ESR 10: Long-Term Business Models in Dissemination and Publishing

Heidi Dowding

@theglobal_lib

www.thegloballibrarian.com

@theglobal_lib

About Me

Bachelor's in Art History from Michigan State University
Master's in Library and Information Science from Wayne State University
Worked as a librarian and researcher after getting master's

Managed the Digitization Centre at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan
Participated in the inaugural National Digital Stewardship Residency fellowship at the Library of Congress
Worked at Dumbarton Oaks on creating a holistic digital asset management solution for a diverse cultural heritage organization

Why is My research necessary?

There is currently no strong business model in place for digital scholarly editions - most do not extend beyond the initial costs of creation, into the realm of preservation and dissemination.

For-profit publishers are making large gains from academic work, but most do not offer long-term plans for continued access - any of their holdings could be deleted or lost.

Costs of publishing digitally are often viewed as artificially low; hosting, storage, and staff time are all costs that continue for as long as a digital edition exists.

We need to think of how to transfer this knowledge to future generations, without leaving a great burden of work or cost on them.

So in beginning my research, I’ll be looking at three things:

The history of scholarly publishing

Gaining knowledge in this area will help to provide context for a business model framework, as it will help to situate the current situation within the evolution of the field. Often, we break things like scholarly publication into two historical eras: pre-digital and post-digital. But this fails to acknowledge the nuance of how publishing has changed and grown, and what its fundamental aims have been.

Past and Current publishing models

It is important to look broadly at publishing models, but with a particular eye to how they handle scholarly editions. All of the publishers on the previous slide are of particular interest to this project, as they represent the current diversity in scholarly edition publishing. They approach publishing in different ways, employing models like print-on-demand, freemium access, and subscription.

Innovation in business models

Researching innovative funding models outside of the publishing world will help to gain a better understanding of potential areas to explore in my business model framework.

I will be looking at models like crowdfunding, with small incentives in order to obtain donations, microsales, e.g., the small in-game purchases in mobile gaming made to gain skills, get things, or convert to virtual currency, and the one-for-one donation-style model, where one purchased item equals one item donated.

Main Research Questions

How does the past inform current and future business model success?
What are all of the costs involved in a scholarly edition?
What costs can be diminished and how?
Who are the beneficiaries and funders? What are their unique attributes?
How can we assess the agility and efficacy of a business model for the very-long-term?