Google Books - where things stand ...

You will have heard of Google Books and of a settlement in the US which has unsettled a number of parties with an interest in books and in freedom of information.

This post is an attempt to summarise the history and the main points of the settlement, to look at the pros and cons, and to provide at the end a brief guide to searching Google Books.

In brief

Google Book Search aims to scan all books published in the United States and to provide full-text access to books published in the United States which are:

• Out-of-copyright (published pre-1923)
• Out-of-print and in-copyright with authors or publishers who cannot be traced ('orphan' works)
• In-print and in-copyright but with permission given by the copyright holder.

NB: If a book is designated as Commercially available (offered for sale new through one or more customary channels of trade in the United States) then Google will not be authorised to make any Display Uses of the book unless a rightsholder of the book gives express permission to do so.

History

• Google Print, renamed Google Book Search in November 2005, was launched in October 2004. Its purpose was to digitise books with the publishers' permission.
• In December 2004 the Google Print Library Project was announced. Google, in partnership with five major American Libraries, would digitise library collections, including the entire book collection of the University of Michigan. The full-text of out-of-copyright books would be made available for free. Books under copyright would be searchable, but only the basic information and a few snippets of text would be visible online.
• In Autumn 2005 the Authors Guild and 5 major publishers coordinated by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) filed suit against Google for copyright infringement, claiming that the scanning and indexing undertaken did not, as Google claimed, constitute 'fair use'.
• In October 2008 the Association of American Publishers, the Authors Guild and Google announced a settlement. To date (June 2009) final approval has not been given.
• September 4th 2009 has been named as the date by which authors need to opt out of or object to the settlement
• October 7th 2009 has been set as the date for the fairness hearing.

Google Book Settlement

The Google Book Settlement of October 2008 agrees that Google will:

• establish a Book Rights Registry which would provide 63% of revenue from sales and advertising to authors and publishers who agree to digitise their books.
• pay copyright holders a flat fee of $60 for the initial scanning of their work. This would include a 'reasonable and practicable' effort to find copyright holders of 'orphan' works and give those copyright holders the option to a) claim the fee and manage how their work would, or would not, be displayed or b) opt out of the settlement.
• have the right to digitise and to make available for a fee what are known as 'orphan' works, books which are in copyright but out of print, and for whom the copyright holder cannot be found. University libraries can purchase the collection of these books for a fee based on number of students enrolled; the collection will be made available for free on a single computer in each public library; and any person may purchase an individual copy of a book from the collection.

Arguments against the Google Book settlement:

• Google will have a monopoly on the digitising of orphan works. The agreement is therefore anti-competitive.
• While Google's intentions at present are honourable, the cost of a subscription could potentially be raised in the future to the extent that libraries would be forced to cut costs elsewhere.
• Because the case was settled, the question of fair use was not resolved, nor was the broader question of privacy.

Arguments in favour of the Google Book settlement:

• Out of print books will once again be available, and authors will get some revenue from books which were no longer in print and no longer commercially available.
• The direct link from each Google Book record to local library catalogues and to booksellers online may result in increased use of libraries and an increase in book purchases.
• A recent agreement means that the libraries who have made their books available to Google will have a say in pricing, thus potentially avoiding unreasonable price rises.
• The initiative may in time remove the problem of orphan works, as copyright holders come forward to claim their books.
• Improved and increased access to an enormous research collection.

Europe

At present discussions re Google Book Search centre on the United States. However, the issue is a matter of concern worldwide. On May 28th an Irish Times article reported that the European Union's executive body will be studying Google's plans. Google management said that it would be happy to engage in constructive dialogue on the future of books and copyright.

See here for articles from the New York Times about Google Book Search.

Step-by-Step Guide to using Google Book Search

google books

Citation Analysis - how to ...

All researchers will be familiar with calls to measure or prove your impact through citation analyses. Whether you agree or disagree with such measures of quality, these Step-by-step guides to citation analysis for UL researchers using Web of Science (ISI) and Publish or Perish (Google Scholar) will be useful.

Guide to using Web of Science
Guide to using Publish or Perish

Journals
If the Web of Science does not cover the journals or books in which you publish (check the Master List here), you can apply to have a journal included. Click here for selection criteria and an application form.

Conference Proceedings
For those disciplines where Conference Proceedings are primary publications, the recent inclusion of Conference Proceedings in Web of Science should improve citations.

Books
Books are not covered by Web of Science, nor are there plans to begin coverage of books. Those researchers who publish mainly in books may be interested in this post suggesting alternative measures for assessing impact in the AHSS.

Publish or Perish , a Google Scholar citation analysis tool from Anne-Wil Harzing, can be useful where Web of Science results do not appear to give a fair reflection of your research output.

For more information on Citation Analysis, the h-index and Journal Impact Factors see the library webpage (www.ul.ie/library) at Supporting Research -> Research Publication & Dissemination here, or go directly to the site here.

The articles linked to in the first paragraph above are:

Agree
Garfield, Eugene (2006) The History and Meaning of the Journal Impact Factor. JAMA 295: 90-93.

