Digital Books and Flying Cars: The Library edition

peter  brantley    internet  archive  san  francisco  ca  

Control  over  the  publishing  industry  has    shifted  out  of  the  hands  of  publishers.  

concept  of    an  “organizational  field”  (defined)  

often  complex  groups  or  sets  of  actors  involved.      

stable  industry  >  stable  network    (and  vice  versa)  

for  both  organizations    and  people    

Technology  shifts  can  disrupts  a  field  …    (means  of  production,  means  of  distribution)  

radical  change  in  field  members,  and  ultimately  in  its  products  or  services.  

In  any  organizational  field,  market  actors  coalesce  around  an  “axis  of  competition”  

   product  |  pricing  |  services  

Deep  cutting  technology  shifts    in  production  and  distribution    

remove  the  ability  to  focus    on  any  single  axis  at  a  time.    

Disruption  of  core  fundamentals  even  creates  conflicts  emerging  from  a  redefinition  of  old  assets:    

 …  a  “backward  lens”    

 For  example:  

Digital  rights  for  older  backlist  titles,  where  rights  to  the  latent  rents  were  never  negotiated.  

 Outcome:  

Rosetta;  Andrew  Wylie  v.  Random  House  HarperCollins  v.  Open  Road  Media    

Difficult  enough  issue  to  have  a  separate  appendix  in  the  GBS  settlement  proposal    

(“Author-­‐Publisher  Procedures”).  

 As  content  emerges  in  different  channels,      role  vs  function  conflict  develops:  

 authors    |    agents    |    publishers  |  retailers  

 Functions  no  longer  “captured”  by  orgs.  

Tech  shifts  permits  new  firms  to  enter,      sunder  existing  networks,  and  disrupt    existing  “resource  dependencies”.      

Call  into  question  the  very  viability    of  older  firms  and  organizations.    

Imagine  consumer  3-­‐d  printable    aerocar  templates  on  torrents,    competing  with  existing  cars.  

Org.  fields  in  turmoil  are  subject  to  a  wildfire  development  of  emergent    markets,  new  patterns  of  competition.    

 Amazon’s  kindle  …    

Neither  the  ereader  nor  the  ebook    were  new  creations,  but  intro  into  a  disrupted  publishing  field  made  all    the  difference.    

Apple  and  Amazon  are  something  new:  comprehensive,  proprietary  consumer-­‐  facing  content-­‐distribution  platforms.    

 Both  companies  have  created  media    consumption  portals  with  tablet  and      catalog  support.    

Not  concerned  with  historical  relationships,  seeking  profit  in  disruption,  and  with  a  wildly  different  understanding  of  their  competition.  

 Apple,  Amazon,  Google,  Facebook  are    network-­‐centric  platforms  focused  on    a  technically-­‐enabled  monetization      of  web  traffic,  driving  consumption.    

 Reliance  on  web  technologies  enables      new  forms  of  content  to  be  developed,    new  authoring  platforms  to  be  created.  

 Apple  iPad  apps  and  interactive  books    are  previously  unimaginable  art  forms.      There  will  be  many  more  to  come.      

Concepts  from  the  software  industry:  

new  realms  of  info  design  +  arch,    and  opportunities  for  user  experience,    can  re-­‐invent  books  and  journals.    

Digital  tech  enables  …    

•  highly  mobile  content  delivery;    •  machine  based  auto-­‐curation;    •  linked  open  data  relationships;  •  semantically  driven  associations.    

New  forms  of  product  innovation  permit  core  industry  standards  to  be  suborned  by  disruptive  firms.  

EPUB    EPUB3  in  order  to  compete  vs.    Apple/Android  apps,  only  to  see  EPUB3    adopted  as  a  foundation  for  proprietary  enhancements.    

Platforms  optimize  for  hardware,  while  designers  maximize  artistry.  

Growing  silos  of  unique  content,    loss  of  universal  discovery  and  access.    

Loss  of  control  over  format  standards    that  would  otherwise  buttress  industry  competition.    

No  MP3  for  books.  

Efforts  to  leverage  previous  network    relationships,  mechanics  only  serves    to  create  unexpected  consequences.  

Publishers  attempt  to  re-­‐assert  control  of    market  pricing  and  distribution  channels  as  they  lose  control  over  product  definition.  

   Agency  pricing  …    

Even  putting  aside  DoJ  intervention,  agency  pricing  can  never  re-­‐write  the  new  relationships  and  dynamics  in    publishing.    

Old  network  of  relationships  in  the    publishing  industry  is  no  longer  useful;    ties  that  bound  actors  together  have  been  sundered.    

In  the  shadow  of  Apple  and  Amazon  –    a  whole  new  ecosystem  of  technology-­‐  based  publishing  startups  is  emerging    on  the  coasts  premised  on  disruption.  

Network  enables  new  forms  of  awareness,  machine  self-­‐learning  is  beginning  to  associate  people  with    information  in  new  ways.    

Sometimes  scary.    

Struggle  imminent  to  define  our  relationship  with  networks  that  are  increasingly  aware  of  our  needs  for    information.      

“Waving  at  the  machine”    

We  will  have  to  grow  into  a  new    understanding  of  how  we  share  information  through  the  network.  

“Hold  Hands”,  wickenden,  Flickr  

Libraries  and  universities  need  not  be  consumers  of  technology,  but  rather  can    take  adv.  of  new  technology  directly.  

Re-­‐thinking  flow  …  

By  publishing’s  disruption,  public  and  research  libraries  can  deliver  services    for  and  with  (not  “to”)  their  users.  

Being  able  to  consider  story  telling  and    data  as  software  reshapes  how  scholars    engage  with  their  peers  and  the  public.      

New  authoring  tools  and  platforms    enable  scholars  to  have  more  direct    control  over  how/where    they  publish    (e.g.  Wordpress:  Annotum).  

Academic  authors  can  publish  outside    traditional  journal  publishing  systems  –  

Oppty  for  hyper  local  publishing  platforms.  

People  and  groups  can  create  their  own    own  micro-­‐publishing  sites,  and  publish  directly  on  web-­‐based  journals.  

“Push”  to  publish  …    

 PLoS  One,  PeerJ,  and  related  ilk  …    

 that  minimally  gate  submissions:  

   1)  is  it  a  new  and  original  work;      2)  does  it  report  on  primary  research?;      3)  is  it  technically  rigorous?  

 And  if  we  posit  that  all  information  has    the  potential  to  be  equally  discoverable      on  the  web,  do  we  need  PLOS  One?    

 By  redirecting  its  resources  over  the  next    few  years,  a  university  can  provide  enough      publishing  services  of  its  own  to  eliminate    subventions.  

Between  libraries  and  presses,  societies    and  membership  associations,  between    authors  and  readers,  a  new  continuum    of  publishing  services  can  be  designed.      

 Enabling  scholars  to  publish,  and  readers    (both  lay  and  academic)  to  write  back  into    the  world  for  themselves.      

 He  that  we  last  as  Thurn  and  Taxis  knew  

   Now  recks  no  lord  but  the  stiletto’s  Thorn,  

 And  Tacit  lies  the  Gold  once-­‐knotted  horn.    

   No  hallowed  skein  of  stars  can  ward,  I  trow,  

 Who’s  once  been  set  his  tryst  with  Trystero.  

peter  brantley  

   director,  bookserver  project      internet  archive  

   @naypinya  (twitter,  gmail)