Thompson Gale case study RMIT Business: School of Business IT Thompson Gale case study: Issues in migration from print to digital publishing Paul Mercieca

Thompson Gale case study

RMIT Business: School of Business IT

Thompson Gale case study: Issues in migration from print to digital

publishing

Paul Mercieca

RMIT Business

School of Business IT



Background• RMIT University has been involved in ongoing

investigation into issues associated with new developments in the publishing industry

• This investigation has been coordinated by Common Ground Publishing under the banner of the C-2-C (Creator to Consumer)

• Participation includes industry representation; researchers and government agencies

• Thompson Gale was used as a case study to explore the issues that they have faced in migrating print content to digital delivery



Introducing Thompson Gale

• Thompson Gale is part of the Thomson Corporation's Thomson Learning umbrella

• Specialised print titles, specifically for the education, information and research communities

• Long foundation in digital bibliographic database resources, originally on CD-ROM and now on the Internet

• Publishes over 600 databases based on reference-related content from Thompson list



Introducing Thompson Gale …

• Primary markets are organisational subscription including academic institutions, public and corporate libraries

• More recently Gale has moved into the Web-based information services providing content to -- LookSmart, Borders, ECNext, and WebMD



Transposing print to digital

• Gale has migrated material from print to digital delivery and have faced/addressed a number of issues:– Online readability suggests that users skim read

content and browse through selected content chunks.

– This concept led to the perceived need to divide their content into smaller ‘chunks’ that could meet specific information needs



Transposing print to digital …

– Gale has an advantage in that much of their material is encyclopedic in nature

– The single encyclopedic entry could easily become the core ‘content chunk’ or record for on online product



Transposing print to digital …

– Gale also had the advantage that they were already managing their content from a database structure

• Database structure is based on XML mark-up

• This provided the opportunity to reuse this content in new digital/online titles

• Able to monitor where content is being re-used in wider publishing initiatives and thus tract royalty payment and manage digital rights.



Content enhancing

• While Gale could deliver their content digitally, there was the perceived need to manipulate this data to differentiate it from their print titles

• Editorial processess needed to take full advantage of the hypertext publishing opportunity available through online titles



Content enhancing …

• New editorial process includes: – The linking to all bibliographic references from the

body text– The linking to the full text of these references, when

the references are available through Gale– Internal linking of all names throughout the title– Additional online resources are also sourced and

these are linked from the Gale record.




• While e-books can be delivered through a liner form of navigation, Gale realised the need for a number of access points to their content– Through sophisticated search interfaces.

– Non-liner browsing. This is achieved through the use of hypertext links to related or relevant information.

– Linear browsing. • This has become evident in large-scale journal databases where there

is the ongoing need to allow users to browse the content at an issue-by-issue basis.

– User/reader-generated links to their content.




• Gale’s content enhancing illustrates a number of key publishing considerations:– The need to recognise that each element of content

can be accessed from a variety of paths. • Can the single chapter stand on its own? • What internal linking will the publisher place in the title

to allow non-linear movement within that title?

– Changes in editorial processes may be necessary • Editing now includes content ‘chunking’

– The need for ongoing partnerships between content providers.



Online publishing strategies

• Selected print titles to be subscribed to as independent digital titles.

• Usually based on the encyclopaedic print version

• Illustrated by Contemporary Authors, which can be subscribed to as a quarterly updated online title, branded Contemporary Authors Online.

• Advantage to the digital version is the ease of updating of content.



Online publishing strategies …

• Aggregation of content from the print title with other digital information

• This strategy reflects a belief that for some audiences, a single online title may not be a commercially viable option.

• Additional information, including full text from core journal literature, is added to the digital title

• This online content is marketed as ‘resource centres’ that cover the specific content disciplines



Aggregation• As an example of this aggregation, Contemporary

authors is published as part of the Literature resource centre.

• In addition to the total collection of Contemporary authors, the resource centre also includes: – 160 key literature journals including Australian literary

studies, Bookseller and Studies in American fiction. – This equates to more than 285,000 full-text journals as well

as 38,000 critical essays – Provides the advantage of searching across the total database

of contemporary authors as well as academic reports and criticisms of this literature



Literature Resource Center



The archive metaphor

• The digital publications from Gale are either subscribed to on an annual basis or are licensed to organisations for placement on their intranets.

• The subscriber has access to the content so long as they renew the subscription each year. – This is a consistent business model reflected by

other digital publishers such as Ovid, SilverPlatter and RMIT Publishing.



The archive metaphor …

• The main market concern is the end of a subscription results in the loss of access to all content: – including the historical content that they have perceivably

‘purchased’.

• The subscriber has been ‘leasing’ the content and not outright purchasing it.

• Gale provides archival versions of their leading titles– Customers pay a one-time fee to purchase available backfile

content through to the end of the previous year.



Issues to be learnt from the Gale case study

• Content management issues – New management processes need to be implemented for

content control and manipulation

– Need a convergence of Print and Digital content management

– Gale have had the advantage that their content is encyclopedic in nature and thus database managed and able to be re-manipulated into new products

– Increased reliance on XML as content storage• Illustrated by applications such as TeraText that drives Macquarie

University Press – MacquarieNet and Tasmania’s Consolidated Legislation



Issues to be learnt …

• New/changing publishing skill base – New editorial processes– Detailed need to link between content– Ability to identify different levels of content

through Metadata or DOI



Issues to be learnt …

• Content enhancements and aggregation– The Gale case study raises the question of where does the

single title sit within an electronic environment?

– The ability to select chapters on demand, or to have a range of titles available on a portable reader, may suggest an access or reading style that allows the user to ‘dip’ into selected content as required

– Gale’s primary market is organisational subscriptions and they tailor their content to this market place



Issues to be learnt …– This tailoring may include:

• Models of licensing a body of content instead of single title purchases.

• Linking core content to additional support material. Gale approaches this by linking between their collections, linking to free web content and linking to third party material that they have negotiated copyright access.

• Provide users with deep linking ability or re-use of the content

• License content for course use



New service models for digital publishing

• The potential changing roles in the publishing supply chain may suggest that aspects of the publishing processes are completed as a consultancy service.

• Self-publishing websites hint at the provision of editorial services on a fee basis for authors.

Documents

Thompson Gale case study RMIT Business: School of Business IT Thompson Gale case study: Issues in migration from print to digital publishing Paul Mercieca