In May 2014, we introduced ProtoView to our free webinar series. With ProtoView we promote your titles through professionally created abstracts, bibliographic entries, and expanded metadata delivered to the scholarly supply chain. In this webinar, we talked about the new developments in academic markets and how to maximize your titles' presence in web scale discovery services. (Hint: It's all about discoverability.)
We discussed the metadata elements included in ProtoView, the different levels of service available for print and electronic books and journals, and custom solutions available by sending electronic data in conjunction with print review copies.
2. Today’s Agenda
The story of Book News and Ringgold
Metadata – Critical in a digital world
Ringgold's ProtoView service
What is it?
What problems does it solve?
How much does it cost?
3. Ringgold and Book News
35 years of Reference & Research Book News:
Creating professionally written abstracts for
delivery to booksellers and libraries
Book News, Inc. acquired by Ringgold in mid-2012
Today: Providing the same level of service with the expanded capability
to accept electronic materials and distribute data to discovery services
5. Content is King?
Metadata is the real ruler of the realm
Good quality data is the foundation of effective promotion
Using narrative descriptions of content has always been
important, but is now indispensible
6. Data = Sales
The difference in average sales between records which don’t have
enhanced metadata, and records which do have enhanced metadata
elements is on average over 2,600 units, which represents an increase of
almost 700%
Titles that meet the BIC Basic
standard see average sales 98%
higher than those that don’t
meet the standard Records with a complete BIC Basic data
but no image have average sales of 473%
higher in comparison to those records
which have neither the complete BIC
Basic data elements or an image.
White Paper: The Link Between
Metadata and Sales By Andre Breedt,
Head of Publisher Account
Management; David Walter, Research
and Development Analyst, 2012
http://www.isbn.nielsenbook.co.uk/uploads/3971_Nielsen_Metadata_white
7. Warning:
Lack of high quality information reduces the likelihood of
content to be discovered.
10. A Definition of Web Scale Discovery
A pre-harvested central index coupled with a richly featured
discovery layer providing a single search across a library’s
local, open access, and subscription collections.
12. The Black Box
The people who know how these systems work aren’t telling
13. Not Just Another Search
PDA/DDA: purchasing models ahead of technologies’ ability
to properly accommodate. The acquisition systems
developed in conjunction with WSD represent a logical
progression of capabilities
Demand-driven acquisition (DDA) is not new, but it is on the
rise. Approximately 400 to 600 libraries worldwide have
switched to a demand-driven (patron-driven) system for
purchasing new works, and that number is likely to double
over the next year
14. “Many Orbis Cascade libraries are no longer using
subject selectors to build print collections – we
have moved to a pure Demand Driven Acquisitions
model.” – Acquisitions Librarian, Portland State University
We have heard similar statements from a range of libraries
17. ProtoView
The only service dedicated to serving scholarly publishers to
create and disseminate print and e-book metadata featuring
professionally written summary abstracts
Developed from a successful model as the next generation of
services to meet the needs of an evolving market
Guided by industry best practices and standards
18. ProtoView bridges the gap between
data and discovery
Ringgold has developed the first service that combines
standardized metadata elements and narrative descriptions
(title and optional chapter abstract summaries)
ProtoView is a publisher’s best route to establish an
enhanced presence for publications within discovery and
acquisition systems which are otherwise inaccessible
19. ProtoView offers:
Rapid, professional production of enhanced metadata for
both print and e-books, journals and online content
Link to the supply chain – Large scale dissemination
Custom data profiles to accommodate any publisher need
Multi-channel approach to end users:
Prompt delivery to discovery services
New web interface customized for buyers of scholarly works
Automatic alerts of new titles to end users of ProtoView.com
23. Our current licensees (selected):
As a group, these leading resources are used in over 75% of US college libraries:
Baker & Taylor
TitleSource 3
Majors Education Solutions
Content Cafe
YBP
GOBI Selection Database
EBSCO
Book Index with Reviews
EBSCOhost databases
Gale – Cengage
Gale Book Review Index Online Plus
Ex Libris
Primo
ProQuest
vLex.com
Academic Research Library
Canadian Business and Current Affairs
ProQuest Central Research Library
ProQuest Health and Medical
ProQuest Humanities Module
Eastern Book Company
Book Lists
Title Selection Database
24. ProtoView Custom
Some publishers choose to send data feeds
with their printed review copies with
metadata they have already created, such as
Table of Contents, DOIs, cover images, etc.
We start with ProtoView Plus pricing and make a small
charge for each additional metadata element. A
complete list of what can be provided, and how much
each element costs is available upon request.
Individual solutions are available to meet any publisher need
Example Case:
Pricing:
25. Final thoughts…
We strive to produce a high quality product dedicated to scholarly
works– it’s what our users (your buyers) have come to expect.
To maintain our editorial standards and the reliability of our data, only
published editions of eBooks and other electronic content are accepted.
Our focus is on academic content. Therefore, we don’t include works of
fiction, poetry, plays, or juvenile titles within the ProtoView database.
