove us to take a look at how information is used before changing the way it is disseminated.