Open Access Publishing: PeerJ Announced

PeerJ has issued a press release about its open access publishing services.

Here's an excerpt:

PeerJ Inc. (http://peerj.com), a new Open Access academic publishing company, formally announced itself today. Founded by seasoned academic publishing and technology professionals from PLoS ONE and Mendeley, PeerJ will publish a broad based, rapid, peer-reviewed journal ('PeerJ') and an innovative preprint server ('PeerJ PrePrints'). PeerJ will open for submissions in Summer 2012, and will publish its first articles in December 2012. . . .

PeerJ will publish all well reported, scientifically sound research in the Biological and Medical Sciences. The journal will operate a rigorous peer review process and will deliver the highest standards in everything it does. . . .

Unique among academic publishers, PeerJ provides authors with low cost lifetime memberships giving them the rights to publish their papers freely thereafter. Three membership plans exist—Basic, Enhanced and Investigator. All member plans confer lifetime rights, and the three tiers allow members to publish once, twice, or an unlimited number of times per year in PeerJ. Each author on a paper must be a member and the Basic membership plan is just $99.

Read more about it at "Scholarly Publishing 2012: Meet PeerJ."

| Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals | Digital Scholarship |

Association of American Publishers Issues Statement on Georgia State University E-Reserves Copyright Case Ruling

The Association of American Publishers has issued a statement on the Georgia State University e-reserves copyright case ruling.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

At the same time, we are disappointed with aspects of the Court's decision. Most importantly, the Court failed to examine the copying activities at GSU in their full context. Many faculty members have provided students with electronic anthologies of copyrighted course materials which are not different in kind from copyrighted print materials. In addition, the Court's analysis of fair use principles was legally incorrect in some places and its application of those principles mistaken. As a result, instances of infringing activity were incorrectly held to constitute fair use. . . .

The Court's ruling has important implications for the ongoing vitality of academic publishing as well as the educational mission of colleges and universities. Contrary to the findings of the Court, if institutions such as GSU are allowed to offer substantial amounts of copyrighted content for free, publishers cannot sustain the creation of works of scholarship. The resources available to educators will be fundamentally impaired.

| E-science and Academic Libraries Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

"Issue Brief: GSU Fair Use Decision Recap and Implications"

ARL has released "Issue Brief: GSU Fair Use Decision Recap and Implications."

Here's an excerpt:

Although the decision is certainly not perfect (the use of bright line rules for appropriate amount under factor 3 is particularly troubling), Judge Evans has written a thorough and thoughtful analysis of the issues, and her opinion represents an overwhelming victory for Georgia State individually, a major defeat for the plaintiff publishers and for the AAP and CCC, and overall a positive development for libraries generally. The substance of the opinion is not ideal, but it is far more generous than the publishers have sought, it establishes a very comfortable safe harbor for fair use of books on e-reserve, and libraries remain free to take more progressive steps.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog | Digital Scholarship |

Georgia State University E-Reserves Copyright Case Ruling (Cambridge University Press et al. v. Patton et al.)

The ruling is in for the Cambridge University Press et al. v. Patton et al. case.

Here's an excerpt from the ruling:

Of the 99 alleged infringements that Plaintiffs maintained at the start of trial, only 75 were submitted for post-trial findings of fact and conclusions of law. This Order concludes that the unlicensed use of five excerpts (of four different books) infringed Plaintiffs' copyrights. The question now is whether Georgia State's 2009 Copyright Policy caused those infringements. The Court finds that it did, in that the policy did not limit copying in those instances to decidedly small excerpts as required by this Order. Nor did it proscribe the use of multiple chapters from the same book. Also, the fair use policy did not provide sufficient guidance in determining the "actual or potential effect on the market or the value of the copyrighted work," a task which would likely be futile for prospective determinations (in advance of litigation). The only practical way to deal with factor four in advance likely is to assume that it strongly favors the plaintiff-publisher (if licensed digital excerpts are available).

Read more about it at "The GSU Decision—Not an Easy Road for Anyone" and “Inside the Georgia State Opinion.”

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010: "SEP [Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography] is compiled with utter professionalism. It reminds me of the work of the best artisans who know not only every item that leaves their workshops, but each component used to create them—providing the ideal quality control." — Péter Jacsó ONLINE 27, no. 3 (2003): 73-76. | Digital Scholarship |

Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research for Voluntary and Charitable Sector Organisations

JISC has released Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research for Voluntary and Charitable Sector Organisations.

