1. www.epsltd.com Global Information: Digital threats and opportunities Dan Penny Analyst dan@epsltd.com October 2006

2. www.epsltd.com ICOLC October 2006 2/18 Agenda Working with China Information flow and developing countries Tools for managing global digital content

3. www.epsltd.com ICOLC October 2006 3/18 Western publishers seeking a foothold in China Opportunities Western content considered an essential tool for world-class scientific research China has committed to increasing its spending on R&D to 2.5% of GDP by 2010 GAPP has suggested that foreign companies involved in S&T publishing may be allowed wider latitude than other content types Market gap: many of China’s 4,500 scientific journals are low quality, take a long time to publish articles, and are not financially self- supporting Challenges Chinese libraries face intense budget pressures; publisher pricing increases faster than library budgets Chinese market for e-journals levelling out (and prices low; rigid consortia pricing) Restrictions on foreign participation; regulator GAPP has moved in the last year to further tighten these restrictions Broad-reaching system of internet filtering Difficult to reach second tier of customers Sales must be through official import/export agency Need to work with partners

4. www.epsltd.com ICOLC October 2006 4/18 Publisher influence on information flow There is a greater amount of information coming out of China which publishers seek to manage. Will an influx of Chinese scholars swell the amount of quality scholarly literature? The effect may not be large - the 25,000 journals studied in the RIN report carried out by EPS already carry a lot of Chinese research of high quality – although there are bibliographical issues.

5. www.epsltd.com ICOLC October 2006 5/18 Publisher influence on information flow How much Chinese content is translated is a matter for peer review and may be down to how the industry self-adjusts – it may not be something that publishers can influence. But publishers may be able to influence the fact that lower level research is not well represented away from the publishing institution.

6. www.epsltd.com ICOLC October 2006 6/18 Publisher strategies Elsevier Has partnered with several leading domestic publishers Has hired a well-connected Chairman (Shan Mei) for Reed Elsevier China operations to help raise profile and enhance connections amongst policy makers Blackwell and Thomson are taking a more traditional sales approach – partnering on the ground, institution by institution Two tier problem: The top 35 universities and research institutions in China can afford content from Western publishers. But the 2 nd tier do not have budget reasons and publishers are working on building packages targeted at this group. Other than CALIS and the Chinese Academy of Sciences there are perceived to be only a few small consortia in the market.

7. www.epsltd.com ICOLC October 2006 7/18 Information flow and developing countries Cost of reaching developing countries prohibitive for many European and US publishers Negative effect on local publishers Pressure on publishers to make content available through Creative Commons Developing Countries licenses

8. www.epsltd.com ICOLC October 2006 8/18 Information flow and developing countries Lingua franca becoming English? German used to be the international language of Chemistry, but now chemistry articles generally need to be published in English. Multiple language content will continue for a long time to come. There is therefore great pressure on abstraction and indexing systems – which need to get better.

9. www.epsltd.com ICOLC October 2006 9/18 Challenges for information professionals in developing countries Pressure of local influence – the object of publishing internationally may be to give a local institution a greater standing Keeping track of what has been published in multiple languages Exchange publishing – informal, dual culture exists

10. www.epsltd.com ICOLC October 2006 10/18 Beneath the radar Journals Books News Press releases Audio content Blogs Exchange journals Grey data There is still plenty of content that is outside ‘traditional publishing channels’ and therefore may be beneath the radar

11. www.epsltd.com ICOLC October 2006 11/18 Technology: China Again, two tier : China’s technology infrastructure for the top layers of its universities and institutes is world-class - faster than in the US. But internet speed of access is still very slow in many parts of China. The number of broadband subscribers in China is growing at 79% annually, and will reach 79 million in 2007 10m active blogs expected by end of 2006

12. www.epsltd.com ICOLC October 2006 12/18 Mobile platforms Source: Research and Markets, Outsell, EPS

13. www.epsltd.com ICOLC October 2006 13/18 Access to scholarly communications in China National Library of China digital portal (opened Sept 2005) 37 Chinese-language data banks 77 foreign language data banks 16,000+ periodicals in both Chinese and foreign languages Special resources including local records, Dunhuang documents, periodicals of the Republic of China (1912-1949) and doctoral dissertation and master's thesis, all purchased or established by the national library

14. www.epsltd.com ICOLC October 2006 14/18 Technology: India Indian Book publishing industry reported to be growing rapidly Estimated to be around 1m blogs – but 23 mainstream languages! Technical innovation enabling user- collaboration: eg www.zoho.com

15. www.epsltd.com ICOLC October 2006 15/18 Library tools

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18. www.epsltd.com ICOLC October 2006 18/18 Thank you for listening Questions? Thoughts? Comments? dan@epsltd.com