Pathways and appointment of an Associate Editor

Pathways
There is a Chinese saying, “There are many paths to the top of the mountain, but the view is always the same.” Our view is a library of 1,000 open content, electronic textbooks, and we have identified three paths to this viewing point.

Commissioning books
Based upon our experience with the XML text, we started with the idea of seeking volunteers to write chapters to create a text. We called for volunteers from within the academic community to write chapters for texts titled Information Systems and Business Fundamentals.

Our optimism for this approach has been tempered by reality. While many volunteered to write a chapter and promised to meet the deadlines we set, less than a third delivered their chapter on time, and some have still not delivered. Furthermore, individual authors write individual chapters, and there remains the major task of integrating the material to give the book some coherency.

Acquiring out of print books
We have accepted and sought opportunities to speak about the Global Text Project to academics. As a result, we soon learned that there a considerable number of out of print or unpublished books that authors are willing to publish under a Creative Commons License.

Mergers and acquisitions in the publishing industry have caused a pruning of offerings by publishers. For example, when two publishers, who were each offering two books in Information Systems, amalgamate, the new firm will likely discard two of the Information Systems books so that it continues to offer two books. When a book becomes out of print, most publishing contracts have a clause that enables the author to regain the copyright.

It might well be that the majority of the books we need for the library exist in out of print format, and our task is to find the authors and ask them to let us publish the book under a Creative Commons License. The author will retain the copyright.

Out of print books have a considerable advantage over commissioned books, they are complete and integrated. However, they might be out of date, but we can get students to update tables, figures, and so forth to give the books currency, and in the process students create value for other students.

For example, I recently spoke on a panel at the European Foundation for Management Development conference in Oslo. At the end of the panel, one of the attendees sought me out and offered his two out of print books for inclusion in the Global Text Library. The books are on "China Business: Context and Issues" and "Managerial Economics: The Analysis of Business Issues."

We are now getting out of print books at the rate of one per week, and will soon seek such books more actively.

Buying the copyright
Given sufficient funding, we could simply buy the rights for a currently published book from the publisher and then release it under a Creative Commons License so that it is free forever. This approach would support a more focused approach to creating a library. For example, we have identified a set of 30 books for a core science library, and buying the copyrights for these would be a major step forward in supporting university level education in many developing economies.

Going forward, we will use a blend of three approaches, We plan for the near future, however, to focus on finding out of print books as this an economical and fast way of adding material to the library.

Associate editor appointed
Marisa Drexel recently joined the Global Text Project as its first employee. She is responsible for preparing books for publication and coordinating the volunteers who help with book preparation. I have asked Marisa to write a blog introducing herself and her role in the project.

Rick