Social Informatics in Libraries

"I have been asked to look into perhaps setting up a university press using my implementation of DSpace....Roberta Darnton makes a good case [in _The Case for Books_, 2009] on how university presses can survive in this climate, however. He thinks that the publishing of electronic books would be more economically feasible for university presses by providing a format that could enhance the information in books by providing layers of information for different types of readers. The first layer would provide an overview of the information that may be attractive to the casual reader. The second layer could expand on the first layer and thus meet the needs of more advance readers or of people who simply want more information. The third layer could contain detailed documentation and essays. The fourth layer would contain information about the topic written by other scholars and perhaps essays and thoughts about the other interpretations. The fifth layer would provide information on how to pull this information into course discussions and syllabi and the last layer would contain letters to the editor or author and blog-like discussions of the content (76-77). All of this could be implemented in an institutional repository hosted by a university press and thus, provide a model that meets the needs of many different types of readers without the costs of printing...."