Digitizing Emerald’s Backlist

Anna Torrance(Backfiles Project

Manager)

“The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see”

Winston Churchill

Overview

About Emerald & the Backfiles

Rationale

Project processes and set-up

Salient points from last year’s session(Workshop with Rebecca Goldthwaite & David Durand)

Big Questions

Lessons learned

About Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Academic Journal publisher, established in 1967

200 employees

Largest collection of management and LIS journals available today 185+ business & library and information science

Recently acquired almost 2,000 Series, Serials and Books

Global business with customers in over 80 countries

Work with over 90% of the top business schools

“Research you can use”

Online Usage and Dissemination

20 million downloads in

2006

1.5 million articles

downloaded each month on average

61,000 articles online

over 13 years of content

200,000 online abstracts

What is Emerald Backfiles?

•Digital archive back to Volume 1 Issue 1 with some articles dating back as far as 1899

•Over 120 journal titles providing over 60,000 articles on key management disciplines

•Each backfile transformed into a fully searchable PDF

•Contains early articles from seminal publications (British Food Journal, European

Journal of Marketing, Journal of Documentation)

What is Emerald Backfiles?

Backfiles CoverageEmerald Management Xtra

1899 1904 1909 1914 1919 1924 1929 1934 1939 1944 1949 1954 1959 1964 1969 1974 1979 1984 1989 1994 1999 2004

Accounting

Education & Healthcare

HRM

Innovation & Intl Bus iness

Info and KM

Library Managem ent

Mngm ent & Econom ics

Marketing

Quality & Operations

Strategy & General Mngm ent

Engineering

Subj

ect

Year

The Decision to Digitize

Users increasingly searching & accessing content online – Emerald received its 50 millionth article download in 2007

Over 12% of cited Emerald articles were not available online prior to the launch of Emerald Backfiles

Four of the five most cited papers in Emerald journals were published before 1994 (when we first started to capture content electronically)

Digitizing the archive will bring this knowledge to new readers and re-open historical scholarship

Contributing to preservation of content

Pre-project preparation

Research – is this what our customers want?

Content analysis – commissioned initial inventory from British Library. Confirmation that 97.5% of content could be sourced.

Extended negotiations - by 2-3 months to ensure obligations spelled out for both parties & that journal list was accurate.

Project Timeline

2007 - Apr project received board approval

May BL commissioned to carry out inventory analysis

Jun attended ToC workshop

Jul analysis complete & contract negotiations started

Aug sales teams training

Sept contract signed & work started

Oct announcements made to contributor community and wider press

2008 - Jan official launch

1st quarter delivery date (anticipated in March)

Benefits of Partnering with the British Library

Experts in their field – a trusted partner

Extensive networks from which to

source content that they did not hold

Digitisation on site meant no

unnecessary damage to the collection or

transportation costs

BL’s relationship with Innodata Isogen ensured a total

service solution – critical due to

Emerald’s tight delivery deadline

BL holds both common and hard to find content – 98% of Emerald

articles were provided by the

BL

How was this project different from other British Library initiatives?

Co-ordination of the elements of the production team outputs

Emphasis on establishing content standards that could apply over the life of journals that in some cases have more than 100 years of production

DigitizationProcess

•Graphic creation as per specifications

•Graphic QC

•Renaming of graphics as per specifications

•Upload the package

•Make Corrections

•Receipt of PDF / TIFF

•Double Key•For 99.95% accuracy

•Compare

•SGML Tagging

•Visual QC

•SGML Validation

•Quality Checks

•Yes

•No

•Final Inspection

•Errors reported

•Rename the file as per the naming convention. Package SGML &

Graphics.

•Quality Audit

BL sources content

Content scanned &

TIFF file sent to

Innodata

Pass to BL for final QA check

Package sent from BL to Emerald

Project Process

Journal Control List

CHECK

CHECK

Hard copy journal

Scanning

Publishing/QA

Digitization

Content load onto website

Web pagesWebsite

CHECKCHECK

Project Team

Initial pre-project workshop included members from all departments to discover interdependencies – issues identified but not all resolved

Emerald Project Board – cross-functional

British Library Project team

Maintained 3 way communication throughout the project (Emerald, BL and Innodata). Regular face-to-face meetings of great benefit when discussing content selection. BL also held weekly tele-conferences with Innodata production team

