This presentation was delivered during ALA 2017 at the 11th Annual NISO-BISG Forum, Delivering an Integrated Information Experience, by Charles Watkinson of the University of Michigan.

1. Open & Enhanced Monographs
The Discovery Gap
Charles Watkinson
AUL, Publishing, University of Michigan Library
Director, University of Michigan Press
NISO-BISG Forum at ALA, Friday June 23, 2017

2. My Life as a Night Elf Priest
A Tale of Discovery

4. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE ONIXMessage SYSTEM
"http://www.editeur.org/onix/2.1/reference/onix-international.dtd">
<Title><TitleText>My Night as a Night Elf Priest</TitleText></Title>
<OtherText> <Text> https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode </Text>
<Text>Open access - no commercial use</Text> </OtherText>
<Imprint><ImprintName>Digital Culture Books</ImprintName></Imprint>
<Publisher><PublisherName>University of Michigan Press</PublisherName>
</ONIXMessage>
http://www.editeur.org/11/Books/

7. “. . . for the best-selling title in the digitalculturebooks imprint, only 21
percent of purchasing libraries included a clear record on an extant OA
version in their catalog. OA monographs are not as discoverable in
library systems as they should be.”
Aaron McCollough, “Does It Make a Sound: Are Open Access Monographs Discoverable in Library
Catalogs,” portal: Libraries and the Academy, 17.1, January 2017. doi: 10.1353/pla.2017.0010
“Current metadata, discovery, distribution, discovery, sales, and access
systems tend to conceal rather than promote the existence of OA
books. We thus face the paradox that while one of the key motivations
of OA is to promote wider dissemination, usage and impact, current
systems make it harder to achieve those aims for OA books than for
many conventional publications”
Michael Jubb, Academic Books and their Futures, June 2017. https://academicbookfuture.org/

8. Mapping the
Free Ebook Supply Chain

9. “Mapping the Free Ebook Supply Chain”
• Quantitative and qualitative studies of ca. 120 open access books from University of
Michigan Press and Open Book Publishers
• Supported by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 03/01/16 – 02/28/17
• Study of mainly web log and Google Analytics data by Eric Hellman
• Link to reader survey distributed with OA books (800+ responses)
• Interviews with users and with supply chain partners
• Results at: http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/137638
https://www.publishing.umich.edu/projects/mapping-the-free-ebook/

12. “The Open Access mission is
f***ing awesome. Thank
you for providing this in a
downloadable PDF. You
guys are doing it right
Delighted to have this
resource.”

13. How did you find it? How did you get it?
publisher
52%
unspecified link
or download
17%
library
5%
nonpublisher website
5%
colleague, author,
professor
5%
academia.edu
4%
Google
3%
email or
listserv
2%
not yet
acquired
1%
Twitter
1%
DOAB
1%
Facebook
2%
unglue.it
0%
researchgate
0%
JSTOR
0%
Ama
0%

14. What are you
going to do
with it now?

15. VS.
A Two Tier Discovery System: A Danger?

16. Open Access Books as the
The Canary in the Coal Mine

18. Thank you
Charles Watkinson
watkinc@umich.edu