Giving away free e-books in return for a prospective review has
exactly the same effect as giving away p-books: same transaction.
Given a choice, more reviewers still prefer print, but when real
e-books become available, I suspect uptake will be even stronger.
("Real": good solutions to the challenges of notes, maps, images,
navigation, etc. What we have now is essentially a papyrus scroll
model. The "Landmark" series tried one e-book, of Thucydides, and
hated the way it destroyed so many of the useful features of the
print; they've not allowed any of the other volumes to be Kindled vel
sim.) I'd love to see examples of post-publication reviewing of open
access scholarly publication in the humanities that's actually been
done and to learn the tricks of getting it done.
jo'd
On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 9:03 AM, Gabriel Bodard <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Interesting point. By the same token, I have for a while done some work with
> a review publication (outside the classics) and at first I expected to see
> exactly the pattern Jim describes below, vis à vis print books vs
> Kindle/Epub or PDF e-books, but in the last couple of years the difference
> in uptake between books available on paper and (otherwise traditionally
> formatted) books available only in e-formats is pretty close to zero.
>
> Obviously an e-book isn't necessarily an open access publication, so some of
> the social transaction that Jim notes is still present in this anecdotal
> example. But I wonder if the difference noted below is rather, or at least
> in part, that people are uncomfortable with how to go about writing a review
> of a sophisticated web resource? Do they feel they would need to be an
> expert in digital publishing, and comment on issues like software, APIs,
> accessibility and so forth, as well as only the ancient history content? If
> academics were (and I suspect they increasingly, if slowly, are becoming) in
> the habit of reading scholarly works on a Kindle or iPad, would the uptake
> of print vs e-book titles at BMCR be as radically different as we're seeing
> now?
>
> Best,
>
> Gabby
>
>
>
> On 2015-08-05 16:11, Jim O'Donnell wrote:
>>
>> All of us.
>>
>> By this I mean a distinct thing: the economics of pre-OA publishing
>> make books $$-valuable. So if the publisher generously spreads a few
>> free copies around to journals and we in turn offer them to reviewers,
>> reviewers are glad to get the books and happy to write the review in
>> return. We get the review quid for the publisher's quo. That's an
>> economic transaction deeply embedded in the "commercial" model of
>> things. We *all* benefit from that because we all get to read the
>> book reviews, and a certain number of us get nice free books.
>>
>> At BMCR, we have repeatedly experimented with getting reviews for
>> "non-commercial" resources, chiefly sophisticated web resources
>> available for free on the open net. The take-up by would-be reviewers
>> is statistically indistinguishable from zero. So nobody gets a "free
>> book" and nobody at all gets to read a review of that resource.
>>
>> My point is only that the social embeddedness of the current system is
>> intricate and has many benefits as well as many costs.
>>
>> jo'd
>>
>
> --
> Dr Gabriel BODARD
> Researcher in Digital Epigraphy
>
> Digital Humanities
> King's College London
> Boris Karloff Building
> 26-29 Drury Lane
> London WC2B 5RL
>
> T: +44 (0)20 7848 1388
> E: [log in to unmask]
>
> http://www.digitalclassicist.org/
> http://www.currentepigraphy.org/
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