Andrew Odlyzko has self-archived "Open Access, Library and Publisher Competition, and the Evolution of General Commerce."

Here's an excerpt:

Discussions of the economics of scholarly communication are usually devoted to Open Access, rising journal prices, publisher profits, and boycotts. That ignores what seems a much more important development in this market. Publishers, through the oft-reviled "Big Deal" packages, are providing much greater and more egalitarian access to the journal literature, an approximation to true Open Access. In the process they are also marginalizing libraries, and obtaining a greater share of the resources going into scholarly communication. This is enabling a continuation of publisher profits as well as of what for decades has been called "unsustainable journal price escalation." It is also inhibiting the spread of Open Access, and potentially leading to an oligopoly of publishers controlling distribution through large-scale licensing.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography (paperback, PDF file, and XHTML website; over 1,100 entries) | Digital Scholarship |

Rebecca Gould has self-archived "Open-Sourcing the Global Academy: Aaron Swartz's Legacy" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

This essay examines Swartz's Open Access vision, and traces the challenges he faced in carrying out his dream. Arguing that Open Access is the future of scholarship in the digital age, I outline concrete strategies for bringing Swartz's dream to fruition.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog | Digital Scholarship |

Diane J. Graves has self-archived "Scholarly Communications and the Role of the Liberal Arts College Library" in Digital Commons @ Trinity.

Here's an excerpt:

One of the most puzzling aspects of the entire conversation around scholarly communication—the impact of existing models, the search for alternatives, the need for advocacy—is the assumption that it is the purview of Carnegie Research I institutions first and foremost, followed by those institutions with robust doctoral programs. The corollary is that small academic libraries—college libraries at liberal arts institutions, in particular—are not significant players in the conversation, nor should they be. Many in the academy, including those who work at such institutions, tend to think that the liberal arts college environment is too small to have a significant voice in the debate over alternatives to traditional models. . . .

Scenarios that look ahead to the next decade and beyond would be wise to look closely at the impact the small college library can have on the very lifeblood and purpose of libraries: the collection and dissemination of scholarly content.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography (paperback, PDF file, and XHTML website; over 1,100 entries) | Digital Scholarship |

Thomas L. Reinsfelder has self-archived his "Academic Administrator Influence on Institutional Commitment to Open Access of Scholarly Research" dissertation in Indiana University of Pennsylvania DSpace

Here's an excerpt:

This quantitative study investigated the interrelationships among faculty researchers, publishers, librarians, and academic administrators when dealing with the open access of scholarly research. This study sought to identify the nature of any relationship between the perceived attitudes and actions of academic administrators and an institution's commitment to open access as reported by library directors. A survey research design was used to collect data based on perceptions of library directors at four year colleges and universities in the United States. Results of this study show that as academic administrator attention to open access increases so do the open access activities of faculty and librarians. Information presented may benefit members in each stakeholder group by allowing them to better position their organizations for future success in a complex environment. This study may also benefit advocates of open access who wish to expand services and other initiatives that encourage the greater accessibility of scholarly work.

| Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 (paperback and PDF file; over 600 entries) | Digital Scholarship |

Walt Crawford has published “Catching Up on Open Access 2” in the latest issue of Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large. See also: “Catching Up on Open Access, Part 1.”

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Mark J. McCabe, Christopher M. Snyder, and Anna Fagin have self-archived "Open Access Versus Traditional Journal Pricing: Using a Simple 'Platform Market' Model to Understand Which Will Win (and Which Should)" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt :

Economists have built a theory to understand markets in which, rather than selling directly to buyers, suppliers sell through a platform, which controls prices on both sides. The theory has been applied to understand markets ranging from telephony, to credit cards, to media. In this paper, we apply the theory to the market for scholarly journals, with the journal functioning as the platform between submitting authors and subscribing readers. Our goal is to understand the conditions under which a journal would prefer open access to traditional pricing and under which open access would be better for the scholarly community. Our new model captures much of the richness of the existing economic literature on journal pricing, and indeed adds some fresh insights, yet is simple enough to be accessible to a broad audience.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography (XHTML version) | Digital Scholarship |

Sean Burns, Amy Lana, and John M. Budd have published "Institutional Repositories: Exploration of Costs and Value" in the latest issue of D-Lib Magazine.

