A talk by Simon Inger at the STM Digital Publishing Seminar, London, 6th December 2016. This talk looks at the state of discovery of journals and books online through a range of discovery options, some issues facing hybrid open access publishing, and why complex and incomplete discovery and authentication is driving readers to simpler, pirate sites, such as SciHub.

1. Simon Inger Consulting
Why Discovery is a Mess
STM Digital Publishing

2. Me:

3. www.simoningerconsulting.com
1996
 Springer had RedSage
 Elsevier had completed TULiP program
 CatchWord had its launch clients
 HighWire had its launch clients
 Wiley contracted with a division of
Mitsubishi to build its first platform
 Bill Gates said “Content is King”
– Which got a lot of publishers excited

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Content is King vs Context is King
Content
Every publisher
Both
EBSCO, ProQuest,
Elsevier (Scopus), ACS (CAS),
NIH (PMC/PubMed)
Context
Google / Scholar
PubMed
Libraries

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Multiple incarnations
Then
 Primary incarnation on
publisher platform
 Maybe secondary
incarnation (embargoed)
in aggregator database
Now
 Primary incarnation on
publisher platform
 Aggregator
 Institutional repository
 Subject repository
 ResearchGate
 SciHub

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Incarnations Downloaded
7

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Over half of downloads are free!

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With some variation by country

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The Rise of Library Technology
 Libraries want to be the starting point
– fear of deskilling and disintermediation
– perhaps best qualified on content selection
 If not the starting point, then link server
technology guides along the way
– manages multiple incarnations

10. Discovery and Delivery
Library Web
Pages
RDS, A&I
Link
Server/Resolver
Target
Google
ToC
Social Media

11. Articles: discovery options
Delivery
Discovery
Durham
Research
Online

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Discovery Survey

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Librarians are different

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The Game so far (level 1)
 End users don’t have the same discovery
tool preferences as librarians
– But librarians control much of the navigation
and buy the target resources
 It’s often harder to find Gold OA than
Green OA articles if you are operating
within a library environment
– Making something free on a publisher site
often means it becomes no more discoverable
by the majority of readers

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What about books?
Delivery
Discovery
Durham
Research
Online

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Major Players in Discovery
 Library Technology
– Resource Discovery Services
 Google Scholar / Google
 A&Is
– Clarivate Analytics
– Elsevier
– EBSCO
– ProQuest

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Discovery Options
 Comprehensive but complicated
 Fast, simple, free, but not guaranteed
 Library-focussed but less comprehensive

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Sci-Hub
 High % of current articles now in Sci-Hub
– > 58,000,000
 Simple interface, no log-in barrier means it
is used by individuals even within
subscribing institutions
 Are big aggregations the answer?

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What to do (the easier stuff)
 Keep up good relations with major
discovery organisations (A&I, Google
Scholar, Library RDS vendors)
 Act on poor download statistics!
 Work with library technology companies
(especially ProQuest and EBSCO) to
make sure libraries know how to include
OA journals in their indexes
– Tell libraries that these journals exist!

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What to do (the bigger stuff)
 Library tech companies need to cooperate
more
 Need solution to hybrid OA problem
 Need to improve selection and marketing
of OA journals
 Benefit from more standardised access
control
 Remove barriers not add to them!

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The Problem is Evolving
Faster than the Solution