Here's an excerpt:

We have learned in this study that the voluntary and charitable sector has an appetite and need for scholarly research that it cannot currently satisfy. The organisations contributing to the study have described the importance of research to the voluntary and charitable sector's commitment to playing its very distinctive role in the most effective way it can. In scoping interviews, case studies and survey responses, VCOs have identified a consistent set of barriers to accessing research. They have shown too that they are creative and resourceful, finding ways to overcome these barriers some of which might place them on or over the border of copyright infringement. We do not think that VCOs should be put in the position of having to choose between what is legally permitted and what they feel is ethically required of them in order to fulfil their charitable objectives. We think too that if the VCS is being asked to expand its role and play an increasing part in delivering public services, then access to research is essential. In this final chapter, we provide some recommendations which, we hope, will go some way to widening the voluntary and charitable sector's access to scholarly research outputs.

| Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals: This is an excellent resource for its extensive background documentation of the open access arguments and issues. — Ann Jensen, Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, no. 43 (2005) | Digital Scholarship |

Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research to the Public Sector

JISC has released Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research to the Public Sector.

Here's an excerpt:

The total cost to the public sector of accessing journal papers is around £135 million per annum. The savings that accrue from the availability of Open Access articles (using both Green and Gold routes) amount to £28.6 million (£26 million in access fees and £2.6 million in time savings).

Extending the number or articles available through Open Access further increases the potential for savings. Each extra 5% of journal papers accessed via Open Access would save the public sector £1.7 million, even if no subscription fees were to be saved. Increasing the number of journal papers accessed through Open Access to 25% would save the public sector an extra £29 million.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography: "This work gives an outstanding overview of scholarship relating to the growing Open Access movement." — George Machovec, The Charleston Advisor 12, no. 2 (2010): 3. | Digital Scholarship |

"Fully Digital: Policy and Process Implications for the AAS"

Chris Biemesderfer has self-archived "Fully Digital: Policy and Process Implications for the AAS" in arXiv.org.

Here's an excerpt:

In the near term, we anticipate that enterprise-scale printing will be phased out in the next 2-3 years, as the library subscribers to the journals stop acquiring the print products. We are going to be looking to web-to-print solutions so that customized print products can be specified by the customers themselves, thus allowing the AAS to focus on the larger issues of professional scholarly communication. In the meantime, we are thinking about a business model for the Society that offers only online subscriptions, and we are preparing to charge authors in 2011 based on the quantities of digital material that are submitted, rather than based on the number of typeset pages of the authors' text.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

"You’ve Signed on to the Boycott, Now What? A SPARC Guide for Campus Action"

SPARC has released "You've Signed on to the Boycott, Now What? A SPARC Guide for Campus Action."

Here's an excerpt:

In light of the recent, failed attempt to abridge access to scholarly articles via the Research Works Act (RWA), a growing number of researchers have expressed their frustration with the status quo in scholarly publishing, and are interested in learning about concrete actions that they can take to effect positive change. SPARC has prepared this resource for our members, to help you to engage your faculty and researchers, and talk with them about options for taking such action.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography: "This bibliography is recommended for everyone interested in open access publishing." — M. Blobaum, Journal of the Medical Library Association 100, no. 1 (2012): 73. | Digital Scholarship |

The Rise of E-reading

The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project has released The Rise of E-reading.

Here's an excerpt:

One-fifth of American adults (21%) report that they have read an e-book in the past year, and this number increased following a gift-giving season that saw a spike in the ownership of both tablet computers and e-book reading devices such as the original Kindles and Nooks. In mid-December 2011, 17% of American adults had reported they read an e-book in the previous year; by February, 2012, the share increased to 21%.

| Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 | Digital Scholarship |

Nature Publishing Group Launches Linked Data Platform and Puts Data in Public Domain

The Nature Publishing Group has launched a linked data platform.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) today is pleased to join the linked data community by opening up access to its publication data via a linked data platform. NPG's Linked Data Platform is available at http://data.nature.com.

The platform includes more than 20 million Resource Description Framework (RDF) statements, including primary metadata for more than 450,000 articles published by NPG since 1869. In this first release, the datasets include basic citation information (title, author, publication date, etc) as well as NPG specific ontologies. These datasets are being released under an open metadata license, Creative Commons Zero (CC0), which permits maximal use/re-use of this data.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |

"FPRAA Takes Center Stage at Congressional Hearing"

In "FPRAA Takes Center Stage at Congressional Hearing, Andrea Higginbotham summarizes the House Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight’s recent hearing on Federally Funded Research: Examining Public Access and Scholarly Publication Interests.

