PANEL ON GLOBAL LIBRARY, CULTURAL AND HERITAGE INFORMATION NETWORK, AND ELECTRONIC INFORMATION SHARING

ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING

Kari Marklund

Rector, Mid-Sweden University
58170 Sundsvale, Sweden

Good morning everybody, and thank you, Ching-chih, for inviting me to spend a couple of days in Alexandria with all these people. I am a slow adapter, and it was not until yesterday that I realized that I was the only person from the European Community here. Although Sweden is the latest member of the Com-munity, through our arrangements, we have been involved with several common Community developments. I have changed my paper to be more a European paper than a paper on education and training. My focus on electronic publishing is not altered by this change.

I am a slow adapter. It was not until yesterday that I realized I was the only person from a European Community (EC) member country. Although Sweden is the latest member of the community, we have already, through other arrange-ments, been involved in programs on education and research. I have therefore changed my focus here slightly to make it more of a European one. My focus on electronic publishing (EP) has not been altered by this change.

We in Sweden have known for a long time that only 1% of the development of the world is made in our country. There are three exceptions, pulp and paper, pharmacy, and telecommunication, in which Sweden has a larger share of the total international development. Access is one of the key words in Sweden. I was pleased to see that Scandinavia has been mentioned when discussing early networks and development. Swedes have always been technology oriented. Some years ago I saw a report that had Sweden on top of the list of industrial robots per capita.

Education and training is an important socioeconomic factor in all countries of Europe. In Sweden, young people are taught what responsibilities they have in a global society with their Europe's cultural heritage. Training and retraining is also an important factor of industrial and economic development. Everybody receives an education or some form of training for which materials are produced.

On the European scene, many publishers in the educational sector have not felt an urgent need to get involved in new media products. Profit margins for traditional books are still high enough. Another factor that makes publishers hesitate to use new products is that new media technologies continue to evolve and change. It is therefore hard to justify investing when there are such low print runs. At the same time, however, educational publishers in the United States and Japan are already engaged in an expanding new market. A market demand is a new experience for many European publishers.

The EC-funded 1992 study, "Strategic Study on New Opportunities for Pu-blishing in the Information Service Market," and its follow-up actions coincided with the White Paper "Growth Competitiveness and Employment." One of the chapters of the document entitled "Information Society" deals with the dissemi-nation of information, trans European basic information services, and new appli-cations of EP. The results of these documents have been the positive stimulation of EP. The EC sponsored new media exhibitions and seminars at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1993 and 1994.

The EC seeks ways to support a global information infrastructure (GII), although it has not used the concept GII yet and sees publishing as an important part of that infrastructure. The concern within the EC is to stay united without loosing the identity of the different countries. The languages of different coun-tries is a major concern. All documents produced within the EC framework are translated to all the different languages of the member states. Automatic and intelligent translation is a major concern within the European information infrastructure. The translation problem is an important issue for a true global information infrastructure as the problem is incorporating linguists and others from all countries into a joint project. Within the infrastructure, educational material in one's own language is of special concern.

Because publishing markets are based on languages, electronic publishers of the English language find larger markets and give a quicker return on invest-ments. This gives an advantage to publishers based in the United States and England and makes the learning phase longer and riskier for publishers in other countries. There is a need for multinational collaboration. EC programs encourage educators and publishers from different countries to do prototyping together. Grants are given only if the application is a joint venture between different language areas. Within the Brussels circle there is no ignorance of different cultural and social norms. The design and management of multicountry projects are important when projects are selected. Within the next few years, a lot can be learned about global information exchange from European experiences in EP and "language conversion."

In order to fulfill ambitions and national goals, we need new educational software. In the past we have had bad experiences in this area. It has been a commercial wasteland for publishers, and yet the initial picture was bright in most European countries. The home computer market was booming. There was only one drawback; children using home computers in the 1980s were not interested in improving their minds. The machine at home was used exclusively for one thing—playing games.

Ten years later, leading publishers are again, with some push from the EC, looking with interest at educational software and beginning to make serious investments. Triggering this is a new message from the U.S. consumer CD-ROM market, which raced from a few million to $200 million a year. More than 70% of the revenue was generated by sales of information and educational titles. What is happening in America will soon happen in Europe.

