Open Password – Friday October 8, 2021
#983
Association for Media Information and Media Documentation – Mario Müller – Ralph Schmidt – Herbert Staub – Uta Rosenfeld – info7 – Spring Conference – Success Monitoring – Media Convergence – Digitalization – Professional Requirements – Teaching Institute for Documentation – Association of Southwest German Newspaper Publishers – Digital Seminars – Training – Technical Colleges – FAMI Training – Further training – Research – Copyright – Professional exchange – Membership – Professional upgrading – Processes of media production – Restructuring – Fact Check – IT technologies – COVID-19 – Online seminars – Hybrid seminars – Verification – Continuation events – Young professionals – Marianne Englert Prize –
Federal Association of E-Commerce and Mail Order Germany – E-Commerce – Multichannel – Digital Services – Food – Growth Rates – D2C – Online Marketplaces – Christoph Wenk-Fischer – DGI Forum – Providing Information in Times of Distance – Margarita Reibel-Felten – EBSCO – Price Forecasts – Scientific Journals – Electronic Journal Packages – Libraries
- Cover story
vfm: Despite the closure of documentation centers, there was a slight increase in the number of members – professional upgrading through media convergence and conversion of further training
to online and hybrid events
- bevh: E-commerce with strongest growth since 2017
III. DGI Forum 2021: Providing information in times of distance
- EBSCO: Scientific publishers increase their prices by 3 – 5%, for electronic journal packages between 1 and 3%
vfm
Despite the closure of documentation centers,
there was a slight increase in the number of members.
Professional advancement through media convergence
Conversion of training to online
and hybrid events
After the spring meeting of the vfm (= Association for Media Information and Media Documentation), about which Open Password reported in detail, a written interview was conducted with the board members of the vfm, Mario Müller, the coordinator of the vfm program committee Ralph Schmidt and the vfm director of studies Herbert Staub, as well as with Uta Rosenfeld from the info7 editorial team carried out. Here are their answers:
What goals did you set for the 2021 spring conference, what did you achieve with it and what would you like to change with a view to the next spring conference?
Ralph Schmidt: The primary goal of the spring conference is the professional exchange of experiences, developments, innovations and strategies in media information on a professional and personal level. In addition, it is important to promote an awareness of their professional solidarity and methodological similarities in their work through the association’s ties to the vfm. Of central importance to the conference is the discussion of current media policy, technology-driven and job-related issues with a view to jointly acquired solutions and options for action.
The experiences from the first online conference in spring 2021 were consistently encouraging and received an extremely positive response from the participants.
Ralph Schmidt
Let’s take a look back at the spring conferences of the last two decades, which have always been a fixed reference point in the information industry’s calendar. How did the thematic focuses change? What exactly have you achieved with them and what have you not achieved?
Ralph Schmidt: As in previous years, the feedback from conference participants on the 2021 online conference provided very high satisfaction ratings for the selected topics, the conference structure and the quality of the organization. We have succeeded in doing this again and again over the years because we in the program committee were able to draw on the knowledge of the current content and technical requirements of many colleagues from various departments and media companies. In this way, we have always been able to reflect the general interests of the participants well.
If you ask about the trend of the last few years, there are clear tendencies: the convergence of the media and digitalization, that is, the technologization of the media. Digitalization goes hand in hand with changes in our professional profile. It also opens up many more opportunities for us in our media companies to actively participate in process design. We want to provide topical inspiration here.
The vfm (then the Association for Training Media Archivists/Documentarians within the framework of the VdA) was founded in 1997 to organize further training for media archivists and media documentarians. How have the framework conditions for your work changed since then and what have been the biggest challenges for you in the last quarter century?
Herbert Staub: The vfm used to design and organize its training courses in collaboration with other institutions whenever possible. First it was the Teaching Institute for Documentation (LID), and later, until a year ago, the VSZV, the Association of Southwest German Newspaper Publishers. Because this collaboration was based on old structures, it became a victim of increasing digitalization. Today, the vfm has to react quickly to current changes. Digital seminars make this possible. Today, planning in long-term cycles is neither possible nor sensible. What was current yesterday, for example data journalism, is already – conceptually – outdated today.
Of course, the change in the documentation scene has not left the vfm unscathed. In the print media, documentation has been decimated. The largest group of participants in the seminars today comes from public broadcasters.
Herbert Staub
How have the portfolio of your offerings and the focus of content changed since 1997? Does training still have a central importance for you or have new areas of responsibility been added?
Herbert Staub: At the beginning of the 2000s, further training was primarily about training. The vfm offered multi-part cycles from formal recording to information transfer, which could be completed with a certificate. Today the technical colleges, and in some cases also the FAMI training, have taken on this task. This means the vfm can concentrate on further training.
Here the input comes directly from practice in the media companies. The focus is on conveying something new. The constant thing is that it is always about the current changes in professional requirements. However, the content to be conveyed has changed in some revolutionary ways. In the 1990s, a seminar was called “Technical Environment — Computers, Storage, Networks and Programs”. Two years ago we called a seminar on the technical challenges “Science fiction is yesterday – technologies that are changing jobs”. However, there are also long-running favorites in the training program: research is always up-to-date, even if it is now used for fact checking. If you want to be informed about changes in copyright law, you cannot avoid regular training.
The focus of the vfm statutes continues to be on professional qualifications and further training in the areas of professional requirements as well as the exchange of knowledge. Particularly in an area such as media documentation, which is strongly influenced and required by the upheaval caused by new technologies, one of the most important tasks of the association is to familiarize employees with the new, constantly changing working conditions so that they can meet the requirements of their profession will continue to grow in the future – regardless of whether they completed their training years ago or are new to the field of documentation. Until last year, the vfm pursued these goals with its spring conferences and seminars as face-to-face events, which were attended by plus or minus a hundred participants each year.
In addition, the seminars promote exchange: be it that there are lectures from practice for practice or that teamwork is required in workshops, be it the discussions during breaks and evening events. Here, WDR employees find out what’s going on at BR, and ZDF employees find out what RTL is currently implementing. Print meets broadcast, sports specialists meet music archivists, and there is great curiosity about how others do it. The importance of this professional, informal exchange can hardly be overestimated.
In general, the ability to organize in politics, business and civil society is declining. I assume that this also applies to the membership of the vfm. What can you say about the development of membership over the last 25 years?
Mario Müller: The vfm is still a relatively young club. It was founded in 1997. But yes, that is an issue because our target group is becoming more and more heterogeneous, making it more difficult for us to address everyone equally in terms of content. Our advantage is that we didn’t focus on one media group right from the start, but always kept an eye on everyone, from the press to the television stations. The current development in terms of media convergence is playing into our hands. Almost all of our topics appeal to our target groups across all media. Our membership has grown slowly but steadily in recent years and is now almost 200 members. Despite regular departures of members who retire due to age or change industries, we were able to maintain and even slightly increase the number of members. But we must also not forget that the field of media documentaries and media archivists in German-speaking countries is very small.
Mario Müller
How do you keep your increasingly heterogeneous professional group together? Where do you still see untapped member potential and what have you done and what do you still want to do to achieve it?
Mario Müller: That is indeed an issue. As a positive development, it should first be noted that our professional groups have experienced enormous appreciation in recent years. The development of media technologies, digital production environments and the associated changes in our activities have brought our specialist areas into the center of media production processes in recent years. And this is where we need to start. What is crucial to our success is that we continue to closely follow developments in the media industry and address the innovative topics that are relevant to us, so that our members can then actively and professionally participate in the restructuring processes of their companies. Our training courses and our spring conference are the basis for all of us to acquire the necessary knowledge, exchange ideas and network.
Some of our topics are also relevant across professional groups. Fact checking, for example, is also a very relevant topic for journalists.
IT technologies are becoming more important to us. That’s why more and more companies are interested in taking part in our conference or presenting their products.
How should one currently imagine the exchange of knowledge and experiences organized by vfm within the media documentary specialist world?
Uta Rosenfeld : Our trade magazine “info7” plays an important role here in terms of exchanging knowledge and experience.
info7 is our editorial forum for news and opinions on media-related information work. She reports on projects, new technologies and methods, research results, conferences, seminars and online offerings in the industry. It is geared towards the practice of media information and lives from the specialist articles, practical reports and comments from readers.
info7 reports and promotes exchange and discussion about research, theory, practice, projects, plans and evaluations. In addition, it is made possible to initiate comparisons and learning processes across media and across company and specialist boundaries, and to address changes in the industry’s job profiles at an early stage.