Our publishing partners are provided free access to
protoview.com
For login credentials, contact us at: info@protoview.com
26. Jay Henry Jean Brodahl
Chief Marketing Officer Publisher Relations
jay.henry@ringgold.com jean.brodahl@ringgold.com
Contact us today to learn more about how we can
help you get the most out of your data
Notes de l'éditeur
Welcome –
Introductions – Jean & Jay
Today we will talk about ProtoView, what it is and how it works. We’re going to go over the essential pieces of metadata that can be added to every book’s record to be sure they get discovered; the world of academic libraries, how they’ve completely changed when and how they buy books, and where they learn about new books. I say books, but this applies to all content. ProtoView was created so that we can use it on all kinds of content, not just books. Then we’ll go into what ProtoView can offer. When you finish this webinar we hope you will have a better idea of the world of academic libraries and the information that matters to them. We will put the slides on the Ringgold and PV websites, so you can look at them there later if you wish.
Before we start talking about academic libraries and how they learn about and buy content, I want to mention what you may already know. Most of you are familiar with us from Book News. Ringgold, the new owner of Book News, is an industry leader in standard identifiers, that is, unique numbers that designate a specific piece of information. Ringgold has become an excelled in creating databases of places – that is institutions – who publishers need to keep track of. Now, with PV, we are expanding and incorporating these databases and creating an additional database containing detailed descriptions of things – or rather, scholarly works.
Reference & Research Book News was a printed journal: ProtoView is a searchable database available to subscribers. The ProtoView service, however, is much more than this. Our service is to produce abstracts and bibliographic information about your titles and export this information to the discovery channels. ProtoView greatly expands what BN had to offer, reacting to the changing market, in part through the addition of important metadata to each title’s record.
Book News specialized in providing content to the discovery channels used by college libraries. Ringgold continues and expands this service: working closely with these discovery channels is our area of expertise. We know about them and work with them so you don’t have to. Given the enormity of the academic market – all college libraries rely on these WSDS – the service we provide - namely, getting information about your titles into these systems - is truly invaluable.
A key feature of ProtoView is the addition of expanded metadata to each title record. The reason metadata is more important than ever is because of the way people now learn about books and content. They no longer browse shelves, they search online. We all do this; we expect to be able to “Google” everything and get results. With ProtoView, we make sure there is as much metadata connected with your titles as possible so they will have a better chance of being discovered when someone makes a search, and that the results of that search provide the information they want in the form they need.
This is meant as an inflamatory question, really – of course, good quality content is important, but if it doesn’t get discovered in what has become an ocean of good content, it might as well not exist.
Complexity can be managed by systems—in fact, whenever a need arises, a solution appears; however, the best solutions can not work with poor quality data—the old cliché of ‘garbage in garbage out’ still applies. There is more content to describe than ever, and as a result, unique identifiers are the best way to disambiguate and link your data to relevant sources.
We’re here to talk about the importance of good quality metadata (and what is meant by “good quality”) in the context of web scale discovery systems not because the term is the flavor of the month, but because they matter—this is an important trend that I believe will become the standard model not only within academic institutions, but everywhere.
---Some publishers are better than others– there is a range, and those doing the best job tend to be the largest and most well recognized brands which increases their ability to ensure their content is discovered; more than ever, descriptive data is a competitive factor – it’s important to note that we’re not talking about publisher generated descriptions, nor reviews (which often appear long after a book is published and serve the long tail of sales rather than sales at the time of publication)– many of the most important systems simply will not accept publisher-generated descriptive content, and true reviews are unpredictable.
NOTE on 3rd Bullet: Using narrative descriptions of content has always been important, but is having a greater impact than ever... Why’s that?? Well...because content metadata begins with the publisher, but takes on a life its own... (some mention of ‘this ain’t print advertising’)
Ultimately, we’re trying to sell more content. Every study that has been conducted has shown that there is a direct relationship between how well a piece of content is described and how much it sells. Of course, a lot of variables come into play– but, as some results from a white paper commissioned by Nielson show, it’s clear that when there is more data associated with any given title a publisher can expect a positive impact on sales.
What do we mean by “high quality information” – we mean not only creating good quality and well structured data, but developing the right kind of data– descriptive summary abstracts are one such example, as are cover images.
….which leads us to our next main topic: what’s happening in the scholarly supply chain, and why is it critical to understand these developments.
Librarians are remarkably enthusiastic about new technology; they strive to keep themselves relevant in the new digital world, jumping on and even initiating creative new solutions that embrace the very latest technologies and the new user behaviors they make possible. For you, these developments have made the job of describing, promoting and delivering content more difficult because there are more routes to content and more forms in which it is consumed. Here is where knowledge is power, as you can only effectively target your audience if you know where they are.
Just now entering the 4th age of discovery/access/delivery – the two main points here are: First, search and discovery continue to change and secondly, who makes the decision to purchase your content is changing with it.