The hearing also featured testimonies from two members of scholarly societies—Fred Dylla (the American Institute of Physics), and Crispin Taylor (the American Society of Plant Biologists) who expressed concerns with various components of FRPAA. They argued that the current system is working well, and worried that their societies—which are currently funded almost entirely from revenue from subscription based publications—would see a significant decrease in revenue if FRPAA were to be enacted. . . .

Dr. Stuart Shieber, Director of the Office for Scholarly Communication at Harvard University, argued that open access to research is an intrinsic public good. He quoted Thomas Jefferson, noting "the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people."

Shieber suggested that traditional publishing market is a dysfunctional one—library budgets for serials continue to shrink while journal profit margins increase. He spoke to the growing body of research demonstrating the economic growth occurs from increased innovations from openly accessible research. He discussed several forward-thinking open access publishing models, and focused on the need for policies that facilitate full utility of digital information in order to enable scholarship and research.

Read more about it at the previous DigitalKoans post, "House Hearing on Federally Funded Research: Examining Public Access and Scholarly Publication Interests" (lists testimony and other documents from the hearing).

Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography: "This bibliography is recommended for everyone interested in open access publishing." — M. Blobaum, Journal of the Medical Library Association 100, no. 1 (2012): 73.

House Hearing on Federally Funded Research: Examining Public Access and Scholarly Publication Interests

The House Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight held a hearing today on Federally Funded Research: Examining Public Access and Scholarly Publication Interests.

Here are the documents that have been released for this hearing:

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography: "This work gives an outstanding overview of scholarship relating to the growing Open Access movement." — George Machovec, The Charleston Advisor 12, no. 2 (2010): 3. | Digital Scholarship |

"Wait for It. . . Commons, Copyright and the Private (Re)Ordering of Scientific Publishing"

Jorge L. Contreras has self-archived "Wait for It. . . Commons, Copyright and the Private (Re)Ordering of Scientific Publishing" in SSRN.

In this paper, Contreras critiques various open access strategies, and he proposes that publishers be granted one-year exclusive licenses as an alternative to these strategies.

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

"Enhancing Scholarly Publications: Developing Hybrid Monographs in the Humanities and Social Sciences"

Nicholas W. Jankowski, Andrea Scharnhorst, Clifford Tatum, and Zuotian Tatum have self-archived "Enhancing Scholarly Publications: Developing Hybrid Monographs in the Humanities and Social Sciences" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

Enhancing publications has a long history but is gaining acceleration as authors and publishers explore electronic tablets as devices for dissemination and presentation. Enhancement of scholarly publications, in contrast, more often takes place in a Web environment and is coupled with presentation of supplementary materials related to research. The approach to enhancing scholarly publications presented in this article goes a step further and involves the interlinking of the "objects" of a document: datasets, supplementary materials, secondary analyses, and post-publication interventions. This approach connects the user-centricity of Web 2.0 with the Semantic Web. It aims at facilitating long-term content structure through standardized formats intended to improve interoperability between concepts and terms within and across knowledge domains. We explored this conception of enhancement on a small set of books prepared for traditional academic publishers. While the project was primarily an exercise in development, the conclusion section of the article reflects on areas where conceptual and empirical studies could be initiated to complement this new direction in scholarly publishing.

For related information, see the SURF Enhancing Scholarly Publishing in the Humanities and Social Sciences project website.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, Version 80 | Digital Scholarship |

Library Publishing Services: Strategies for Success: Final Research Report

James L. Mullins et al. have self-archived the Library Publishing Services: Strategies for Success: Final Research Report in e-Pubs,. In 2011, a more detailed preliminary version of the report was released, and readers may want to consult that as well.

Here's an excerpt:

This report briefly presents the findings and recommendations of the "Library Publishing Services: Strategies for Success" project which investigated the extent to which publishing has now become a core activity of North American academic libraries and suggested ways in which further capacity could be built. The research described (consisting of a survey, some case studies, three workshops, and a set of further reading recommendations) was mainly conducted between October 1, 2010, and September 30, 2011. It was supported by a grant from the Institute for Museum and Libraries Studies, made to Purdue University Libraries in collaboration with the Libraries of the Georgia Institute of Technology and the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah.

