I've had a busy week so I thought I would combine everything into one lovely post.
To start with there was day 4 at Jisc Collections. This week I was looking in detail at the results of some workshops Jisc did with publishers and authors. They asked groups of each to identify what parts of the publishing process they were involved with and how long it took them. This was really interesting as it gave me a chance to see all the hidden things that publishers do behind the scenes. When you say publishing most people just think editorial, you know
To start with there was day 4 at Jisc Collections. This week I was looking in detail at the results of some workshops Jisc did with publishers and authors. They asked groups of each to identify what parts of the publishing process they were involved with and how long it took them. This was really interesting as it gave me a chance to see all the hidden things that publishers do behind the scenes. When you say publishing most people just think editorial, you know
proof reading, copy editing etc... But there is so much more to it than that. There's marketing and distribution obviously but then there is also asset management. Publishers have to register journals and books for ISSN/ISBNs and then get DOIs for articles online. Then all these digital objects have to be included in various databases, content management systems and digital asset management systems. All a bit dry but very important if you want your work to be preserved and found by all your lovely readers. So it was very illuminating to see all these extra behind the scenes jobs I hadn't thought of before. And as technology progresses there are more and more responsibilities falling on publishers to make sure that work can be found, read and kept.
So that was my morning. In the afternoon I moved onto textbooks and particularly students' purchasing habits. While take up of e-textbooks has been slower than projected, people are becoming more receptive but print textbooks still dominate. It was my job to get online and do some research in preparation for a survey. I then had a go at drafting some of the questions to be posed to students. Very much what kind of books do you buy, where, when and who pays which should help Jisc in finding out what students want. Again interesting to see the extreme ends of the scale with some people refusing to touch an e-reader while others think print is dead. Hopefully the survey will give a good idea of the state of things.
So another good day at Jisc, made better by the arrival of my first expense check yesterday.
At uni we had a guest speaker in my journals class. Liz Ferguson from Wiley-Blackwell came and talked to us about the journals market, the advances being made in services and open access schemes and the effect all this was having on her job. It was really good to hear all this from someone actually working in the industry rather than through books and articles. Again she stressed how much work publishers do that goes unnoticed and the problems in trying to make people understand the value publishers add without just sounding arrogant or contrary in a growingly anti-publisher environment (something I intend to explore in my dissertation, the proposal for which I am trying to write this week).
So overall a good week where I learnt lots from lots of different people. I look forward to next week for more work experience and guest speakers, but not so much for the two deadlines I have.
So that was my morning. In the afternoon I moved onto textbooks and particularly students' purchasing habits. While take up of e-textbooks has been slower than projected, people are becoming more receptive but print textbooks still dominate. It was my job to get online and do some research in preparation for a survey. I then had a go at drafting some of the questions to be posed to students. Very much what kind of books do you buy, where, when and who pays which should help Jisc in finding out what students want. Again interesting to see the extreme ends of the scale with some people refusing to touch an e-reader while others think print is dead. Hopefully the survey will give a good idea of the state of things.
So another good day at Jisc, made better by the arrival of my first expense check yesterday.
At uni we had a guest speaker in my journals class. Liz Ferguson from Wiley-Blackwell came and talked to us about the journals market, the advances being made in services and open access schemes and the effect all this was having on her job. It was really good to hear all this from someone actually working in the industry rather than through books and articles. Again she stressed how much work publishers do that goes unnoticed and the problems in trying to make people understand the value publishers add without just sounding arrogant or contrary in a growingly anti-publisher environment (something I intend to explore in my dissertation, the proposal for which I am trying to write this week).
So overall a good week where I learnt lots from lots of different people. I look forward to next week for more work experience and guest speakers, but not so much for the two deadlines I have.
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