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Shakespeare Comes to Life….but Publishers Are Not Part of the Picture
By Noah Carp
April 15, 2008
Important Details: Despite the wide availability of Shakespeare’s plays through major publishers, and the instruction on them in K-12 and college settings, William Shakespeare did not actually consent to printed versions of his plays. What was published following his plays were actually no more than what people heard or memorized from the performances; and in some cases, there were mark-ups of “foul papers,” or Shakespeare’s working drafts of plays. For this reason, quartos were published as paperbacks shortly after the performances, but there were often multiple versions of Shakespeare’s plays. This background provides important context for the potential untapped wealth of literary history and research material that exists in Shakespeare’s quartos.
With financing through grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and Britain’s Higher Education Funding Council, the availability of Shakespeare’s works will rise to unprecedented levels. Coordinating the collaboration between these organizations is the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), and joining this partnership are various institutions in the US and the UK. Key players include:
- University of Maryland’s Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) – to provide the technology and platform for people to conduct research, including analysis and comparisons, of the quartos;
- Shakespeare Institute (Stratford, England but based out of the University of
Birmingham) – to have its teachers, students, and scholars evaluate and work with the prototype in order to provide feedback and guidance on the content and functionality - Folger Shakespeare Library (Washington, D.C.) – , the world’s largest collection of William Shakespeare’s quartos, which will act as the grant recipient in the US;
- Oxford University (England) – to house MITH’s interactive web site.
In addition to the key roles that these organizations will play in this initiative, high school teachers in the Washington, DC area will share feedback on the project as the resource is developed. The involvement of these educators bridges the landscape of project participants across the K-12 and postsecondary education markets.
Implications: Digital content, particularly open digital content, is clearly the key to numerous opportunities for innovation in both K-12 and postsecondary education. Open access continues to accelerate (see Insights 10 April 2007, Open Access Models Moving into Educational Spaces). The capabilities that technology affords students and educators to share, leverage, and collaborate on content are certainly under investigation among the educational publishers. In this case, however, publishers are not part of the global initiative to present Shakespeare’s works. Furthermore, what we observe is the financial leadership of the foundation world as the driving force behind this international collaboration and partnership.
As digital content adoption accelerates among college faculty, questions arise about how educational publishers wish to address this market – or whether other players will define the landscape and seize this opportunity. With faculty expecting to double their adoption of self-paced modules, simulations, podcasts, and e-books through 2010, the biggest challenge for publishers is the creation of effective business and pricing models for such products (see report Digital Content: Analyzing Demand in the Postsecondary Education Market, 4 March 2008). The investment of foundation dollars for this ground-breaking initiative removes this barrier and will allow a group consisting of schools, libraries, and educators to make this content available for free.
Most pressing among the unanswered questions whose answers will create the backbone for the future of learning materials are:·
- Will foundations, non-profits, and schools continue to be the leaders in the open content movement?
- Will educational publishers capitalize on digital content adoption to create innovative revenue-generating strategies that that incorporate and leverage the open content movement?
- What role will publishers play in transforming the “classroom” (i.e., both physical and virtual) experience?
To date, the open content movement has been considered as competition by publishers, but the open content leadership does not have to be exclusive of publishers. In fact, Elsevier recently struck a noteworthy deal with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to deliver 2,000+ excerpts from Elsevier’s journals (see Insights 19 March 2008, Elsevier Leverages Creative Commons Licence In Groundbreaking Deal With MIT OpenCourseWare). This partnership is one clear example of how a major publisher is stepping into a leadership role by extending open access to research content in the hope of generating incremental sales. Outsell will be closely watching this evolution, so stay tuned to see how profitable this marriage is for Elsevier.
In addition, for educational publishers willing to experiment, take calculated risks, and invest accordingly, open content has the potential to unlock broader opportunities. If publishers choose to be active players in leveraging technology to bring transformative content to students and educators, Outsell anticipates such initiatives will translate to expanding market penetration for these companies. By launching the digitization of Shakespeare’s quartos, this trans-Atlantic partnership will likely enter classrooms with purchasing power extending across any number of products and disciplines. We will eagerly continue to follow the open content market and examine just how innovative and successful publishers are in riding the open content wave to new sales opportunities.