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

"Scholarly Communication Strategies in Latin America’s Research-Intensive Universities"

Juan Pablo Alperin, Gustavo E. Fischman, and John Willinsky have self-archived "Scholarly Communication Strategies in Latin America's Research-Intensive Universities" in the SUSE Open Archive.

Here's an excerpt:

Open Access—scholarship that is "digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions" (Suber, 2011)—has dramatically changed the research landscape in universities worldwide in the twenty-first century. In Latin America, regional Open Access initiatives (if not officially labeled "open access") have permeated most research-intensive universities and national science evaluation systems and have begun to alter the way that local research is perceived. Furthermore, the prominence of Open Access, regionally and globally, has become a significant force in transforming previous traditions and systems used by universities in Latin America in the production and access to scientific knowledge, having a profound influence on its position within what might be thought of as the global knowledge exchange.

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

LITA Publishes First Open Access Issue of Information Technology and Libraries

The Library Information Technology Association has published the first open access issue of Information Technology and Libraries under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Here's an excerpt from the "Editor's Comments":

Welcome to the first issue of Information Technology and Libraries (ITAL) as an open-access, e-only publication. As announced to LITA members in early January, this change in publishing model will help ensure the long-term viability of ITAL by making it more accessible, more current, more relevant, and more environmentally friendly. ITAL will continue to feature high-quality articles that have undergone a rigorous peer-review process, but it will also begin expanding content to include more case studies, commentary, and information about topics and trends of interest to the LITA community and beyond. Look for a new scope statement for ITAL shortly.

Of special interest to DigitalKoans readers is Abigail J. McDermott's "Copyright: Regulation Out of Line with Our Digital Reality?" article.

| Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals | Digital Scholarship |

Digital Copyright: Authors Guild Files Motion for Partial Judgment on the Pleadings in Authors Guild et al. v. Hathitrust et al.

The Authors Guild has filed a motion for partial judgment on the pleadings in the Authors Guild et al. v. Hathitrust et al. case.

Here's an excerpt from the associated "Memorandum of Law in Support of Plaintiffs' Motion for Partial Judgment on the Pleadings":

Defendants are wildly exceeding the special privileges Congress granted to libraries under Section 108 by systematically digitizing, reproducing, distributing and putting at risk millions of works through their mass book digitization program. Defendants' so-called orphan works program is similarly inimical to the Copyright Act, as it violates Section 108(h)'s explicit limitation of libraries' use of orphan works to the twenty year period preceding the end of their copyright term. Neither fair use under Section 107, nor any other statutory exception under the Copyright Act, can justify Defendants' systematic and concerted digitization, reproduction, distribution and other unauthorized uses of millions of copyright-protected library books. Accordingly, Plaintiffs urge the Court to grant their motion for partial judgment on the pleadings.

Read more about it at "GBS: Authors Guild Goes for an Early Knockout," "Guild Motion Asks for Quick Ruling on HathiTrust's Fair Use Defense," and "A Masterpiece of Misdirection."

| Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

SURF’s EJME Project Releases Data File Plug-ins for Open Journal Systems

SURF's EJME (Enhanced Journals…Made Easy!) Project has released data file plug-ins for Open Journal Systems.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Internet makes it possible to present publications in combination with related research data, as Enhanced Publications. The Enhanced Journals…Made Easy project (EJME), which is funded by SURF, has designed a practical work process for publishers of Open Access journals so as to enhance academic journals with the associated data files. The project involved the development of two plug-ins for Open Journal Systems, a system for managing and publishing journals. Open Journal Systems (OJS) is the most frequently used open source package worldwide for academic journals.

| Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 | Digital Scholarship |

Journal of eScience Librarianship Launched

The Lamar Soutter Library has launched the Journal of eScience Librarianship.

The first issue's "full-length papers" are:

| E-science and Academic Libraries Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Pamela Samuelson et al. Send Letter to US District Court Judge Denny Chin about Authors Guild v. Google Case

Pamela Samuelson, Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law and Information at the UC Berkeley School of Law, and other scholars have sent a letter ("Academic Author Objections to Plaintiff's Motion for Class Certification") to US District Court Judge Denny Chin about class certification issues in the Authors Guild v. Google Case.