Here's an excerpt:

Little is known about the costs academic libraries incur to implement and manage institutional repositories and the value these institutional repositories offer to their communities. To address this, the authors report the findings of their 29 question survey of academic libraries with institutional repositories. . . . The highlights of our findings, based on median values, suggest that institutions that mediate submissions incur less expense than institutions that allow self-archiving, institutions that offer additional services incur greater annual operating costs than those who do not, and institutions that use open source applications have lower implementation costs but comparable annual operating costs with institutions that use proprietary solutions. Furthermore, changes in budgeting, from special initiative to absorption into the regular budget, suggest a trend in sustainable support for institutional repositories.

| Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 | Digital Scholarship |

Jevin West, Theodore Bergstrom, and Carl T. Bergstrom have self-archived "Cost-Effectiveness of Open Access Publications" at eigenfactor.org.

Here's an excerpt:

Open access publishing has been proposed as one possible solution to the serials crisis—the rapidly growing subscription prices in scholarly journal publishing. However, open access publishing can present economic pitfalls as well, such as excessive publication charges. We discuss the decision that an author faces when choosing to submit to an open access journal. We develop an interactive tool to help authors compare among alternative open access venues and thereby get the most for their publication fees.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

ARL has released the Organization of Scholarly Communication Services, SPEC Kit 332.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has published Organization of Scholarly Communication Services, SPEC Kit 332, which explores how research institutions are currently organizing staff to support scholarly communication services, and whether their organizational structures have changed since 2007, when member libraries were surveyed about their scholarly communication education initiatives. This SPEC Kit covers who leads scholarly communication efforts inside and outside the library, the scholarly communication related services that are offered to researchers, and which staff support those services. The publication also looks at how the library measures the success of its scholarly communication services, including demonstrable outcomes of these services.

| Digital Scholarship's 2012 Publications | Digital Scholarship |

Eun G. Park and Sam Oh have published "Examining Attributes of Open Standard File Formats for Long-Term Preservation and Open Access" in the latest issue of Information Technology and Libraries.

Here's an excerpt:

This study examines the attributes that have been used to assess file formats in literature and compiles the most frequently used attributes of file formats in order to establish open standard file format selection criteria. A comprehensive review was undertaken to identify the current knowledge regarding file format selection criteria. The findings indicate that the most common criteria can be categorized into five major groups: functionality, metadata, openness, interoperability and independence. These attributes appear to be closely related. Additional attributes include presentation, authenticity, adoption, protection, preservation, reference and others.

| Digital Curation Resource Guide | Digital Scholarship |

MedOANet has released the Open Access Tracker.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

MedOANet (Mediterranean Open Access Network) is a two-year project funded under the Science in Society Programme of the EC 7th Framework Programme. The project enhances existing policies, strategies and structures for Open Access and contributes towards the implementation of new ones in six Mediterranean countries: Greece, Turkey, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal. . . .

The Open Access Tracker brings together information on journals, repositories, institutional policies, funder's policies and publishers' self-archiving policies, representing Open Access activities in the six countries.

| Digital Scholarship |

Amherst College has established an open access press, the Amherst College Press.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Conceived by Amherst College Librarian Bryn Geffert, Amherst College Press will be housed in the college's Frost Library and will solicit manuscripts from scholars who may be especially receptive to new publishing paradigms at a time when traditional academic presses are reducing the number of titles they publish. . . .

At the outset, Amherst College Press will publish solely in liberal arts disciplines such as political science, literary studies, history, economics and anthropology—areas for which Amherst is well known. The press will produce books in formats that will be suitable for most e-readers; print-on-demand may be available. The press will not focus on print production or distribution. . . .

Funding for the press will come from the Frost Library and from an endowed position for which the college is currently raising money. The college also expects that the content of the Amherst College-affiliated literary magazine The Common will be freely available online under the open-access model governing the press, while The Common will continue to use its own resources to produce the publication's print version.

Read more about it at "Frequently Asked Questions."

| Digital Scholarship | Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography |

| Digital Scholarship |