Open access and the recession have changed the landscape of library budgets and usage over the last 10 years. Library book and journal budgets have decreased; huge volumes of open access content exist, but there is no quality control or easy way to discover research; and the rise of new university presses publishing monographs, conference proceedings, and other content are trying to do so with the same staff and on a shoestring budget.

Last month, The Charleston Conference gathered together librarians, publishers, electronic resource managers, consultants, and vendors to discuss issues such as these and others, to chart a way forward, and to bring together companies who are working in that space to share some services that might be helpful to libraries as their roles continue to change.

The Charleston Premiers portion of the conference in which publishers and vendors showcase their newest and most forward-thinking products that may not be well known to the audience as a whole. The audience then votes to select their favourites in a variety of categories. We were pleased to have PageMajik selected as “Most Innovative Product” by the audience.

“For several years now the Charleston Premiers, which previews new and noteworthy products and innovations on the marketplace, has been gaining popularity at the Charleston Conference, particularly due to its fun, quick-fire pitching format and audience interaction,” said Anthony Watkinson, Director of the Charleston Conference. “This year delegates to the conference were particularly impressed by PageMajik’s pioneering approach towards improving publishing workflows and its innovative application of new tech such as AI, and I’d like to congratulate the company on winning our Most Innovative Product.”

PageMajik was developed out of our 40 years of experience working with publishers and libraries to understand the challenges that come with reduced budgets, small staffs, and vast amounts of information to sift through via open access.

What we discovered at the Charleston Conference was that there are many ways PageMajik can be useful to libraries. Most specifically, as libraries enter into the publishing side of the industry, using machine learning to tackle repetitive, time-consuming, expensive aspects of the publishing process, allows libraries and new university presses to free up 40% of the time spent on manual editorial and production tasks to focus on higher level work. Another, more traditional use of PageMajik is through the automatic meta-data tagging and analysis the system provides and which offers vastly improved discovery in the sea of content, cutting research time in half and making those research results more fruitful.

The team at PageMajik prides itself on its innovative approach to radical improvement, increased speed and cost reduction within the editorial workflow. As we work with libraries more, we are eager to find other ways we can help improve their processes. For more information or to tell us your particular challenges, please go to www.pagemajik.com.