Print Meet Digital, Digital Meet Print: A Matchmaking

A Print Publishing Perspective

Is this a “print technologist”?

Print may have had a particular view of the

museum publishing world …

Print Publisher

website

metadata

great  big  piles  of    

big,  fat  books

GOOGLE

Amazon

PDFs

POD

email

ebooks,  epub,  estuff apps

mobile  web not-­‐so-­‐mobile  web

“what’s  a  CMS  again?

enhanced  thingies

Google  glass

“death  

of  print”

people  loaded  into  

software

convers ion  

medialabs,  

hackathons

d i g i t a l   r i v e r

“ b e y o n d   h e r e   b e   m o n s t e r s ”

Which led to a bad reputation ���for Print …

❡  Slow to react to changing publishing industry

❡  Slow to bring publications to market

❡  Slow to encourage curators to adapt to changing audience behaviors

❡  Slow to embrace new technologies

❡  Slow to update workflows to inculcate digital content preparation into Print

❡  Slow to … well, just slow

Print realities #1: ���curatorial vision, dual mission

“What we need to correct are the incorrectnesses.”

--A curator, when asked why we needed another round of proofreading on their book

(on month 17 of this project)

Print realities #2: Print works

“[W]e’re spending an incredible amount of effort trying

to recreate the print experience online. And I think

that’s a terrible mistake. Print books are a very mature

tech. They don’t require a lot of power. They’re very

durable. They’re easy to access. And we all understand

how they work.”

--Ed Finn, Director of Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination, at the Frankfurt Book Fair

Print realities #3: Print IS digital

❡ The only thing analog about Print is the final book (ok, besides the piles of hard copy marked up with red pencils … ).

❡ Digital technologies are used in all stages of production, from editing to archiving.

❡ Lack of cross-functionality with Digital is as much a result of unplanned content growth across the institution as it is a departmental directives.

Print Publishing at the Met

❡  Modern Editorial Department began in 1964.

❡  Staff of 25 full-time editors, production, photo researchers, admin, complemented by twice that number of freelancers

❡  25 titles per year: exhibition catalogues, collection catalogues, quarterly bulletin, scholarly journal

❡  Solid sales in niche art-book market

❡  Continued strong buy-in from curators

❡  Institutional support for and dedication to role for print in museum’s mission and the curatorial vision

The value of Print

❡  Thorough editorial development

❡  Experience with scholarship and apparatus

❡  Exhaustive (CMYK) color-correction of images

❡  Longtime relationships with rights holders

❡  Usefulness proven by the increasing number of departments I send our files to after publication

How do we leverage these strengths into the digital experience?

Print and Digital: a comparison

Print Digital

Speed Slow, measured in months or years

Fast, measured in weeks or months

Stages Proofs and pages, very deliberate progress

Iterative, agile

Format Well-established, based on page concept

Often TBD, moving away from the page concept

New technologies

Slow to embrace because of complexity of workflow

Quick to embrace, the two are intimately tied together

“Scholarly Time”

Frozen at moment of printing Can be dynamic, involve feedback from audience

Print meets Digital at the Met: MetPublications

Preserving Print …

While linking to Digital resources

MetPublications by the numbers

From launch (10/10/12– 9/20/13):���Visits: 687,782���Average Visits/Month: 62,526���Average Unique Visits/Month: 35,678

Total Book Views on Google: 881,643���Total Page Views on Google: 14,978,556

Contains entries for 900 print publications since 1964.

While PDFs are available, it’s the searchable online pages and the portal into the Met’s digital offerings that people want.

Small print-on-demand program continues curatorial buy-in.

