The National Humanities Alliance has released The Future of Scholarly Journals Publishing Among Social Science and Humanities Associations.
Here's an excerpt from the press release:
In December 2006, the National Humanities Alliance (NHA) charged a Task Force with developing projects to assist NHA members in exploring issues related to scholarly journal publishing in humanities and social science (HSS) associations.
The Task Force needed current business data on HSS journal publishing, and it approached several larger humanities and social science societies to participate in a pilot study that would produce comparable data on HSS journal publishing and financing. The study set out to enable society publishers to better understand their business models over time, to make relevant comparisons with models employed in other disciplines, and to assess potential changes in their models that would help them deliver journal content to the widest possible audience on an economically sustainable basis. The participating societies are: the American Academy of Religion, American Anthropological Association, American Economic Association, American Historical Association, American Political Science Association, American Sociological Association, American Statistical Association, and the Modern Language Association.
With generous support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through a grant to the American Anthropological Association, the eight scholarly societies engaged the professional guidance of Mary Waltham, an independent consultant with recognized expertise in the publishing field who had conducted a similar study of scientific, technical and medical (STM) journals for the UK's Joint Information Systems Committee. Waltham developed the data collection templates, and gathered detailed cost and revenue information on the flagship journals of the participating HSS societies for a three-year period, 2005- 2007.
