Charleston Conference 2004
| Published date | 01 January 2005 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/07419050510588214 |
| Pages | 12-13 |
| Date | 01 January 2005 |
| Author | Kay Ann Cassell |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
Charleston Conference 2004
Kay Ann Cassell
12 LIBRARY HITECH NEWS Number 1 2005, pp. 12-13, #Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 0741-9058, DOI 10.1108/07419050510588214
The annual Charleston Conference
was held November 3-6, 2004 with the
theme, ``All the World's a Serial.'' One
of the most discussed issues at
Charleston was that of open access. One
of the keynote speakers, Michael
Keller, University Librarian at Stanford
University, stated that authors have not
rushed to the open access model. He
also noted that the open access
movement has not worked with
scholarly societies although some
scholarly societies have made articles
available free. The open access
discussion continued with a
presentation by Richard Newman,
Associate Director of Highwire Press,
Stanford University. The mission of
Highwire is to keep society publishers
competitive. Founded in 1995, there are
700 peer-reviewed journals. The
journals hosted by Highwire all charge
the same no matter if the publication is
free or subscription. There are 24 totally
free sites and 800,000 free articles. The
need for more open access experiments
was discussed. The model most used
has been that the author pays to have his
article published. But other models
should be tried to find ways to shift or
share the financial burden. Margaret
Reich, Publications Director, American
Physiological Society, discussed the
journal business model from the point
of view of a scholarly society. She said
that subscription prices were based on
cost. Her society tries to bring in a 10
percent profit but does not always
accomplish this. She said that the cost
to the author to publish an article is
$1,500 but that does not really cover the
cost which is $2,500-$3,000.
A panel chaired by Judy Luther,
President, Informed Strategies, discussed
new publishing models. Mike Morgan,
President, Morgan & Claypool
Publishers, suggested working with an
intellectual community to produce an
online series similar to a journal
platform. This would be five to 15 works
published per year ± each being limited
to 100 pages. The typical author would
be a well-known researcher involved in
advanced research and development.
These papers could be used in teaching.
Alan Poole, editor of Birds of North
America, published in print in 2002,
reported on a new version of the book
being developed for an online
community making the information on
the birds searchable and including bird
songs and sounds and videos of bird
behavior. The third example was
presented by Gregg Gordon, President,
the Social Science Research Network,
which is disseminating the content of
working papers from seven areas
accounting, economics, social insurance,
financial economics, information
systems, legal scholarship and
management research. The interest in
this information has grown as the content
has grown; there are now 170,000
visitors a month from many countries.
This can be a way of distributing
conference papers to a wide audience.
An interesting panel was entitled
``The Iceberg Problem.'' The library's
collections were described as the lower
part of the iceberg which the user
cannot see from the surface. Stanley
Wilder, Associate Dean, University of
Rochester Libraries, described the
research and development the library
has done to make the content of the
catalog more accessible to users. This
project now uses a google model to
make it simpler for users to use the
catalog. There is one box in which the
user can type their query. The library
has developed a results navigator that is
simple and forgiving making it easier
for the user to access content from
many different parts of the library. This
site can be accessed at www.lib.
rochester.edu/index.cfm They have
converted MARC records to XML.
Judy Luther stated that users want
integrated functionality and want to be
able to filter results. The next
generation will want control of the
process and to be self sufficient. They
will want to able to go from Word to
library research. She discussed some of
the new smart interfaces. Type your
term into Amazon and they also provide
a ``You might also like ... '' link.
Oxford Reference Online allows for
fuzzy spelling and helps the user to
widen the search, for example, type in
``state'' and it will also lead you to
``nation''. Google assists the user by
asking ``did you mean?'' Luther went
on to say that users are not interested in
format simply the content.
Another subject of interest at the
Conference was Open URLs. Patricia
Harris from NISO stated that the Open
URL standard was almost finished and
will be released before the end of the
year. The standards are free on the web
at www.niso.org There are different
metadata sets for different types of
material such as dissertations, book
reviews, legal citations and patents.
At the end of the conference a group
of participants discussed the future.
David Goodman, Associate Professor,
Palmer School of Information Science,
Long Island University, suggested an
article database might be developed if
Open Access journals fail. Bonnie
Zavon, Public Relations, Highwire
Press, said that the role of society
publishing will expand. There could
possibly be an online interactive forum
where articles are put up, refereed and
commented on. She foresaw
centralized, interlinked topic databases
and the digitization of large library
collections (already coming to pass
with the Google news). She also
discussed the role of libraries in
organizing and collecting digitized
materials. Michael Pelikan, Technology
Initiatives Librarian, Pennsylvania
State University Libraries, stated that
the cell phone is the fastest developing
form of the personal computer. He said
we will continue to separate content
To continue reading
Request your trial