One could argue that technology has progressed to a point where not only the ‘needs’ of users can be met, but also their ‘wants’… the instant gratification available from the discovery and immediate use of electronic works is very hard to resist; and there’s a knock on positive effect for those who are responsible for book budgets—the ability to demonstrate use of what is being purchased– something that was not well known until relatively recently, and is increasingly important as more libraries are administrated by non-librarians (there has been a significant migration from ‘just in case’ collection building to ‘just in time’ delivery to satisfy an immediate need, and this will only increase– I’ll speak more about this phenomenon later in the presentation.)
--note: mention that this progression is an expansion of possibilities – the old models are still with us– unfortunately for those of us producing data about publications we do not enjoy the luxury of ignoring the past, but must anticipate the future.
Re: web search – the ability to search across the web changed user behavior and their expectations– federated search has been trying to delivery a similar experience to users, but only now is there the potential to delivery a vastly improved, yet focused, search for academic research.
Non-linear lending– might want to mention ProQuest/EBL/Ebrary as innovators in experimenting with new acquisition models;
FROM SALES PRESENTATION: THINGS TO MENTION:
*The way libraries make purchase decisions is changing, and the mode of acquisitions is evolving with it.
*Purchasing will increasingly be a function of patrons, and their request for content will be dependent upon their discovery of a particular work.
*Sales will be driven by web-scale discovery at an increasing rate, but so will usage, which as I mentioned is an increasingly important metric.
The term “discovery services” is being used throughout the publishing industry as the most recent darling buzzword…and for good reason. Web search utilities (Google, Bing, etc.) have transformed library patron and researcher behavior. “Search” is maturing as a concept and taking on new dimensions within libraries as they strive to compete with mainstream search services.
These are some of the services libraries use. Note that we supply content to three of them directly, and OCLC receives our content from librarians (who build the OCLC database continually, adding information to title records whenever they see it’s lacking)
WSDS – the importance of complete metadata in order to support systems no one really understands
The only solution is to provide as much data as possible in order to provide the broadest description possible to provide the algorithms at work the raw material that will ultimately produce hits and increased visibility. Keeping in mind the data provided is good quality, usable data.
More of a “game changer”
I believe WSD services represent a truly mature search technology for libraries that will provide benefits to users and the libraries themselves by allowing non-owned resources to be part of the central index.
DDA is emerging as an important new way to present title information to patrons
This model delivers what patrons want – and users have driven adoption of change more than any other factor
The proliferation of WSD goes beyond the main players that I mentioned earlier; some system vendors (of current ILS installations within libraries) have begun to integrate WSD services by partnership and technology integration.
Okay, this is my “be afraid, be very afraid” slide… while I don’t want to be overly dramatic about the changes that are occurring, it is important to underscore that what I mentioned earlier about a real change occurring in who is making purchase decisions, and I wanted to set the stage for talking about how we as publishers have to work in both the traditional supply chain while preparing for what’s ahead. So, with that, let’s take a look at how to create the most effective representation of your scholarly works in the systems serving users.
Ringgold’s solution for publishers to ensure the right data is being created and delivered to the right targets
This slide is meant to provide a simple overview of our supply chain before going into a bit more detail.
When an informed reader is presented with two titles classified within the same subject area, their decision on which to pick will often come down to which has a more complete description— linking across the entire supply chain will be one natural effect (and benefit) from making every effort to accurately describe your works.
Mention what Christine said earlier re: audit files for humans and for systems… ProtoView data works the same way – abstract summaries are great for people reading a screen and for machines indexing databases.
NOTES:
A service that creates and disseminates print and e-book metadata on behalf of scholarly publishers – you already produce a lot of good metadata, and likely structure it well… so what does this really offer?
Developed from a successful model as the next generation of services to meet the needs of an evolving market – it’s no mistake that we’re calling PV the ‘next gen’ of service…that is, to meet the next gen search
Guided by industry best practices and standards
First bullet: It’s worth emphasizing the importance of the type of abstract created by ProtoView– the descriptions we write have a dual purpose– to be useful not only to people reading the information for themselves, but also to be compatible with search engine technology.
Second bullet: We will show you a list of a few of our licensees in a few slides.
To reiterate the value of what we have created… [read slide]
NOTE: Link to the supply chain – Large scale dissemination: IMPORTANT to draw the distinction between protoview.com and THE SERVICE
…next slide: lets take a look at the data itself
This slide has been included mainly for offline reference… it’s probably a lot more useful to understand that we have given this a lot of thought, and have the ability to include the types of data that will aid in the discovery and continue to drive use over time…and see a real example [next 2 slides are screen shots of Protoview.com]
If convenient on WebEx, go instead to actual website and show audience the record, clicking through to Ringgold record, etc.
Gale/Cengage, as an example has just requested that we deliver data on a weekly, rather than monthly basis, a change we have already made with ProQuest.
…so, now that we understand what ProtoView is and why it’s important to your promotional efforts, let’s talk about how much it costs.
1st bullet (editorial standards): No Galley or ARCs
Thank you all so much for attending– with the time remaining we’re happy to entertain any questions you may have about our service or any of the topics we’ve discussed today.