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"The new Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) registry has stakeholders from across the research enterprise, including universities, publishers, government agencies, and others. Our business analysis needs were equally complex, especially given our nonprofit status, and critical to establishing the viability of ORCID. Raym Crow was the consultant on a project organized by MIT, Harvard, and Cornell for a business feasibility analysis, and he did an excellent job. He called on his deep and varied experience to develop a financial framework for ORCID that will not only help this effort, but can serve as a model for other initiatives to build the shared infrastructure necessary for digital research and scholarship. His findings have already helped us fund the launch of the service next year. I highly recommend working with Raym for initiatives like ours."
MacKenzie Smith
Research Director, MIT Libraries, and ORCID Board member
"Raym Crow was selected as our lead consultant on the
Mellon-supported University Press Ebook Consortium, and his performance was
outstanding in every way. He pressed the grant managers to explore new
alternatives and to consider new models, and provided us with everything
detailed in his proposal and always on very aggressive deadlines too. More
importantly, he was consistently deeply engaged with the complicated elements
and goals of the project, and his research, written reports and supporting
documentation, and feedback (sometimes challenging feedback) to the managers of
the grant was consistently nothing less than exceptional. Our grant project was
successful due in very large part to Raym’s brilliant work throughout the project.
I enthusiastically recommend Raym to any academic book publisher."
Steve Maikowski
Director
NYU Press and co-lead, The University
Press Ebook Consortium
"I can't recommend the
services of Raym Crow at Chain Bridge Group enough. Crow can provide the high
level perspective that you need to get a feel for all the moving parts of your
business program, but he's also not afraid to roll up his shirt sleeves and
dive into the details. That ability to see the big picture with a corresponding
attention to those devilish details is critical. He will challenge your
assumptions, force you think through what it is you are attempting, and, as a
result, you will build something more sustainable in the end."
Darrin
Pratt
Director
University Press of Colorado
"The consulting services that the Chain Bridge Group provided to the Society of Architectural Historians were invaluable. They managed the RFP process for identifying a publishing partner for our journal with great skill and insight. The cost analysis they developed for producing our journal in print and online gave our board the information and comfort level they needed to approve such a major financial undertaking. We could not have managed this important transition without the good counsel of the Chain Bridge Group."
Pauline Saliga
Director
Society of Architectural Historians
"The American Sociological Association hired Raym Crow and the Chain Bridge Group in part due to a recommendation from another association which had recently completed its own selection process for a new journal publisher. ASA is pleased to "pay it forward" with our own recommendation. ASA issued a complex request for proposals for eight scholarly journals (six of which were self-published). Raym and the Chain Bridge Group were a vital partner in the development of the RFP, the review of the responses, the selection of the finalists, the scheduling of presentations, and the negotiations with the selected publisher for a final detailed agreement that met all of our needs--from revenue to marketing to implementation procedures. As experienced and knowledgeable as our own staff are, Raym's broader experience with publishing agreements was vital to making sure that our RFP and our final contract addressed the full spectrum of issues necessary to ensure a partnership that would serve ASA well during the transition and far into the future."
Karen Gray Edwards
Director of Publications and Membership
American Sociological Association
"Raym Crow's expert analysis of the complex arrangements that produce the Année Philologique, the international bibliography of record for the field of classical studies, is essential to our planning for its future. With both a print volume and an online database, independent offices in five countries, and a history going back eighty years it was not an easy situation to unpack, but Crow quickly grasped all the key elements and produced a study that addresses every important issue, even the uncomfortable ones. His report offers a variety of practical solutions and projections for the future that we will rely on for some years to come."
Dee L. Clayman
Professor of Classics
Graduate Center, City University of New York
Director, Database of Classical Bibliography
"Raym Crow's comprehensive assessment of AAA's current print publishing program and his recommendations for improving the operational efficiency, financial basis, and organization of our publication program have been the critical keys to launching a web-based portal for anthropological research and reference resource.
One of the most daunting tasks facing many associations today is the migration of their print-based journals to digital publication and web-based dissemination. Raym's expert business modeling and financial planning strategies have given us a solid foundation to guide this all-important migration.
Raym worked very closely with our staff to understand the Association?s business and key objectives. His extensive publishing expertise enabled him to clearly address the issues we brought to him, as well as provide recommendations on a wide range of operational and strategic concerns we had not previously considered."
William E. Davis III
Executive Director
American Anthropological Association
"Chain Bridge Group's analysis of UC Press's journal portfolio reflected a deep understanding of the operating and market environments nonprofit academic publishers work within. The final report provided not only strategic perspective but detailed practical advice. A good value for the Press's investment!"
Rebecca Simon
Associate Director, University of California Press
and Director, Journals & Digital Publishing Division
"The Biological Bulletin is one of the oldest peer-reviewed scientific journals in the United States. We hired the Chain Bridge Group to leverage the expertise of Raym Crow as we seek to adapt the business model of the journal to the changed realities of the 21st Century.
Crow's expertise in such areas as online pricing, cost analysis and subscription modeling has been crucial to our ambitious plans for the Journal. As a thought leader in the area of academic scholarly publishing, Crow's advice is both timely and extraordinarily useful. We highly recommend the Chain Bridge Group."
James L. Olds Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief, The Biological Bulletin,
Director, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study and Shelley Krasnow University Professor of Computational Neuroscience, George Mason University
"Because of his wealth of experience with scholarly publishing issues, Raym Crow of the Chain Bridge Group was the first to come to mind when we were looking for assistance with our open access scholarly publishing project. His survey of the state of the art in the paradigm changing environment is publicly available at http://dspace.library.cornell.edu/handle/1813/178"
Professor J. Robert Cooke
Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering
Cornell University
"Raym Crow's effective application of empirical analysis together with a clear understanding of the mission of libraries, of museums and of science makes him an exceptionally valuable consultant."
Tom Moritz
Boeschenstein Director, Library Services
American Museum of Natural History
"The Chain Bridge Group provided Pike & Fischer with the expertise, focus and discipline we needed to successfully restructure our multiple lines of business and legal information products and services. They collaborated with us to both conduct in-depth market research and develop a cutting edge corporate product and market strategy. That winning strategy is now driving incremental revenue and improving our bottom line."
Meg Hargreaves
President & Publisher
Pike & Fischer, A BNA Company
"Raym Crow of the Chain Bridge Group recently was facilitator for The Medici Archive Project Strategic Plan. We appreciated how well prepared Mr. Crow was before he began his interviewing; he learns about his subject before he begins evaluative work. He interviews skillfully, listens well, and has keen insight. He works efficiently and effectively, using his strong analytical skills to address core issues in reasoned and readable terms.
We are very pleased with the five year draft plan he has presented to us. It is realistic; it offers us the chance to move ahead stronger than we are today."
Sarah Weiner Keidan
Board Chair, The Medici Archive Project
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