National Academies Press
Encyclopedia
National Academies Press was created by the United States National Academies
, to publish the reports issued by the National Academy of Sciences
, the National Academy of Engineering
, the Institute of Medicine
, and the National Research Council
. It publishes nearly 200 books a year on a wide range of topics in the sciences. The NAP's stated mission is seemingly self-contradictory: to disseminate as widely as possible the works of the National Academies, and to be financially self-sustaining through sales. This mission has led to great experimentation in openness regarding online publishing.
The National Academy Press (as it was known in 1993) was the first self-sustaining publisher to make its material available on the Web, for free, in an open access model. By 1997, 1000 reports were available as sequential page images (starting with i, then ii, then iii, then iv...), with a minimal navigational envelope. Their experience up to 1998 was already indicating that open access led to increased sales, at least with page images as the final viewable object.
From 1998 on, the NAP developed the "Openbook" online navigational envelope, producing stable page URLs, and enabling chapter-, page-, and in-book search navigation to images of the book pages (which were increasingly replaced by HTML
chunks), to enable the user to browse the book. Notably, this page-by-page navigation was produced long before Amazon
's Look Inside, or Google
's Book Search.
1998 through the present, the NAP gradually evolved the Openbook to first enable better external findability (making the HTML page for the first page image of every chapter include the first 10 and last 10 pages of OCRed ASCII text of the chapter, to produce a robustly indexable first chapter page), as well as exploring the boundaries of knowledge discovery and exploration, implementing "Related Titles" in 2001, the "Find More Like This Chapter" in 2002, "Chapter Skim" in 2003, "Search Builder" and "Reference Finder" in 2004, and "Active Skim" and enhanced "Search Builder" in 2005.
Developed as a Mellon-funded grant, and working with the University of Maryland Business School, the experiment interrupted buyers just before finalizing an online order, with an opportunity to acquire the work in PDF for a randomly-generated discount: 50%, 10%, 100%, 70% off the list price, and if the answer was "no," the NAP would offer one more step off the price....
The conclusion? That 42% of the customers, when interrupted when buying a print book online, would take the free PDF of the book. Meaning that 58% of the potential purchasers were willing to pay to have a printed book. Significant implications to publishing strategies are produced by these numbers, especially in the context of NAP's "long tail" experience when it gave away free access to PDF (about 50% of the list) to low-sales content, which resulted in only 33% loss of sales, over 18 months (while enabling 100 times the dissemination).
Interestingly, through mid-2006, as reported at the AAUP
annual meeting, as a publisher the NAP remained financially self-sustaining -- even while progressively expanding the utility of the online experience, and increasing its online traffic and dissemination. By mid-2009, the NAP's site was still receiving 1.5 million unique visitors per month, while generating 35% of the NAP's overall sales.
Multiple articles and presentations by Barbara Kline Pope, Executive Director of the NAP, and by Michael Jon Jensen, Director of Publishing Technologies for the NAP from 1998 through 2008, provide background on the evolving business strategies for "free in an environment of content abundance" that the National Academies Press continues to pursue.
United States National Academies
The United States National Academies comprises four organizations:* National Academy of Sciences * National Academy of Engineering * Institute of Medicine * National Research Council...
, to publish the reports issued by the National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
, the National Academy of Engineering
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...
, the Institute of Medicine
Institute of Medicine
The Institute of Medicine is a not-for-profit, non-governmental American organization founded in 1970, under the congressional charter of the National Academy of Sciences...
, and the National Research Council
United States National Research Council
The National Research Council of the USA is the working arm of the United States National Academies, carrying out most of the studies done in their names.The National Academies include:* National Academy of Sciences...
. It publishes nearly 200 books a year on a wide range of topics in the sciences. The NAP's stated mission is seemingly self-contradictory: to disseminate as widely as possible the works of the National Academies, and to be financially self-sustaining through sales. This mission has led to great experimentation in openness regarding online publishing.
The National Academy Press (as it was known in 1993) was the first self-sustaining publisher to make its material available on the Web, for free, in an open access model. By 1997, 1000 reports were available as sequential page images (starting with i, then ii, then iii, then iv...), with a minimal navigational envelope. Their experience up to 1998 was already indicating that open access led to increased sales, at least with page images as the final viewable object.
From 1998 on, the NAP developed the "Openbook" online navigational envelope, producing stable page URLs, and enabling chapter-, page-, and in-book search navigation to images of the book pages (which were increasingly replaced by HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
chunks), to enable the user to browse the book. Notably, this page-by-page navigation was produced long before Amazon
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
's Look Inside, or Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
's Book Search.
1998 through the present, the NAP gradually evolved the Openbook to first enable better external findability (making the HTML page for the first page image of every chapter include the first 10 and last 10 pages of OCRed ASCII text of the chapter, to produce a robustly indexable first chapter page), as well as exploring the boundaries of knowledge discovery and exploration, implementing "Related Titles" in 2001, the "Find More Like This Chapter" in 2002, "Chapter Skim" in 2003, "Search Builder" and "Reference Finder" in 2004, and "Active Skim" and enhanced "Search Builder" in 2005.
Online pricing experiment
In 2003, the NAP published the results of an innovative online experiment to determine the "cannibalization effect" that might obtain, if the NAP gave all reports away online, in PDF format.Developed as a Mellon-funded grant, and working with the University of Maryland Business School, the experiment interrupted buyers just before finalizing an online order, with an opportunity to acquire the work in PDF for a randomly-generated discount: 50%, 10%, 100%, 70% off the list price, and if the answer was "no," the NAP would offer one more step off the price....
The conclusion? That 42% of the customers, when interrupted when buying a print book online, would take the free PDF of the book. Meaning that 58% of the potential purchasers were willing to pay to have a printed book. Significant implications to publishing strategies are produced by these numbers, especially in the context of NAP's "long tail" experience when it gave away free access to PDF (about 50% of the list) to low-sales content, which resulted in only 33% loss of sales, over 18 months (while enabling 100 times the dissemination).
Interestingly, through mid-2006, as reported at the AAUP
Association of American University Presses
The Association of American University Presses is an association of mostly, but not exclusively, North American university presses...
annual meeting, as a publisher the NAP remained financially self-sustaining -- even while progressively expanding the utility of the online experience, and increasing its online traffic and dissemination. By mid-2009, the NAP's site was still receiving 1.5 million unique visitors per month, while generating 35% of the NAP's overall sales.
Multiple articles and presentations by Barbara Kline Pope, Executive Director of the NAP, and by Michael Jon Jensen, Director of Publishing Technologies for the NAP from 1998 through 2008, provide background on the evolving business strategies for "free in an environment of content abundance" that the National Academies Press continues to pursue.
External links
- National Academies Press (official website)
- National Academies (parent institution)
- Barbara Kline Pope (executive director)
- Michael Jon Jensen (technology director)