Category: Library Publishing

"Harvard Library is Launching Harvard Open Journals Program"


Harvard Library is launching a new initiative called the Harvard Open Journals Program (HOJP), which will help researchers advance scholarly publishing that is open access, sustainable, and equitable. HOJP will provide publishing services, resources, and seed funding to participating Harvard researchers for new academic journals. All journal articles will be entirely free for authors and readers, with no barriers to publish or to access.. . . Yuan Li, University Scholarly Communication Officer and Director of Open Scholarship and Research Data Services at Harvard Library, pointed out the innovative nature of the program, "It is new for an institution to support faculty in seeking out an academic press to publish a no-fee open access journal and to provide assistance in securing its long-term funding. And offering a repository overlay journal model provides an alternative that appeals to some editorial boards and is gaining traction through initiatives such as Episciences. As we implement and refine this program on our campus, we hope it will inspire other universities to adopt such approaches to supporting barrier-free scholarly publishing."

https://tinyurl.com/ymkhs4db

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Knowledge Exchange Report: "Alternative Publishing Platforms. What Have We Learnt?"


  • From our sample, no pattern emerged of any discipline appearing to be more innovative than any others, and indeed most alternative platforms seemed to be open to use by all fields.
  • Most platforms within this survey were replacing the function of existing publishers in publishing research articles, books and conference proceedings. There was some innovation around peer review. Considering both of these aspects, only a small group of fewer than 10 of the 45 platforms should probably be described as truly exploring "alternative ways" of doing things.
  • Only 11 of the platforms said that they solely concentrated on the methodological quality of the work, 2 solely on the impact of the work. Most said it was up to the editors to decide on criteria for assessment — the platforms themselves were agnostic. This is an area where further work might help elucidate the philosophies of different platforms when it comes to research assessment.

https://tinyurl.com/59eknvy6

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"USC Press and University Libraries Launch Open-Access Publishing Platform"


The University of South Carolina Press and University Libraries are embarking on a new collaborative venture: Open Carolina, an open-access publishing platform. . . .

Many ventures into open scholarly resources are planned as temporary pilot operations because they are funded by time-limited grant pools. Thanks to consistent funding from the Libraries, Open Carolina has a sustainable model that will allow scholars with limited publishing funds to share their research via the platform, partially or totally foregoing associated fees. In its inaugural year, the Libraries aim to fund four full-length books and support is in place to make the program sustainable for years to come and allow Open Carolina to grow steadily.

Open Carolina will offer opportunities to a wide range of scholars and researchers regardless of university affiliation.

https://tinyurl.com/yn7zd3ta

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Digital Scholarship Has Released the Academic Libraries and Research Data Management Bibliography

The Academic Libraries and Research Data Management Bibliography includes over 345 selected English-language articles and books that are useful in understanding how academic libraries plan for, implement, provide, evaluate, and conduct studies about research data management (RDM) services. Most sources have been published from 2012 through 2023. It includes full abstracts for works under certain Creative Commons Licenses. It is available as a website and a website PDF with live links.

Digital Scholarship’s other bibliographies about research data curation include the Research Data Curation and Management Bibliography (over 800 works), the Research Data Publication and Citation Bibliography (over 225 works), and the Research Data Sharing and Reuse Bibliography (over 200 works).

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"Library Publishing Coalition Releases 2021-2022 Annual Report"


In addition to outlining the LPC’s finances, assets, and membership, the Annual Report highlights several programmatic milestones, including:

  • Deliverables from the Library Publishing Workflows project
  • A landscape scan undertaken by the Preservation Task Force
  • The launch of a joint project between LPC, ARL, and AUP to build connections between university-based publishing communities.

https://cutt.ly/eNDIWtC

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Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography, Version 2

The Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography, Version 2 includes over 175 selected English-language articles, books, and technical reports that are useful in understanding the digital scholarly publishing activities of academic libraries since the late 1980's, especially their open access book and journal publishing activities. The bibliography covers the following subtopics: pioneering academic library publishing projects in the 1980's and 1990's, early digital journals and serials published by librarians (as distinct from libraries), library-based scholarly publishing since the Budapest Open Access Initiative, technical publishing infrastructure, and library and university press mergers/partnerships and other relevant works.

Most sources have been published from January 2002 through July 2021; however, a limited number of earlier key sources are also included. The bibliography has links to included works. Abstracts are included in this bibliography if a work is under a Creative Commons Attribution License (BY and national/international variations), a Creative Commons public domain dedication (CC0), or a Creative Commons Public Domain Mark and this is clearly indicated in the work.

The Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography is under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

A Look Back at 32 Years as an Open Access Publisher | Research Data Curation and Management Bibliography | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

The Public-Access Computer Systems Review, an Open Access Journal, Was Launched 30 Years Ago This August

On 8/16/1989, the University of Houston Libraries launched The Public-Access Computer Systems Review (PACS Review). Its first issue was published in January 1990.