2 project managers –technical and non-technical

Project Manager x2 – abalancing act

• Coordination• Balancing tensions between business requirements and IT milestones• 2 parallel workstreams

• Shared ownership (possible confusion)

Lessons Learned from last year’s TOC presentation

Involved contributor community from the outset Regular communication Editorial network helped to source rare journal copies Continuing involvement of editorial teams by linking

Backfiles to other initiatives (leading journal campaigns)

“Editorial is key – these are the people with detailed content

knowledge”

Lessons Learned from last year’s TOC presentation

Article auditsTime taken to ensure journal control list

was accurateBUTCould have taken a much bigger cross-

section of content going further back

“Even if you are only digitizing PDFs, think of them as XML just so that you

have an in-depth knowledge of the content”

Lessons Learned from last year’s TOC presentation

Every SGML file checked Spot checking by all 30+ members of the editorial

department in addition to regular QA processes

Regular meetings Time commitment emphasised from the outset Training to engage sales teams who were tasked with

selling a product they could not demonstrate

“Don’t short change QA”

“Engage team members and make clear time commitment up

front”

Lessons Learned from last year’s TOC presentation

Not every article from every issue will be present at go-live

Some articles may never be sourcedBUT Fully searchable PDFs essential SGML files must be accurate

“Ask yourself; what is the minimum required to declare

victory?”

Big Questions

What is an article? Older journals more like magazines. Problems differentiating article and non article

content (NAC).

At first, all pages scanned (adverts, NAC) Product process stopped for 2-3 weeks to reassess

content standards which were largely based on the formats of current publications. 

Regular meetings with BL Decided to scan whole issue of earlier journals

British Food Journal – 1899 Back

Big Questions

What are the copyright implications?

Emerald retains copyright of the Backfiles product but not every article within the Backfiles

Network of almost 50,000 authors notified Notice put on each article with option to contact Emerald

if authors feel copyright breached Policy established to remove any articles at author’s

request

To date, no removal requests received

Big Questions

What should we do with articles without abstracts? Where no abstract provided, first paragraph of the

article used

How should we apply DOIs? Could not apply in usual manner (including journal ISSN) Decision made to apply sequentially without ISSNs

How should acquisitions be handled going forwards? Cut-off point in July 2007 New acquisitions will not be included in the Backfiles

product until a new version is released

Big Questions

How should we sell the Backfiles? By journal? By subject? As a single collection?

Regional pricing – consistency with Emerald’s core product

Regional launches

When should we sell the Backfiles? Danger of missing 2008 cycle

Managing Expectations - externally

Clear web branding strategy: Icons to identify content as Backfiles (different to

archive content) PDF-only stated on every abstract page

Inform the author community early on

Clear communication to customers about launch date and

availability

Managing Expectations – internally

Address tensions between IT/Production and Sales & Marketing

Sales – want to provide customers with a delivery date ASAP

Production – want as much time as possible to source all articles and ensure quality

IT – do not want to commit to a date too early due to number of unresolved requirements

Marketing – want product features and specification early in order to create material

New Business Model

Providing flexible purchasing options for librarians who prefer to purchase access in perpetuity

1899-1993Backfiles(access in

perpetuity)

1994-2001(content rented – access as long as

institution is a subscriber)

2002-present(access in

perpetuity)

2002-Emerald sub starts

Offer librarians option to

purchase access in perpetuity to

this content

Lessons Learned

Choice of partner plays an important role –British Library made the whole process simple, efficient and cost-effective

Every journal is different – an in-depth knowledge of ALL content is essential

Obtain the widest/earliest possible cross-section of content

Don’t underestimate the importance of the content control list!

Lessons Learned

Spend time identifying all issues up front but do not try to answer them all at once

File naming conventions need to take into account all eventualities over the full content range – it’s difficult to change conventions mid project

If outsourcing digitization, take as much time as you need to get the first batch perfect

Be aware of tensions between project delivery date and business requirements – managing expectations is key

Conclusion

Official launch at American Library Association at end of January 2008 and product on schedule for delivery in 1st Quarter of 2008 as planned.

Pre-launch order list healthy – exceeded expectations.

New acquisitions in Series, Serials & Books could mean another Backfiles project in the not too distant future!

Thank You

Questions?