Disagree
The PLoS Medicine Editors (2006) The Impact Factor Game. PLoS Med 3(6): e291. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0030291.

Book Launch 2.0

Launching a book in the Web 2.0 world! - from Denis Cass on YouTube.

Industry Collaboration and Academic Research

Researchers benefit from a reasonable level of collaboration with industry, not only bringing economic benefit to their institutions, but also increased publication levels.

That's according to findings presented by City University London economists at the Royal Economic Society conference in May. Cornelia Meissner outlined how she and her colleagues analysed the publications, research funds and patents of researchers in the engineering departments of Imperial College London and City University London between 1985 and 2006, and concluded that:

Researchers with no industrial involvement are likely to be those with the least research outcome ... Nevertheless, high levels of industrial involvement affect negatively research productivity in terms of number of publications.

The authors recommend that universities should, through Technology Transfer and Knowledge programmes, encourage collaboration with industry, while continuing to provide incentives to encourage publishing.

See the full report here.

Meanwhile, at the Times Higher Education’s Employer Engagement conference in May, David Sweeney, director for research, enterprise and skills at the Higher Education Funding Council for England, argued that the pursuit of IP distracts from other areas of engagement with business which could potentially bring more income. HEFCE's policy, said Sweeney, will be to focus on what he termed 'shared investment' workforce development schemes, where taxpayers and employers share the cost of upskilling workforces through collaboration and exchange of expertise with higher education institutions.

For Hannah Fearn's report on a conference which involved much heated debate, see here.

Assessing Research Impact in the Social Sciences and the Humanities

“If we wish to resist the mechanical imposition of standardised citation measures then we need to suggest reasonable grounds for exempting certain fields from metric assessment and propose alternatives.”

So writes Professor Tom Lodge, Assistant Dean Research AHSS, UL, in a memorandum which urges Social Sciences and Humanities researchers to publish, where possible, in formats that lend themselves to comparable, if not statistical, indications of impact. Professor Lodge goes on to outline some of the alternative measures that might be used to indicate the standing and quality of published work in AHSS, including:

Books
o Consider the status of the publisher, perhaps compiling lists of top ten publishers in various fields
o Pay attention to review coverage, noting the standing of the reviewing journals as well as the content of the reviews
o Distinguish between refereed and non-refereed books
o Consider a book’s publishing history e.g. reprints and second subsequent editions may be considered to signal impact
o Consider a book’s sales figures, allowing for adjustments where a publication is in a very specialised field

Journals not indexed by Web of Science
o Consider using Publish or Perish, a citation analysis tool which analyses Google Scholar
o Refer to the European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH) for journal ratings
o Gather information from publishers

Other
o Consider work that shapes public policy debates
o Consider the status of conferences, and ranking of conference participation

Professor Lodge’s full memorandum can be accessed here, or on the library webpage (www.ul.ie/library) under Supporting Research -> Research Publication and Dissemination -> Citation Analysis.

A move to open access could bring significant system savings

A move to open access publishing could potentially bring system savings of around £215 million per annum in the UK, according to a report on the costs and benefits of alternative scholarly publishing models. An online model provided by the report authors runs as an executable application for those wishing to calculate national or institutional costs and benefits elsewhere.

John Houghton of the Centre for Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University is the lead author of the January '09 JISC commissioned report Economic implications of alternative scholarly publishing models: Exploring the costs and benefits.

Three publishing models are analysed and costed per article (e-only):
1) subscription or toll-access publishing (reader pays) : £2337
2) open access publishing (author pays to publish in an open access journal) : £1524
3) self-archiving with overlay services (author self-archives in an institutional or subject repository, with overlay services provided by the publisher to include peer review management, editing, production and proofing) : £1125

Open access self-archiving with overlay services would result in a saving of over 50% on subscription publishing. Significant additional savings could be made if acquisition cost savings were to be included.

Potential savings of 30% per title for open access monograph publishing are calculated, but a recommendation is made for more research as that area develops.

The report further recommends that:

• Appropriate metrics should be used when evaluating research.
  
• Institutions and funding bodies should ensure the availability of funding for author or producer side fees. (The analysis suggests that “under the rather conservative modelling assumptions, funding agencies or institutions might be able to divert up to 3.5% of research funding to author-side payments before net benefits were exhausted.”)
  
• The development of institutional and subject repositories should be encouraged and supported.

The report, including an Addendum, the online model, and commentary, can be found at http://www.cfses.com/EI-ASPM/. Under ‘Commentary’ see especially the JISC response to the joint comments issued by the Publishers Association, the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, and the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers.

Piled Higher and Deeper - PHD for short!

Jorge Cham’s comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper centres on the life (or lack thereof) of a group of overworked, underpaid, procrastinating postgraduate students and their terrifying advisers.

It’s been going since 1997, and Cham still posts new comics "approximately 2.718 times a week". The comic strip is available for free on the website where it has 4.7 million visitors a year, and is syndicated for free in university newspapers.

Enjoy! at http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php

Click here for more on Jorge Cham and his comic ideas in Science's Career Magazine.