About on-line or in print history journals.

Karen Stuart points out a very important factor with regard to the old
Virginia Cavalcade, which nobody misses more than those of us who worked
with the editorial staff and sometimes wrote for it:

"The problem with digitizing old Virginia Cavalcade articles is not so
much technical, as it is a rights management issue.  When authors sought
permission to publish the glorious illustrations that accompanied so
many Cavalcade articles, rights holders granted permission for one-time
use in a print publication.

"Subsequent uses, including reprints or new editions, generally require
a new request, along with whatever fees or conditions apply today.  The
research time to secure those clearances would be a nightmare.  Alas, I
loved the Cavalcade."


Many of the illustrations came from the collections of the Library of
Virginia, but many did not, and in every instance that some other
institution allowed reproduction of one of its images in the magazine,
the legal agreement was for that one-time use, only. When, as sometimes
happens, we receive requests to reprint articles from the magazine in
other publications, we have to insist that the text only and not the
illustrations be reprinted because we cannot grant a secondary reprint
right that we do not have. The articles are still good articles without
the illustrations, but an article that was written with an expectation
that it would be illustrated is never as good without the illustations
as with.

Glenn Gregory the other day made some other very good points:

"The web hosting is not that big of a deal. The problem with this, as
with
all publications, is a lack of planning and direction. I am the
webmaster
for a magazine that is not in its second year of publication. On
average,
over 92% of all periodicals fail in the first year. 

"To make this a go, there are several things that are needed. These are
the
attributes of a successful periodical, (success being survival past the
first year):

"1. Definite focus;
"2. Dedicated paid staff;
"3. Publishing schedule that is realistic, (this is what kills most
publications);
"4. A good surplus of articles which are ready for publication at
anytime;
"5. A loyal and increasing audience;
"6. I good advertising department;
"7. Good and on-time distribution.

"These seven simple elements make or break a publication. The biggest
two
being 3 and 7. Publishing on the web is not simple. There needs to be
lead
time for articles and advertising. In the late seventies and early
eighties
when I wrote freelance articles for major electronic and computer
magazines,
the deadline for articles was three months before the earliest
publication
date. And, this was for monthly magazines. 

"I could work with several persons on this site to create a subscription
based eZine. But a finite structure must be created, and the actual
interest
along with a pricing structure must be created. Also, compensation fees
for
the authors must be structured.

"If anyone is really interested in advancing this project, please email
me
directly. Failing to plan is a sure sign of a plan to fail."


The upshot of all this being that in order to create a periodical
(on-line or in print) requires a very large commitment of money for
staff, office space, computers, access to archival and research
collections for fact checking, money to acquire rights to texts and
illustrations, and a long-term institutional commitment to make it a go.
Publishing on-line may not be less expensive in the long run than
publishing on paper if you factor in long-term maintenance of computer
files. The big expense is in qualified staff. That is what caught the
eyes of the budget cutters five years ago. Even though the staff was not
paid big salaries, the salaries were the big part of the expense of the
magazine.

Brent Tarter
The Library of Virginia
[log in to unmask]

Please visit the Library of Virginia's Web site at
http://www.lva.lib.va.us

-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Karen Stuart
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2007 5:54 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] 09282048Z07 What If 09300256Z07



Karen Stuart



On 9/29/07, Randy Cabell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:So how about
digitizing some of the articles from the old cavalcades?  Given some
standards, and a bit of quality control, I bet there are a lot of folks
like me out there in VA-HIST lland who would volunteer to do that.