What were some of the distinguishing characteristics of this early digital journal?

  • It was a born-digital journal. Major journal publishers, such as Elsevier, would experiment with providing access to born-print journals in university settings starting in the mid-1990's.
  • It was peer reviewed by a distinguished international editorial board with members from Canada, the USA and the UK.
  • It was officially published by an research library.
  • It was a library and information science journal with librarians primarily acting as editors and editorial board members.
  • It allowed authors to retain copyright.
  • It had special copyright provisions for noncommercial use.
  • It was freely available.
  • It adopted an accelerated publication schedule to publish articles as quickly as possible.
  • It published articles by influential authors, such as Stevan Harnad, John Kunze, John Price Wilkin, Ann Okerson, Vicky Reich, and John Unsworth.
  • It allowed authors to publish updated versions of their articles.
  • It was issued an ISSN number in 1990.
  • It was indexed by three major index and abstracting services.

Below is a description of the journal. For information about other early digital publishing projects by libraries, see the Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography.

History of the Journal

After being authorized by Robin N. Downes, the University of Houston Libraries' visionary Director, the journal was announced on the PACS-L discussion list on August 16, 1989. A call for papers was issued on October 16, 1989. The publication of the first issue was announced on January 3, 1990. The journal was cataloged on OCLC and assigned an ISSN number (1048-6542) by the Library of Congress National Serials Data Program on February 1, 1990.

Initially, the journal published scholarly papers (Communications section), columns, and reviews. Papers in the Communications section were selected by the Editor-in-Chief and the Associate Editor, Communications. A private mailing list was utilized for communication with editorial staff and Editorial Board members. Most communication with authors was done via e-mail, including paper submission.

The PACS Review was published three times a year. New issue announcements were distributed as e-mail messages on the PACS-L discussion list, and users retrieved the ASCII article files from the University of Houston's LISTSERV via e-mail. (LISTSERV distribution was suspended in 1999.)

Authors retained the copyright to PACS Review articles, and they gave the University of Houston the nonexclusive right to publish the articles in the journal and in future publications. Authors could republish their articles elsewhere, but they agreed to mention prior publication of the articles in the PACS Review within these works. Copying of PACS Review articles was permitted for educational, noncommercial use by academic computer centers, individual scholars, and libraries.

On October 29, 1991, the journal adopted a more flexible publication schedule that reduced article publication time.

A Refereed Articles section of the journal was announced on November 11, 1991, and a call for papers was issued on February 6, 1992. The Refereed Articles section included papers that were peer reviewed by Editorial Board members using a double-blind review procedure, which was usually conducted via e-mail. The publication of the first refereed paper was announced on April 6, 1992.

Between 1992 and 1996, the first five volumes of The Public-Access Computer Systems Review were also published in book form by the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA). Walt Crawford prepared the camera-ready copy for these volumes and Charles W. Bailey, Jr. provided editorial support.

Starting on April 6, 1992, PACS Review issue publication announcements were also distributed on the PACS-P list.

On January 29, 1994, the distribution of the journal via University of Houston Libraries' Gopher server was announced. (Gopher distribution was suspended in 1998.) The journal ceased publishing reviews in 1994.

On March 9, 1995, the distribution of the journal via University of Houston Libraries' Web server was announced.

Starting with the first issue of volume six (March 21, 1995), the PACS Review: (1) published articles in both ASCII and HTML formats, (2) offered HTML articles with both internal and external links, and (3) gave authors the option of updating the HTML version of their articles. The first updated article was "Network-Based Electronic Publishing of Scholarly Works: A Selective Bibliography" by Charles W. Bailey, Jr., which was updated 25 times.

At the end of 1996, Mr. Bailey stepped down as Editor-in-Chief.

Pat Ensor and Thomas C. Wilson became Editors-in-Chief in January 1997. They edited volumes eight (1997) and nine (1998). Publication of the last issue was announced on June 18, 1998. Papers were under consideration for publication until August 2000, when the journal ceased operation.

During its nine years of publication, the PACS Review published 42 issues that included 112 articles, columns, reviews, and editorials.

The PACS Review was indexed in Current Index to Journals in Education, Information Science Abstracts, and Library Literature.

The journal is archived on the Internet Archive and the Texas Digital Library.

