shimenawa - Latest comments on On scholarly communication and university presses http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/shimenawa.php?disp=comments en-US http://backend.userland.com/rss 60 In response to: On scholarly communication and university presses Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:01:40 +0000 Thomas Bacher [Visitor] c542@http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/ At Purdue, the library and press have cooperated for over a decade (I report to the Dean of Libraries). The future of scholarship exists in this new subsection between publishers and libraries. Librarians are not publishers and should not try to be. Digitizing material is not publishing and beyond that even digitized material needs editing. Publishers must be customer sensitive in preparing materials. Librarians have to be sensitive in selecting and preserving content. Cooperation at Purdue has led to many digital projects that suit both needs. In essence, the knowledge base of the University Press and the Library foster solutions that take into account all facets of scholarly communication. http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/shimenawa.php/2007/06/08/on_scholarly_communication_and_universit#c542 In response to: On scholarly communication and university presses Fri, 15 Jun 2007 19:44:44 +0000 Peter Gorman [Visitor] c538@http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/ <p>I think a lot of the points made here apply equally well in the realm of digital libraries, where it is also not enough to just produce the goods and slap them on a Web server. We're involved in engaging contributors, negotiating rights, discovering audiences, finding the most effective modes of delivery and use, and marketing the result. This is particularly true when we work with faculty rather than library collections. I was about to say the only thing on the publishing list we don't have to deal with is editing, but selection of content from large collections is itself an editorial process.</p><br /> <br /> <p>This not a claim that having a digital library program will make a library a good publisher, but rather recognition that we need to develop much of the same kinds of expertise if we're to be able to claim success in either domain.</p><br /> <br /> <p>The two areas do differ substantially, of course, in the role publishing plays in academic advancement and reward, and that's where libraries have an important part in the conversation whether or not we try to become publishers.</p><br /> <br /> I think a lot of the points made here apply equally well in the realm of digital libraries, where it is also not enough to just produce the goods and slap them on a Web server. We're involved in engaging contributors, negotiating rights, discovering audiences, finding the most effective modes of delivery and use, and marketing the result. This is particularly true when we work with faculty rather than library collections. I was about to say the only thing on the publishing list we don't have to deal with is editing, but selection of content from large collections is itself an editorial process.



This not a claim that having a digital library program will make a library a good publisher, but rather recognition that we need to develop much of the same kinds of expertise if we're to be able to claim success in either domain.



The two areas do differ substantially, of course, in the role publishing plays in academic advancement and reward, and that's where libraries have an important part in the conversation whether or not we try to become publishers.



]]> http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/shimenawa.php/2007/06/08/on_scholarly_communication_and_universit#c538 In response to: On scholarly communication and university presses Thu, 14 Jun 2007 21:45:48 +0000 Mike Furlough [Visitor] c534@http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/ Librarians make lousy publishers because we aren't publishers, we're librarians. The question isn't how can we replicate and replace what publishers do well, but partner to extend those activities and how they works for researchers so that the institution is better served.<br /> ]]> http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/shimenawa.php/2007/06/08/on_scholarly_communication_and_universit#c534 In response to: On scholarly communication and university presses Mon, 11 Jun 2007 20:07:58 +0000 Karla Hahn [Visitor] c522@http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/ I think the question is not who is going to be a better publisher, but rather how are the existing institutions of libraries and university presses going to adapt to a radically different communication landscape and how can universities align the libraries and presses they support (where they support both) and generally provide the communication infrastructure that advances research and scholarship. <br /> <br /> Scholarly communication is a gloriously complex activity and draws on an ever-expanding and ever-evolving range of institutions and infrastructure. Whatever piece of that process we choose to label publishing will be similarly complex, expanding, and evolving. No single set of participants understands fully all of the efforts others make (and I must note that we have not mentioned many of the key participants yet in this thread of discussion). <br /> <br /> Libraries such as those among the DLF membership surely are quite capable of developing and supporting the kinds of sophisticated publishing services you describe even if many librarians do not today have a complete understanding of the traditional services presses provide. Institutions like Columbia, Michigan, the CDL, Penn State, and Rice are certainly not approaching their explorations of publishing support naively, nor without drawing on substantial expertise from the publishing community. Surely at least some university presses (judging from last week's university press-sponsored meeting on library-press partnerships) are eager to engage in rethinking their traditional activities to better align them with their sponsoring institutions' research enterprises and hopefully therefore re-engaging broader institutional support. <br /> <br /> It is hyperbole to suggest that libraries imagine that they are ready to replace university presses today. They are, appropriately, quite ready to talk about what they can do to advance scholarly communication and to begin exploring what new roles it may be appropriate for them to take, what new expertise they need to acquire, and what partnerships they can explore in creating a much healthier and more sustainable system of communication including scholarly publishing services.<br />
Scholarly communication is a gloriously complex activity and draws on an ever-expanding and ever-evolving range of institutions and infrastructure. Whatever piece of that process we choose to label publishing will be similarly complex, expanding, and evolving. No single set of participants understands fully all of the efforts others make (and I must note that we have not mentioned many of the key participants yet in this thread of discussion).

