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  • From: Jonathan Robie <jwrobie AT mindspring.com>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc: Bob Pritchett <bob AT logos.com>
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Logos Bible Software's $100,000 Data Creation Fund
  • Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 04:07:20 -0400

Bob Pritchett asked me to forward this to b-greek.

Jonathan

Bob Pritchett wrote:

I'd like to announce Logos Bible Software's $100,000 Data Creation Fund.

Logos wants to encourage the development of new databases to facilitate
Bible study, particularly in Greek and Hebrew, and has set aside these
resources to help initiate or accelerate projects in this field.

Possible projects include:

Morphological or syntactic analysis of ancient texts. Revision of classic reference works. Linguistic analysis of texts. Electronic transcription of previously unavailable texts. New interlinear translations of ancient texts. Genre or topic indexing of primary texts. Alignments of ancient texts and modern translations. New indices, collations, or bibliographies of specialized data.

Details on the fund are posted at http://www.logos.com/datafund.
The funds are not set aside for pure research grants, but specifically
to acquire publishing rights to academic projects. The financial
arrangements will be negotiated on a project-by-project basis, but the
structure will be similar to that of publishing a book with a print
publisher.
The difference is that Logos is looking specifically for databases and
other projects which may be better suited to electronic delivery than
print, is willing to build specialized tools for creation and delivery
of the data, and is considering projects which may support only
long-term cost recovery.

Logos is a commercial entity, and the list owners brought up some great
questions before consenting to this post. I'd like to address some of
those points directly.

We support the work of the scholarly community and its open nature. We
believe that commercial publication of scholarly work leads to wider
distribution (to scholars, pastors, and even casual Bible students) and
helps fund more scholarship.

As a rule, Logos does not request exclusive licenses to content. Books
that are only available for Logos Bible Software are that way either
because the publisher chose to only license them to Logos, or (much more
often the case) because only Logos invested the resources in
typing/processing the text.

In a few cases Logos actually owns the copyright to work, and it's
possible that some Data Fund projects will follow this structure. Again,
this is similar to the print publishing world where authors typically
sign over specific rights in exchange for an advance and/or royalties.

In the partnerships with scholars already underway (some not yet
announced), Logos has been using a number of models:

- Work-for-hire, where Logos pays all the costs and owns all the
rights.

- Limited time exclusive, where Logos pays for the work but has
exclusive commercial rights for a limited time in order to recover
costs, after which the creators can give it away or even license it to
Logos' competitors.

- Commercial rights only, where the work will be free online, but Logos
can sell it for use with Logos Bible Software.

I know that the introduction of commercial interests into the scholarly
world is often viewed with apprehension, but I believe that there are
great benefits to scholars and the wider community in partnership.
Beyond the obvious financial benefit (even scholars need to eat!) there
is the wider distribution that commercial publishing enables. The need
for this distribution is even more acute in databases and electronic
resources than in monographs.

It's easy to get a book into the hands of people who can read it. A
complicated database locked away on a university server or a
half-completed text analysis produced for a thesis are less accessible
to Bible students who might be able to make use of them.
We're hoping to get things out of "halls of academia" and into the hands
of Bible students -- students who will pay for the resources and
convenience. Then we can get some of those payments back to the "halls"
and help fund more research -- all the while encouraging more Bible
study.

I appreciate being allowed to post our annoncement on the list, and I
apologize if this is more discussion than you'd like.

-- Bob Pritchett (bob AT logos.com)
Logos Bible Software
www.logos.com





  • [b-hebrew] Logos Bible Software's $100,000 Data Creation Fund, Jonathan Robie, 07/19/2004

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