Oh Really! 5 Questions With...

[Deborah Shor]

by Jeff Wood

Mar 2004

In each issue, this section presents an interview with someone in the field of content management. In this issue we interview Deborah Shore of Aspen Publishers to learn from her experiences with planning to reuse content for print and Web outputs from a central and format-neutral repository.

Name:	Deborah Shor
Company:	Aspen Publishers, Inc. (division of Wolters Kluwer)
Title:	Senior Production Manager
Brief Bio:	Now a Senior Production Manager with Aspen, Deborah was a graphics editor and freelancer for the New York Times News Service prior to moving into publishing, originally as a designer then migrating to manufacturing.

[1] What are your company's goals in terms of content flexibility and reusability?

Deborah: Our goal is to go from a conventional composition workflow system to a structured content environment. We began pursuing this a year ago as an internal initiative, but it became part of an enterprise-wide initiative for restructuring both our content and the business overall. We looked at converting our journal content as an initial phase because there was a need for content re-use, and in our current process it was very time consuming. Once we had gotten a good sense of how this would work on a small-scale basis, we were able to migrate all our content to a structured format.

The benefits are numerous because presently we cannot re-purpose our content unless we convert the data into a text format from whatever proprietary system our compositor uses. But then we incur the time and expense to reformat. We also do not have the flexibility to easily put our data onto a CD or use as an online product. We do not have an internal repository that can be accessed if we want to update more frequently. Lastly, creating new products will be a lot easier than compiling information from various sources.

[2] What steps have you taken to achieve these goals?

Deborah: We have contracted with vendors who can work in the necessary environment and provide us with a means to satisfy our print and electronic output requirements. We have identified products and prioritized conversion schedules. We have identified the type of training and products needed for internal workflow. We have begun to analyze our data to begin standardizing and understanding our data. We have looked at current workflow and examined: 1) where we need to make changes and 2) how can we incorporate the new requirements into the existing workflow. We have started to change the internal print mentality to an electronic one. Overall we have asked questions, done research, held meetings, tested, targeted essential personnel, and done extensive planning taken to achieve our goal.

[3] How do books and journals differ in terms of "single-sourcing" content for driving both print and electronic output?

Deborah: The fundamental difference I see in the sourcing for the two products is that journals will be composed from individual articles then compiled to create one product. Books are composed from one single source document. This is the present. It doesn't mean that as requirements change that we won't be changing the book structure to mimic the journal structure.

Journals are generally the easiest of the bunch because they are small compared to books. The largest journal is maybe 150 pages of content versus 500 pages or more for a book. The main reason is that journal material is always new. For books, 90 percent of the work is based on the updating the most recent data set.

[4] How does outsourcing fit into your current process?

Deborah: We currently outsource all of our composition work on the book side and this includes the following: Formatting from manuscript and providing images, inserting corrections and providing images, creating final files for printer including pre-flight. There are a few exceptions where the content is manipulated by internal editorial resources but for the most part content is not touched internally. I am speaking about formatting for print. Internal editors do touch the content to insure accuracy and clarity.

We do not outsource journal composition and that will not change, nor will the outsourcing of book composition. We will continue to do so for the present. We found that we cannot compete with the outsourced resources or what it costs us per page versus what it would cost us if we brought this in-house.

[5] What were some of the obstacles you faced initially in setting up new workflows and vendors?

Deborah: Regarding vendors... none really. It is a matter of testing them to see if they can do what they say they can do. There is always a learning curve and a process of developing a level of understanding and comfort. As long as we realize this and work to minimize potential conflicts this should not present unsolvable obstacles.

Internally is a whole different story... as stated above the first hurdle is to get people to stop thinking "print" and start thinking "content." Once that is done then we can go and propose new workflows. Also, our company relies heavily on outside authoring. In order to maximize the workflow potential, we have to get them to buy into it and that is not easy to do. Again, there is a learning curve and if you are not being enticed, let's say by money (like the vendors), then you don't get people to buy into change that easily.

Editors will need to be able to work in an XML environment. They will have to be aware of what is needed for electronic publication and be mindful that certain procedures that they use for print does not bode well in an electronic environment. The journal design staff will have to learn how to import XML into a page layout system and may have to move from using the current design tool to a more XML friendly program.