eScholarship Publishing Challenges
neScholarship Repository
nOptimized for journal articles not monographs
nPDF format:  no current support for XML publishing
n
neScholarship Editions
nGetting XML out: workflow and technology
nGetting the XML word out:  partnership buy-in
n
n
   While we have been delighted with the success of both of these publishing platforms, each has its own technological hurdles, sometimes even walls, that we must clear in order to keep moving forward with the development of these services.
   For the Repository, the hurdles lie in the fact that the technology is optimized for journal and journal article publication.  A few of our distributed monographic series (e.g. UC International and Area Studies) publish monongraphs within the Repository and report that is at times an awkward fit – seemingly more comfortable producing documents at the level of the chapter than the book.  In addition, bepress currently supports PDF publishing exclusively, necessitating a bifurcation between the technologies of our two publishing platforms.
   The challenge for eScholarship Editions, on the other hand, resides precisely in the fact that it is an XML publishing platform.  Our first hurdle:  how to translate the Press’s post-compositor manuscripts into XML-tagged files.  The solution thus far has been to send the manuscripts off to India to be rekeyed and tagged:  an expensive and logistically difficult endeavor.  Alternatives?  Developing a system for producing, as part of the editorial process, XML-tagged files that can serve as master files for any kind of publishing the Press desires for its content.  Though the Press has shown strong interest in this emerging technology, we have yet to identify a reliable way for extracting XML from their editorial practice without disrupting it rather significantly.

And such potentially dramatic shifts in editorial practice necessarily beg the question [next slide]:  Why XML?