Here's an excerpt:

We believe that our works of scholarship are more typical of the contents of research library collections than works of the three named plaintiffs in this case. Betty Miles is the author of numerous children's books. Jim Bouton is a former baseball pitcher who has written both fiction and nonfiction books based on his experiences as a baseball player. Joseph Goulden is a professional writer who has written a number of nonfiction books on a variety of subjects, including a book about "superlawyers." None of these three are academic authors. Their books are aimed at a popular, rather than an academic, audience. As professional writers, their motivations and interests in having their books published would understandably be different, and likely more commercial, than those of academic scholars. Hence, our concern is that these three do not share the academic interests that are typical of authors of books in research library collections. As we explain further below, the clearest indication that the named plaintiffs do not share the same priorities typical of academic authors is their insistence on pursuing this litigation.

| Google Books Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Journal of Digital Humanities to Launch in March

The Journal of Digital Humanities will launch this March.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Digital Humanities Now is pleased to announce the Journal of Digital Humanities (ISSN 2165-6673), forthcoming in March 2012. In this comprehensive, peer-reviewed journal we will feature the best scholarship, projects, and tools produced by the digital humanities community in the previous quarter.

The Journal of Digital Humanities will offer expanded coverage of the digital humanities in three ways. First, we publish scholarly work beyond the traditional research article. Second, we select content from open and public discussions in the field. Third, we encourage continued discussion through peer-to-peer review.

The journal will be comprised of individual works that were selected as Editors' Choice in Digital Humanities Now. These works range from written texts, to visual arguments, to audio-visual presentations. In order to promote the peer review of non-traditional scholarship, each issue will include solicited reviews of digital tools. When the community focuses extensively on a particular topic, a special section of the issue will feature the broader conversation. In our inaugural issue, Natalia Cecire, a postdoctoral fellow at the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Emory University, will introduce and guest edit a special section about theory and the digital humanities.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, Version 80 | Digital Scholarship |

"A Study of Open Access Journals Using Article Processing Charges"

David J. Solomon and Bo-Christer Björk have self-archived "A Study of Open Access Journals Using Article Processing Charges".

Here's an excerpt:

Article Processing Charges (APCs) are a central mechanism for funding Open Access (OA) scholarly publishing. We studied the APCs charged and article volumes of journals that were listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals as charging APCs. These included 1,370 journals that published 100,697 articles in 2010. The average APC was 906 US Dollars (USD) calculated over journals and 904 US Dollars USD calculated over articles. The price range varied between 8 and 3,900 USD, with the lowest prices charged by journals published in developing countries and the highest by journals with high impact factors from major international publishers. Journals in Biomedicine represent 59% of the sample and 58% of the total article volume. They also had the highest APCs of any discipline. Professionally published journals, both for profit and nonprofit had substantially higher APCs than society, university or scholar/researcher published journals. These price estimates are lower than some previous studies of OA publishing and much lower than is generally charged by subscription publishers making individual articles open access in what are termed hybrid journals.

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

CLIR and NITLE Will Launch Anvil Academic, a "Digital Publisher for the Humanities"

The Council on Library and Information Resources and the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education will launch Anvil Academic, a "digital publisher for the humanities," in late 2012.

Here's an excerpt from the press release :

Anvil will focus on publishing new forms of scholarship that cannot be adequately conveyed in the traditional monograph.

"Increasingly, research in the humanities is dependent on large data sets and involves sophisticated algorithms and visualizations in the execution of that research and in the construction of the products of scholarship. Anvil will capture the environment in which this research is conducted: a linked ecology of scholarly expression, data, and tools of analysis that will over time become itself a place for new knowledge discovery," said CLIR President Chuck Henry.

Works published through Anvil will be available through Creative Commons licenses on the Web and as apps on portable devices. The title production system will be developed jointly by NITLE and CLIR for use by other institutions, each of which would have the opportunity to publish under its own imprint. . . .

"An important part of the Anvil experiment will be developing and testing new revenue models," said NITLE Executive Director Joey King. "Our current models, which rely heavily on institutional subsidies, author subventions, and revenue from sales of printed books, are not proving to be sustainable. With Anvil, we intend to explore alternative paths to sustainability as rigorously as we explore new publishing models."

The program received startup funding from the Brown Foundation, Inc., in Houston, Texas. Stanford University, the University of Virginia, Washington University in St. Louis, Bryn Mawr College, Amherst College, Middlebury College, and Southwestern University will also provide funds and staffing. Anvil Academic Publishing will work closely with innovative programs developed by the University of Michigan, especially MPublishing, and draw on Johns Hopkins University's exemplary experience with digital humanities project development.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |