Ellie Fullman, Taxonomy Expert
Introduction
1) Tell us a little bit about your background.
Information science is my second career and a field which incorporates three of my greatest passions: academia, teaching, and information organization. Receiving my BA in English Literature from UC Berkeley, I spent the following ten years teaching English as a second language to adults, with an emphasis on English use for business, nursing, and the hospitality industry.
Forever seeking out new knowledge and skills, enrolling in at least one new course each year is a practice that has been a constant in my life since my undergraduate degree and has kept my outside interests alive over the years. It is also directly responsible for allowing me to discover the fascinating and evolving field of information organization, in which I am now fully entrenched and can never imagine tiring of.
2) What excites you to work in a start-up environment?
Having just spent the last few years in graduate school where group projects were common-place, I liken the start-up environment to the group project in which each team member puts 110% effort into their part because they are both inspired by the work-ethic of their team-mates and collectively have the desire to create something that is truly exceptional in nature. Unfortunately, I have come to discover that this type of situation is rare in both school and the working world, but it is most definitely one in which I thrive and I believe to be a key component of the start-up culture.
Challenges
3) What are the challenges you see in the academic publishing industry?
Coming at this question from the standpoint of an information professional, whose role is typically that of negotiator between academic publishing interests and user needs, I see the rise of demand-driven acquisition and open access to be the largest challenges faced by the academic publishing industry today. Quite simply, institutions no longer have the luxury of purchasing journals on a “just-in-case” basis as they used to and, instead, are more frequently being required to base their sales on actual demand. As for the rise in Open Access, I do not necessarily believe that this will negatively impact sales in the long run (in fact, recent research supports this view) but it will most definitely require publishers to restructure their pricing models if they want to remain viable in today’s market.
Vision
4) How do you see your work at RedLink, making an impact to help the academic publishing ecosystem?
In constructing a taxonomy for RedLink, I believe that I am helping the academic publishing eco-system by bringing currently disparate organizational schemas together into one common , flexible, and consistent language that can be utilized by all.
5) Your motto?
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”
? Pablo Picasso