Print, Digital, and MetPublications

Editorial Digital Media (Online Publications group)

Speed Fast scanning, conversion, approval process

Labor-intensive tagging and linking to existing online content

Stages Followed Digital’s lead on workflow

Iterative design concepts though uploads to system architecture could be slow

Format Was open to format designed by Digital Media

Strong belief in requirements meant format rather fixed

New technologies

Got used to new workflows Had to work with existing architecture, technologies

“Scholarly Time”

Newer books in MetPubs can get reprinted if demand

Not dynamically updated

The next connection: Guide to the Met

❡  Original print version, early 2012

❡  On MetPublications, fall 2012

❡  Six translated print editions, late 2012 (also on MetPubs)

❡  Four more translated print editions, spring 2014

❡  Expansive online feature based on print edition planned for 2014

❡  ePub or other device-based version, led by Editorial, planned for 2014

Chinese / 中文

指南大都会艺术博物馆

!" #$%&' #$ # %()*

ISBN 978-1-58839-510-8

Chinese中文

大都会艺术博物馆

指南

More than just print or digital: ���a “content mandala” of the Met

THE AUDIENCE MAKES CONTENT

“It ’s Time We Met” “Hack the Met” (unofficial tours) Instagram/Flickr

Comments Blog posts

Social Media “Talking Actually back Visiting to the the books”Building

Making Yelp, Trip 3D Advisor, etc.copies of art

Drawing in Making their the galleries own books? Volunteering

Pintarest

THE AUDIENCE MAKES CONTENT

EXTERNAL/VENDORSbucket lists digitization restaurants

lectures eBook conversions Adobe DPSMet Publications Timeline of Art History

Apps Connections

82nd and Fifth Blog

Longform Books

Bulletins MetSelects

Scholarly Journal Merchandise

print on demand Audio tours Aritst in Residence

EXTERNAL/VENDORS

INTERNAL Editorial Online Publications

Spectrum XML-based work!ows Website

Design Research TMS Database

Libraries Concerts & Joint projects Lectures

Hackathons Social Media

INTERNAL

Exhibitions

Collections

CONTENT STREAM

Exhibitions

Collections

CONTENT STREAM

Or how about a “content grid”? PHYSICAL

VIRTUAL

EX T E R N A L

IN T E R N A L

BooksGallery Talks

Audio Guide

Social media

ContentPlanning

X M L / C M S

Pre-visit Planning

Exhibition Design

Signage and Visitor Services

Signage and Visitor Services

DAM

Collections Research Database

TMS

Sharepoint Servers

File servers

Libraries

Website

Hack-a-Thons

MetPublications

Timeline of Art History

Connections

82nd and Fifth

ebooks

Artist in Residence

Restaurants

What Print can learn from Digital

❡  Better sales, marketing, research, analytics

❡  Better “agility” in workflow

❡  Better content management

❡  Post-publication involvement with authors and audience

❡  Finding the next great art publishing format …

What Digital can learn from Print

❡  Longer engagement (“slow cooking”) for “artisanal content,” for both text and images

❡  Improving parallel workflows

❡  Familiarity with thorough research techniques for scholarly apparatus

❡  A history of experimenting with “a very mature technology”

❡  Long history of dealing with rightsholders

A final view of internal, external, and audience relationships

VISITOR EXPERIENCE

CMS PUBLISHING

?EXPORT-READY

CONTENT

RESEARCH DATABASES UX

Or is it? ���Print and Digital now serve Visitor Experience

VISITOR EXPERIENCE

CMS PUBLISHING EXPORT-READY

CONTENT

RESEARCH DATABASES UX

Moving forward: ���Print and Digital

❡ See Museum as a single publishing entity

❡ See print readers as users of content, too

❡ Analyze context of print

❡ Coordinate content streams as early as possible to allow for best slow and fast workflows side by side

❡  It’s not just a good CMS … institutional willingness to mix Print and Digital is a matter of willpower and priorities, not just tech

Ideas for integrating Print into the future of museum content

❡  Discussion of best practices for most sensible use of content developed for print in other contexts and containers

❡  Workshop for improving internal content flows within the institution

❡  Hack-a-thon/lab for producing different kinds of content, including print (looking beyond the traditional catalogue)

❡  Encourage cross-pollination of Print and Digital workflows, timeframes, and mindsets …

Print publishers are standing by … whether we know it or not …

Thank you MCN! ���My contact information

Robert Weisberg���Senior Project Manager���Editorial Department���The Metropolitan Museum of Art���1000 Fifth Avenue���New York, NY 10028-0198���212-650-2398

Email: Robert.Weisberg@metmuseum.org

Twitter: @beyondDTP

Blogging at Beyond the Printed Page: digitalpublishingbliki.com