Libraries such as those among the DLF membership surely are quite capable of developing and supporting the kinds of sophisticated publishing services you describe even if many librarians do not today have a complete understanding of the traditional services presses provide. Institutions like Columbia, Michigan, the CDL, Penn State, and Rice are certainly not approaching their explorations of publishing support naively, nor without drawing on substantial expertise from the publishing community. Surely at least some university presses (judging from last week's university press-sponsored meeting on library-press partnerships) are eager to engage in rethinking their traditional activities to better align them with their sponsoring institutions' research enterprises and hopefully therefore re-engaging broader institutional support.

It is hyperbole to suggest that libraries imagine that they are ready to replace university presses today. They are, appropriately, quite ready to talk about what they can do to advance scholarly communication and to begin exploring what new roles it may be appropriate for them to take, what new expertise they need to acquire, and what partnerships they can explore in creating a much healthier and more sustainable system of communication including scholarly publishing services.
]]> http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/shimenawa.php/2007/06/08/on_scholarly_communication_and_universit#c522 In response to: On scholarly communication and university presses Sun, 10 Jun 2007 07:27:54 +0000 Adam Hodgkin [Visitor] c520@http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/ The Oxford and Cambridge presses now have similar scale to their parent instituitions (number of employees, or revenues). Twenty five years ago OUP was also close to a financial crisis -- and its success in the last 40 years has had nothing to do with Bibles. Sandy Thatcher knows that no publisher can survive and prosper by living on a backlist. Both CUP and OUP have grown successful Journals and ELT (ESL) businesses which have been highly profitable and international. So it would now be quite impossible for these relatively large publishers to be rescued or recapitalised by institutional subsidy.<br /> <br /> Like Sandy I doubt that they are a good model for American University Presses, but I doubt that American UPs are a good model for universities in other countries. Its unlikely that the excellent and still emerging Chinese and Indian university systems will have anything like them. Having the best possible libraries and educational information systems -- that it is another goal and the University strategic planners in all countries must be giving the library considerable focus. But the multi-subject press based on a single institution? Not very likely that investment will go in that direction.<br /> <br /> The major international universities will surely continue to be forces in research publishing. I doubt that this will be exercised through the growth of University Presses on the American or the British model. BE press or PLoS are much more interesting as possible precursors of a new style university publisher, founded in the 'spirit' of the old-style university press, but with a distinctive market and technology capability.
Like Sandy I doubt that they are a good model for American University Presses, but I doubt that American UPs are a good model for universities in other countries. Its unlikely that the excellent and still emerging Chinese and Indian university systems will have anything like them. Having the best possible libraries and educational information systems -- that it is another goal and the University strategic planners in all countries must be giving the library considerable focus. But the multi-subject press based on a single institution? Not very likely that investment will go in that direction.

The major international universities will surely continue to be forces in research publishing. I doubt that this will be exercised through the growth of University Presses on the American or the British model. BE press or PLoS are much more interesting as possible precursors of a new style university publisher, founded in the 'spirit' of the old-style university press, but with a distinctive market and technology capability.]]> http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/shimenawa.php/2007/06/08/on_scholarly_communication_and_universit#c520 In response to: On scholarly communication and university presses Sat, 09 Jun 2007 17:29:37 +0000 Sandy Thatcher [Visitor] c517@http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/ To follow up further, i would remind Adam Hodgkin that Cambridge University Press nearly went bankrupt some twenty years ago and had to take radical measures to stay alive, and that OUP's financial success historically relies in great part on its sales of bibles. Neither CUP nor OUP thereforfe is necessarily a good model for American university presses, not to mention that none of our presses has a 500-year backlist!<br /> <br /> Chuck Hamaker is right on target about the lack of appreciation for the "people effort, networking," etc. I hope he will read my article on "The 'Value Added' in Editorial Acquisitions" as an attempt to shine light on this complex (and expensive) process. <br /> <br /> Paul Courant is right that book publishing is quite different from journal publishing in university presses, whose service for the latter has mainly been in production, circulation, and marketing rather than in editorial development My article makes this difference quite clear and shows why the role that presses play in book publishing is so much more valuable&#8212;I would even say essential&#8212; than in journal publishing. As for joint efforts by presses, he need look no further than his own CIC presses, which together with the CIC libraries, proposed a major joint effort in online monograph publishing way back in 1996. There is no reason that this idea can't be revived. <br /> <br />
Chuck Hamaker is right on target about the lack of appreciation for the "people effort, networking," etc. I hope he will read my article on "The 'Value Added' in Editorial Acquisitions" as an attempt to shine light on this complex (and expensive) process.

