Rights and Permissions

Implications of Electronic Access

May 18, 2004

 [bracketed comments are mine. JF]

 

Heather Malloy (Wiley)

 

 

Heather works at the practical level of helping students get what they need.

 

Accessibility requests are the second highest reason for requests from the digital archive.

 

Getting more

1. first time
2. last minute
3. older files

type requests.

 

She is also dealing with different state requirements for file formats.

 

Trying to rationalize print-based workflow with need for accessibility. [Ah, this is the key.  The industry work flow has not been substantially altered from that designed decades ago to facility print copy.  In order to allow easy translation, the process must be re-engineered for electronic format.]

 

Which leads to increased costs (time, people, etc)

 

Another aspect is discussion on standard formats and national repository of content.

 

No common agreement on format, time allowed, agreement etc among the states [with respect to servicing these requests].

 

Now seeing requests for titles exceeding 20 years of age still used by schools and students everyday.

 

Also getting requests for texts created for one class, one school, one state.

 

At Pearson our preference is to provide access regardless of state.  We require they buy a copy of the text, (all the California requirements).

 

Majority of requestors ask for word files – we expect this will eventually be minimalized as we provide more sophisticated files.  But textbooks don’t lend themselves to easy conversion.

 

So what about XML work flow?

• Lot’s of benefits
• Increased automation
• Multiple output formats
• Publish multiple products to multiple markets
• More efficiency
• However
• Not all publishers have xml process
• To overhaul entire production process requires time and process and money
• Age of titles increases difficulty
• No cost effective way to deal with this.

 

[look at existing handout]

[publishers seem to be dealing with this on an “as it comes” basis rather than re-engineering the business process – at least this seems the case with Thomson]

 

Requests have scaled greatly since 1999

 

Responded haphazardly

 

Lots of time spent trying to locate files

 

[do they need a file management system?]

 

Then had to spend time answering calls asking what was taking so long responding to the requests.

 

[more numbers in handout]

 

E-file requests is about 90% of the requests – no ideal how they [the files] will be used.

 

[look at handout for rest]

 

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