There is technology available that can deliver richly featured multimedia cheaply. There is an institutional market that needs information-based software at the same time as a home market for some kind of material is developing. Add these factors together and you will understand the new interests of educational publishers.

The strength of human beings is the ability to grow and develop. Information technology gives wings to this ability. It is wings that overcome time and dis-tance and give us the possibility to enrich our lives at home, in school, and at work places. Distances shrink; cooperation will have new tools. Borders between countries will disappear as a free flow of knowledge flourishes. The globalization of economy will be enhanced.

Information technology creates new possibilities for communication and cooperation as well as new possibilities to use information and knowledge to solve problems and develop new ideas. It opens new ways of being, working, meeting, and relating. The possibilities touch every society and every human being. The Swedish government has set up a few goals for the development of the country; several other European countries with the EC have done the same thing.

One important area is education. At school the young people develop habits and certain behavior. School support of information technology in the schools is a major issue in the 1990s. In 1995, the Swedish government has set up a trust fund with $125 million for schools. The money will be given to schools if the local government matches the funding.

At the present time, offline more than online publishing in EP is more attrac-tive to traditional publishers; however, the development in network infrastructure may come faster than anticipated. This suggests a strong case for publishers and content owners to enter the learning curve in order to take advantage of the added benefits of competitive, easy-to-use network facilities when it becomes available by the late 1990s. Looked strategically this is not a long time for a publisher to develop business.

The rapid growth of electronic highways in most western countries is going to be a significant delivery mechanism for educational material. It is worth empha-sizing that EP products demand new talents not normally available in a publish-ing house. The lack of personnel skilled in developing, designing, and manufac-turing unique EP multimedia products is one of the greatest barriers to successful new media publishing.

An electronic design report (January 1994), "The New Media Learning Material Business; Entry Strategy Options for Educational and Training Publi-shers," shows that new requirements for learning material are emerging from social, economic, and other developments. The report also shows that modern technology, originating from both professional and entertainment industries, offers new ways of producing and using learning material.

The report analyzes the possible market education and training in light of the rapid growth of other multimedia markets. There is new technology available that can deliver richly featured multimedia cheaply.

Publishing is the collection, collation, and distribution of information. The ultimate goal is to reach the user in the most efficient form for his or her purpose. For example, in a training environment the most efficient way is to embed the rules of the trade into the tool itself so that the look-up of information becomes automatic. This is a step forward in educational publishing. The publisher embeds not only reference material but real knowledge. The publisher produces a framework of understanding into which the user pours his or her content.

Several industry leaders believe multimedia must find a major application before its sales will expand. Industrial training may be that application. The forces for increased productivity in business are important for development.

The corporate training market today exists in various forms that demand increasing technical complexity as it moves from electronic printing and distri-bution of paper-based information on electronic platforms, through electronic manuals and outline systems, on to interactive technical manuals, eventually finishing those applications using virtual reality interfaces.

The message is that for whatever media, content is the most important part. Educational publishers, as well as newspaper publishers, have a strong position in the information market. Hundreds of years of service to the public and to the schools are not easily bypassed. The same thing applies to libraries. Hundreds of years of service to science, always adapting new technology and working with new concepts like GII, is not easily bypassed.

The need for a European vision has never been greater in relation to a com-mon industrial and economic information influence.

In July 1994, the EC approved an action plan: "Europe's way to the informa-tion society." The plan constitutes a framework for action.

According to the EC, a globally coherent and balanced approach of mutually supportive measures is called for. The EC will assume its responsibility for set-ting up the appropriate regulatory environment. At the same time, the private sector is invited to play an entrepreneurial role. A number of proposals are alrea-dy under consideration, but this is not enough. There is a need for new projects in several areas, four of them being identified as being of great interest:

Q & A_________________

DISCUSSIONS
 
 

[Neal Kaske]

Can you expand a bit more on the telecommunications system being established for the Swedish schools? How is this being done?

