An Owie, again, from Ithaka

This morning's Inside Higher Education features and article by Kevin Guthrie, president of Ithaka and former president of JSTOR, entitled "Thinking Like an Entrepreneur." The article touts the behavior the title names, suggesting that online ventures from academia should follow the same basic models as as online ventures from, well, undergraduate students. From what I've seen, they certainly practice what they preach. This article is an example, a reminder to read the report they just published in spite of its length and my long reading list.

From my perspective, I had a slightly dog-eared moment where I heard, "Sustainability, funds . . . marketing . . . impact and value . . . marketing . . . planning marketing . . . flexibility and responsiveness . . . marketing." What they don't mention is that [in]flexibility within the academy (or government, in general) is challenging in itself. As a small department within a large university, our hands are frequently tied by regulations created and maintained by entities that regard multi-million dollar projects as typical, when our usual transactions run to the hundreds of dollars. It is the same mindset that shut out small restoration companies and housing providers after Katrina, when single contracts were given out for huge projects which rightly should have been regarded as many small projects which could have been more efficiently managed.

On that note, what does it indicated when access to current issues of the Journal of American History through the History Cooperative (a cooperative which the U of I Press is largely responsible for managing) is no longer available through the U of I Libraries? One has to use the (much more expensive) provider EBSCO. Ah, the economics of scale.

Google a "Destination"?

One way librarians are lightyears ahead of most Internet observers and analysts is the way they split items by function, first. I don't recall ever being in a library without a reference section.

This morning's Newsbrief from Online Media Daily, Google Remains Internet's Top Draw. Imagine this headline in LJ, "Phonebook remains most-used book in the library." Or, better yet, "Map of Disneyworld Biggest Draw at Theme Park." Google's not a destination, or a draw. It's probably the best directory since a real-live person could connect you to "Jefferson 4-3-8," but it isn't a destination in the same way that IRS.gov, also on the list of most-visited sites, is.

The First Step is to Acknowledge There is a Problem

I don't know if anyone's done a study of list crawl (sprawl, migration, something), but that's how I got on the "NIH Update/Newsletter" list. The spring Newsletter features their "review of peer review." Their Implementation Plan Report sounds like good applied common sense. I'm not sure how well it will be received. The guidelines themselves would actually seem to apply to any peer-review process (including publishing), not just applications for NIH funding.

(Though I have heard some complaints about the review process, most of the complaints seem to be about the application process itself. No word in this newsletter about reforming the forms.)

Google Books vs. [Academic Library Catalog]

Yesterday's LJXpress features an article by two academic librarians who compared search results from SUNY's new(ish) BISON catalog to Google Book Search. Unsurprisingly, Google returned more hits. My question, along with other responders, is whether the hits are better than a traditional catalog?

You're Either With Us, or Against Us

Today's LJ Academic Newswire gives the highlights from a recent (apparently unpublished) advisory memo from the ARL to academic library directors.

I think the "mission drift" that they discuss, referring to the comments in the Ithaka Report, is a problem in many universities. The author of an article in this morning's IHE sees universities as the ones drifting from their mission. If anything, the UP "drift" from their university's mission is similar to the drift many libraries find themselves taking. Neither make the kind of money that has become the true primary mission of many universities, with research and education coming in a distant second and third. If I remember the Ithaka Report correctly, it emphasized the practicality of making nice with the money-focused elements of the university rather than holding to concepts of liberal education that both libraries and UPs still try to cling to.

Because libraries and presses seem to be sliding to the margins of the universities, of course they are going to end up fighting each other for resources. As UPs try to bring themselves in line with expectations From Above, rifts with libraries will become more common.

Of course, I don't believe that the walled garden model of academic publishing has a real future.

Global Results?

Last month I commented on the problems that the U of I Global Campus is having. The Powers That Be are concerned because enrollment is much, much lower than expected.

Today's IHE "Quick Takes" noted that Western Governors University just passed the 10,000 enrollment milestone, eleven years! after opening its website doors.

The Dog & Pony Show

From this morning's Shelf Awareness:

"Incidentally overall attendance at BEA was 28,494, which was up compared to the last BEA in Los Angeles, in 2003, when attendance was 27,143. By contrast, attendance last year in New York, traditionally the most popular site for BEA, was 36,112.
. . .
Total attendance of booksellers, librarians and other non-exhibitors, including the press, was 9,250."

9250! I think this just might explain how they can even think about meeting in Las Vegas next year. I wonder how the ratio of attendees to performers rate against other trade shows?

Self-interest & Profit

What's the difference between money-making and profit-taking? Are the for-profit mega-publishers who print obscene numbers of textbooks for equally obscene profit any different than Halliburton and their ilk?

This morning's Inside Higher Ed in their "Views" section (essentially an op-ed) featured Robert Brooker, a textbook author, discussing "The Value of a Textbook." If you're paid to do a full-time-plus job, when do you find time to write a textbook? Aren't you already being paid, to some extent, to write the text, as it flows from teaching and learning obligations inherent to the title "professor?"

Many online "textbooks" have been made available for "free." Basically any programming you want to learn can be learned online--it might not be as clean as an edited book, but frequently there are tips and real feedback from real people that can solve problems faster than any book ever could. For more traditional learning, there are programs such as Connexions, which allow for seemingly "interactive" teaching without any actual interaction. Again, much better than a static text.