Info7 takes up the main results of the spring conferences of the vfm. The speakers at both the vfm conferences and training events are addressed directly and specifically in order to write contributions for the magazine. In addition, it is desirable to attract and expand the broadest possible range of potential authors in order to bring new topics into the discussion.
Uta Rosenfeld
To what extent has COVID-19 affected your work and what have you done to overcome this challenge?
Herbert Staub: During the lockdown in March 2020, the vfm decided to cancel all face-to-face events and the planned seminars were canceled. The situation was too uncertain; the broadcasting companies had banned business trips and the House of History in Bonn, where the seminars were held, was closed.
To this day, it is not known how Covid-19 will continue to shape our lives.
There was and is no planning security and the health of participants and speakers comes first. So what can be done to still meet the objectives of the statutes? Our conclusion was: The vfm goes online. We held the first online seminar in autumn 2020 with great success. Because a lockdown or a pandemic does not mean that further training is no longer necessary. That’s why we’re holding our seminars online again this year – and the response has been great.
Presence, virtual, hybrid – how should we imagine further training in the coming years?
Herbert Staub: In the future, we will rely on a combination of online and face-to-face events. Because the previous online seminars have been very well received, we will definitely continue them – even if Covid19 no longer dictates the form of further training. What participants particularly appreciate about the online seminars is their easy accessibility: travel and hotel accommodation are no longer necessary; the seminars can even be attended parallel to work – or childcare. What is clearly neglected is professional and informal exchange. That’s why the vfm won’t just rely on online.
The topics of the training are based on the needs of the media companies. For some time now, seminars on verification have been in particular demand. These seminars were designed as analogue seminars that require active participation and collaboration. Because fact checking is usually teamwork. Thanks to excellent speakers, this practical aspect could also be transferred to the online seminars. This works very well, but requires small numbers of participants. Here the vfm is walking a tightrope, because small numbers of participants mean less income. And the seminars are – alongside membership fees and the spring conference – the association’s only sources of income.
This fall we will also implement what has been on our to-do list for a long time: Many participants in a basic seminar would like to have a follow-up event after a certain period of time in order to talk about testing what they have learned in practice and to discuss problem cases. We can organize such a “reunion” relatively easily digitally. In addition to practical seminars, there is also “knowledge transfer”, for example in the area of law with the topics of copyright, personal protection and data protection. These seminars have also proven successful in their online version. We will see this winter whether seminars with a focus on “exchange” also work online. An online meeting of sports documentaries is planned who will discuss how they coped with the major sporting events of 2021.
What are your main current challenges and what challenges are you likely to face in the coming years?
Mario Müller: The vfm has to constantly develop. The exchange of information between our members and interested parties cannot only take place once a year at the spring conference or via the static pages of our website. We should also take advantage of new digital technologies that enable real-time exchange of our professional concerns. This needs to be addressed in the next few years. We took the first steps with online seminars and the online conference.
Your prospects for the next two or three years?
Mario Müller: Corona will continue to influence our work next year. We have to prepare for the fact that many of our members would like to participate in our events digitally or hybridly. This will become a standard. This needs to be implemented cost-neutrally.
Our most important task, however, will be to get younger colleagues excited about our work and to get them to participate. Our young talent is very well trained and very innovative. The winners of the “Marianne Englert Prize” show us this every year when they present their work at the spring conferences. But here we, the “olds”, are called upon to give the “young” the space and the opportunity to get involved actively and responsibly – including here at the vfm.
Federal Association of E-Commerce and Mail Order Germany eV (bevh)
E-commerce with strongest growth since 2017
- Buying from the manufacturer is becoming increasingly popular, but multichannel is growing faster
- Digital services are not yet benefiting from easing restrictions
- Food and other everyday goods with the greatest increases
- The industry will settle into a normal growth rhythm in the medium term
(behv) Regardless of the gradual revival of public life, and although the third quarter is considered to be the weakest of the year for seasonal reasons, sales in e-commerce with goods from July to October rose significantly by 14.8 percent to 22.194 billion and in interactive commerce increased by 14.3 percent to 22.467 billion euros. For e-commerce, it is the third quarter with the strongest growth in five years .
