Point of View
POINT OF VIEW
Why scholarly books must evolve into context-sensitive content databases
WORDS Dr Niels Peter Thomas
I
AM OFTEN ASKED whether there will be books in the future. Are printed scholarly books doomed to disappear? Will a “disruptor” appear, making books obsolete? Questions like these are very likely to be discussed during the Frankfurt Book Fair as scholars are increasingly questioning the need of scientific communication in book format. The answer to all of these questions is yes and no. Undoubtedly, the essence of the book is changing and will continue to change and if you stick to an old definition of what a “book” is, then books will disap- pear. However, if you define a book more according to its future needs, I think books have a bright future. Therefore, the more appropriate and productive question is: how and why will books change, and how will publishers need to adapt? We already have quite a clear understanding about the future of academic books. Books serve different purposes, and are read for different reasons and in different situations. If you are an undergraduate, a PhD candidate, a young researcher or a professor; if you are reading textbooks, monographs, reference works, or conference proceedings, your require- ments are different and this needs to be reflected in the book’s format and its publisher’s business model. This trend is likely to be accelerated when we see the first machine-generated content modifica- tions, such as automatic translation, auto-generated abstracts, or different context-sensitive adaptations depending on the reader’s language, time and knowl- edge. These technologies already exist, they just need to be applied to academic publishing. We will then see purely machine-generated content, even complete books that do not have an author but an algorithm as their creator. The faster the growth in published content, the more difficult it will become for human researchers to read all that is relevant for their own research, and the more we will need to rely on machines to screen scientific results and summa- rise them.
However, more content in more formats will make it increasingly difficult to find the piece of informa- tion that best matches specific needs. This will have
two further effects. It will make discovery services much more important, and it will increase the trans- formation to Open Access books, since both will help content to be found much easier and more oſten by potential readers. In combination with a continu- ously growing number of business models, “books” will eventually be much more ambiguous than today with a large number of readers not knowing and probably not caring whether the information is from a book or any other form of publication. They will look for an answer to a specific question, and may find it in a journal, in a book, or in a machine-gener- ated or machine-augmented piece of content.
The social reader We do not know when this situation will occur, but we may assume that it will happen in the next five to 15 years. By that time, some will argue books do not exist anymore, seeing them instead as a large content database in a much more diverse form than anything currently available. From the perspective of authors, however, books will still exist and they will be more interactive, adaptive and context-sensitive. Still, publishers will need to show authors why it is
important to stick to the concept of books. One possi- bilit to do so is providing very specific data about the performance of books with regards to readership, citations, social media mentions or any other impact that a book has on societ and science. Adding an additional communication channel within e-books enabling interaction between reader and author, and even between readers—sometimes referred to as “social reading”—also adds to the “integrit” of books, and it is likely to become standard for many book tpes. Adding value and services to books will be important to make authors, as well as readers, aware that downloading pirated book content will eventu- ally lead to a lower level of services and qualit. Finally, the business models of today—like an exchange of a PDF document for money—will not be sustainable business models in the future. Authors will stick with publishers who enrich their books with additional services, who advance discovery, who understand the necessit of machine-readable plat- forms, who embrace Open Access and who will find the business models that will make sure all different requirements for all kinds of readers will be met. ×
Dr Niels Peter Thomas is chief book strategist for Springer Nature
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11th October 2017
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