[Kari Marklund]

It has just started. It has selected 10 schools all over Sweden, with 1 in my city. The problem is not so much hardware -- the school has to find support for the hardware -- it is the content. There are several projects going on. One is like the big project BBC has done -- the Doomsday project -- for communities of Swe-den. This means that the students go out and produce their own learning materials from that community. The students creating their own materials is the key. There is more money to be given out to schools in the next two years ($150 million), and it must be matched by local money -- dollar for dollar.

[Ching-chih Chen]

Kari, you and I have shared some of the discussions on the Swedish government's investment for schools. I am personally rather envious and hope that we have similar kind of support in the US. Can you comment a bit more on this situation particularly in light of the results of your relatively new election.

[Kari Marklund]

We had a new government elected -- the Social Democratic Party -- about four weeks ago. The conservative government was before that. But there is no difference of opinion on this issue for both governments. The Social Democratic Party has always been very eager on issues of equality. I think that schools in remote and isolated areas are going to benefit most with these new technologies as well as the school networks. But, there is no difference in opinion.

[Ching-chih Chen]

The Swedish government has a tremendous commitment to the education of children.

[Kari Marklund]

Yes, but what is bothering me is that they have not placed enough emphasis on the teachers, because we have a lot of teachers who are not aware or afraid of the new development. In my community, one school has been set up in which one day a week the students teach the teachers. That is an interesting concept. It gives the teachers something to think about, realizing that teaching is really the dialogue.

[Ching-chih Chen]

Although I don't want to monopolize the dialogue, but since there is no other question, I suppose that I can make another comment. Kari, when you mentioned that you are the only one from the European Community, it is not that I did not invite others, but simply some others were unable to make it. But you were specifically invited because of the tremendous amount of cooperative activities which Sweden has had with some of the Baltic countries. In fact, I believe that the University of Tartu is one of the oldest Swedish universities. So, with that, can you comment on Swedish government international activities?

[Kari Marklund]

There are so many that I can select only a couple of them. One is called the Baltic University. It is a video-conferencing university, which connects several countries around the Baltic Sea to the same classroom. And actually I am not too sure about what they teach except I know geography is one of the subjects. Then, the Swedish government also invests a lot of money to start a school in econo-mics in Riga. The Swedish School of Economics is in charge of the program. A place north of Sweden, in Estonia, there is a program in the secondary level. We mainly concentrate on Estonia and Latvia. When Ching-chih was in Sweden not long ago, we talked about having the next NIT conference in one of the Baltic countries, and I promised to help out.

[Robert Hayes]

I think that we have reached the end of this session. Are there any other com-ments?

[Richard Hsieh]

I don't know whether this was before or after IBM stock was $130, but I think that the National Library of Medicine has one of the most valuable collections. A project was actually working with IBM hoping that the contents could be accessi-ble to scholars or those who need them. I don't want to start any of this, but I simply want to ask whether you know of the status of that? Secondly, I want to make a comment on the WWW. The NLM has put up 60,000 pictures of the worldwide important medical pictures on the Net via Mosaic.

[Marjorie Hlava]

I want to raise an issue that Ching-chih Chen raised earlier about information content and culture, but sort of with a different view. There are at least two things that formulate our culture-content information, at least in the written form. One is the culture of the marketplace. Bestsellers are usually hot-dollar subjects. One may want to debate that. The second one is culture and peer review. Science magazine, for example, has a very good reputation because it has a very good peer review process. So, there are two cultures, which is a very Western concept. Once you start developing CD-ROMs and others for electronic infor-mation exchange, how do you assure or translate those norms into a global infor-mation network?

[Ching-chih Chen]

I would like to respond to that. Yes, quality control part is the most important issue and difficult to address. We have not gone that far yet. What my purpose here right now in terms of developing a global information network is more an informal way of thinking for those of us here. Many who are already in leading positions have somewhat gone through the peer review process to reach their high professional standings and should get the network together. Coming to the actual content issue, then, the peer review model will fit our scenario better, but we are not there yet. At this point, we need prototypes, and clearly each coun-try's national library can look at its own collection and easily pick the real "treasure" areas. With prototypes, we can then begin to address the issue of quality.