_____________________________________________________
D2C and multichannel are growing the fastest.
_____________________________________________________
Digital direct sales through manufacturers remains the only sales channel that has grown at a comfortable double-digit rate in every quarter since the pandemic began. No other sales type was able to increase as much in percentage terms as manufacturer-shippers (+23.2 percent cumulatively from January to September 2021 inclusive). If you just look at the most recent third quarter, multichannel retailers achieved the strongest growth. This is surprising because it was the first time since the beginning of the year that they were able to open their stores to customers for an entire quarter, but customers still like to order online. Trading on online marketplaces, which is largely carried out by stationary and online retailers, continues to increase its volume significantly in the long-term trend and will generate significantly more than ten billion euros in sales in each quarter for the first time in 2021.
“The positive development of multichannel retailers, which have contributed to the industry’s strong results, is particularly pleasing. Among them are many companies that were previously purely brick-and-mortar and have built up a digital foothold under great pressure during the pandemic. This shows “that many of these retailers are successfully establishing themselves in digital trading,” says Christoph Wenk-Fischer, Managing Director of bevh.
_____________________________________________________
The upward trend in food continues.
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The strongest growth drivers among the product groups in Q3/2021 were food (+34.5%), DIY & flowers (+30.1%) and hobby & leisure items (+23.8%). The fastest-growing product cluster was everyday items. This includes groceries, drugstore products and pet food.
_____________________________________________________
Digital services remain below their potential.
_____________________________________________________
Sales from digital services, which also include travel bookings, rose by 31.0 percent to 2.23 billion euros in Q3. They are losing momentum again compared to the middle of the year (Q2/2020: 61.3 percent). In addition, there are still catch-up effects that cannot make up for the slump from the previous year (Q3/2020: -66.6 percent). This shows that although people have booked travel and concert tickets online again in the summer months, they are still spending their money on activities more cautiously than before the outbreak of the pandemic.
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Industry turnover exceeds 100 billion euros for the first time?
_____________________________________________________
In the first nine months of the year, total e-commerce sales totaled around 67.4 billion euros. Total interactive trade including services reached 74 billion euros during this period. Including a strong last Christmas quarter, the industry is expected to break the 100 billion euro mark for the first time this year.
DGI Forum 2021
Providing information in times of distance
Dear colleagues,
We would like to draw your attention to our DGI online conference “DGI Forum 2021 – Providing information in times of distance” on October 28th and 29th, 2021.
DGI Forum 2021 – Providing information in times of distance
In the pandemic year 2021, the DGI Forum – a platform for a comprehensive discourse on “information and knowledge” – is dedicated to the highly topical topic of “imparting information in times of distance”. In times of physical distance but visual closeness through video conferences, working methods and the exchange of information between individuals and groups have changed massively and with them the structures in education and information management.
New concepts of (knowledge) communication are therefore needed. This applies not only to the technical and media design of the mediation processes, but also to the underlying social and functional processes. With a diverse program of exciting lectures and discussion groups on the topics of schools, teacher training and information professionals, the DGI Forum 2021 has set itself the goal of finding practical solutions.
Current information about the program at https://dgi-info.de/dgi-forum-2021-programm/.
With best regards, Margarita Reibel-Felten,
German Society for Information and Knowledge eV (DGI)
EBSCO
Scientific publishers increase
their prices by 3 – 5%, for electronic journal packages between 1 and 3%
(EBSCO) The 2022 Serials Price Projection Report from EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) is out. According to the report, an effective increase in publishing prices for academic and scientific-medical libraries is forecast to be between three and five percent for individual titles and between one and three percent (before currency effects) for electronic journal packages.
The 2022 renewal season shows new price increases among publishers and library budgets remain a problem. The “Read & Publish” model for open access content has gained popularity, particularly in Europe, but it is not yet clear whether this will ultimately have the desired effect of reducing overall information spending. Electronic journal packages continue to have the greatest impact on library budgets, and librarians continue to closely examine the added value that larger budget expenditures bring.
The full 2022 Serials Price Projection Report can be found at the following website: https://www.ebsco.com/sites/g/files/nabnos191/files/acquiadam-assets/EBSCO-Serials-Price-Projections-Report-2022. pdf . .
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