Paul Courant is right that book publishing is quite different from journal publishing in university presses, whose service for the latter has mainly been in production, circulation, and marketing rather than in editorial development My article makes this difference quite clear and shows why the role that presses play in book publishing is so much more valuable—I would even say essential— than in journal publishing. As for joint efforts by presses, he need look no further than his own CIC presses, which together with the CIC libraries, proposed a major joint effort in online monograph publishing way back in 1996. There is no reason that this idea can't be revived.

]]> http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/shimenawa.php/2007/06/08/on_scholarly_communication_and_universit#c517 In response to: On scholarly communication and university presses Sat, 09 Jun 2007 17:18:48 +0000 Sandy Thatcher [Visitor] c516@http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/ You're right, Peter, that the complexity of the process of acquisitions in scholarly book publishing is not well understood by librarians, administrators, or even by many faculty who are most directly exposed to it (because they don't see the whole picture, except for perhaps the relative handful that serve on press editorial boards). Our librarians at Penn State, some of whom have served on our editorial board (and therefore know more about the process at first hand than do many of their colleagues elsewhere) and a few of whom (like Bonnie MacEwan, now head librarian at Auburn) have had intensive exposure to this process, had the good sense not to try reinventing the wheel when they had aspirations to take on more of a role in publishing and instead helped us forge a very mutually beneficial alliance where we combine our respective strengths in an enterprise that is much more than the sum of the two parts, our Office of Digital Scholarly Publishing. Long ago I made an effort to illuminate the "value added" by editorial acquisitions in a 50-page article titled "Listbuilding at University Presses" that was the final article in a volume titled "Editors as Gatekeepers" edited by Rita J. Simon and James J. Fyfe (Rowman and Littlefield, 1994). In it I identified nine types of functions that such editors serve as part of the process of scholarly communication: hunter, selector, shaper, linker, stimulator, shepherd, promoter, ally, and reticulator. I later updated this essay and abbreviated it for an article in the Journal of Scholarly Publishing titled "The "Value Added' in Editorial Acquisitions" (available here: http://www.utpjournals.com/jsp/jsp302.html) http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/shimenawa.php/2007/06/08/on_scholarly_communication_and_universit#c516 In response to: On scholarly communication and university presses Sat, 09 Jun 2007 17:10:09 +0000 pbrantley [Member] c515@http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/ There are a couple of mis-readings here, already. In tacit agreement with Adam, I was not suggesting that in the developing New World of Publishing, existing presses would necessarily be any better at executing than other actors; thus my conclusion that there would be plenty of pain ahead for both libraries and publishers. However, as T Scott suggests, a lot of what publishing deals with, libraries don't see well enough to interpret, or at best nonchalantly gloss-over, to the detriment of the whole endeavor and dialogue. <br /> <br /> I was also trying to avoid the sector that Paul Courant pays the most attention to in his post: i.e., niche, domain focussed scholarly journal literature. I agree that a diversity of production and review models lends itself most readily to this market among all the sectors. Here indeed, a bold striking of new paths might be very interesting and rewarding, and I certainly bow to Paul's vision here. <br /> <br /> It is conceivable that we are perceiving the beginnings of a significant industrial shift whereby the Academy embraces the re-development of the micro-sectors of publishing that it is most concerned with, abandoning the remainder of traditional (longer-form) publishing to fully-exposed markets. (What forms survival might take in this latter domain, I leave to more informed speculation.) To a large degree, I would suggest the process of reclamation, triage, and abandonment is already under way, and the pain that many UP directors are feeling is in part a result. <br /> <br /> It is definitely the case that academic publishing consolidation might be an inevitable outcome of these changes. Newspapers may be our canaries.
I was also trying to avoid the sector that Paul Courant pays the most attention to in his post: i.e., niche, domain focussed scholarly journal literature. I agree that a diversity of production and review models lends itself most readily to this market among all the sectors. Here indeed, a bold striking of new paths might be very interesting and rewarding, and I certainly bow to Paul's vision here.

It is conceivable that we are perceiving the beginnings of a significant industrial shift whereby the Academy embraces the re-development of the micro-sectors of publishing that it is most concerned with, abandoning the remainder of traditional (longer-form) publishing to fully-exposed markets. (What forms survival might take in this latter domain, I leave to more informed speculation.) To a large degree, I would suggest the process of reclamation, triage, and abandonment is already under way, and the pain that many UP directors are feeling is in part a result.

It is definitely the case that academic publishing consolidation might be an inevitable outcome of these changes. Newspapers may be our canaries.]]> http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/shimenawa.php/2007/06/08/on_scholarly_communication_and_universit#c515