Editorial Staff

Editors-in-Chief

  • Charles W. Bailey, Jr., 1989-1996
  • Pat Ensor, 1997-2000
  • Thomas C. Wilson, 1997-2000

Associate and Copy Editors

  • Leslie Dillon, Associate Editor (1990) and Associate Editor, Columns (1991-1997)
  • Elizabeth A. Dupuis, Associate Editor, Columns (1997-2000)
  • John E. Fadell, Copy Editor (1998-2000)
  • Andrea Bean Hough, Associate Editor, Communications (1997-2000)
  • Mike Ridley, Associate Editor (1989-1990) and Associate Editor, Reviews (1991)
  • Dana Rooks, Associate Editor, Communications (1991-1997)
  • Robert Spragg, Associate Editor, Technical Support (1996-2000)
  • Roy Tennant, Associate Editor, Reviews (1992-1993)
  • Ann Thornton, Associate Editor, Production (1995-2000)

Editorial Board Members

  • Ralph Alberico (1992-2000)
  • George H. Brett II (1992-2000)
  • Priscilla Caplan (1994-2000)
  • Steve Cisler (1992-2000)
  • Walt Crawford (1989-2000)
  • Lorcan Dempsey (1992-2000)
  • Pat Ensor (1994-1996)
  • Nancy Evans (1989-2000)
  • Stephen Harter (1997-2000)
  • Charles Hildreth (1992-2000)
  • Ronald Larsen (1992-2000)
  • Clifford Lynch (1992-2000)
  • David R. McDonald (1989-2000)
  • R. Bruce Miller (1989-2000)
  • Ann Okerson (1997-2000)
  • Paul Evan Peters (1989-1996)
  • Mike Ridley (1992-2000)
  • Peggy Seiden (1995-2000)
  • Peter Stone (1989-2000)
  • John E. Ulmschneider (1992-2000)

Columnists

  • Priscilla Caplan (1992-1998)
  • Walt Crawford (1989-1995)
  • Martin Halbert (1990-1993)

Use Statistics

Only partial use statistics are available for the journal. LISTSERV use statistics were not tallied. From 1994 through 1996, the journal received over 81,000 Gopher requests. From March 1995 through 2006, the journal received over 4.2 million Web file requests.

Articles About the Journal

Speech about the Journal

Reviews of the Journal

A Look Back at 30 Years as an Open Access Publisher | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

The PACS-L LISTSERV List Was Established 30 Years Ago Tomorrow

Imagine the Internet without the Web. Imagine that there is no Google or similar search engine. Imagine that the cutting edge Internet applications are e-mail, LISTSERV, FTP, and Telnet. Imagine that the "Internet" is made up of a number of different noncommercial networks, and that the connections between them are not always transparent. Imagine that Microsoft only shipped one million copies of the second version of Windows last year, and you are using MS-DOS without a graphical interface. Imagine that no established publisher has even experimented with an e-journal.

That was the situation on June 29, 1989 when I launched PACS-L, a LISTSERV mailing list. PACS-L was one of the first library-oriented mailing lists, and it was unusual in that it had a broad subject focus (public-access computer systems in libraries). Although PACS-L's greatest contribution may have been in raising librarians' awareness of the importance and potential of the then fledgling Internet, it was also the platform on which my soon-to-follow open access journal, The Public-Access Computer Systems Review, was based.

In Remembering PACS-L, Roy Tennant said:

For quite a while this list was where everything new in librarianship was happening. Despite its name, topics well beyond public access computer systems were discussed and debated. It was, in a nutshell, an essential place to hear and be heard. Its like was never to be again, as since then online communication channels have burgeoned and diversified. But for a little while, at least, there was a single place to be. And it was PACS-L.

In its heyday, it became one of the largest LISTSERV lists as Walt Crawford recounts in "Talking about Public Access—PACS-L's First Decade":

PACS-L kept growing, reaching 4,000 subscribers in June 1992; 5,000 subscribers that December; 6,000 by April 1993; and 7,000 that October. The 8,000 mark was reached by March 1994, 9,000 by February 1995, and 10,000 by February 1996. The list itself never reached 11,000 subscribers, and by 1996 many other specialized library lists had joined the fairly general PACS-L.

PACS-L was a collaborative effort that involved a number of staff from the University of Houston Libraries, including these list moderators:

  • Nicole Abbott
  • Amelia Abreu
  • Charles W. Bailey, Jr.
  • Marianne Stowell Bracke
  • Nancy Buchanan
  • Diane Gwamanda
  • Jill M. Hackenberg
  • Jack Hall
  • Gretchen McCord Hoffmann
  • Sara Holland
  • Rafal Kasprowski
  • Anne Mitchell
  • Joan O'Connor
  • J. Michael Thompson
  • Linda Thompson
  • Dana C. Rooks

PACS-L ceased operation at the end of 2013.

You can find out more about the list at "PACS-L (The Public-Access Computer Systems Forum)."

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Libraries as Publishers in the Early 1990s

In recent years, there has been an upsurge in interest in academic and other types libraries acting as publishers and considerable discussion about how this will transform them.

What is sometimes lost in the excitement over the library publishing movement is historical context: this trend started over a quarter century ago at the dawn of the Internet age. While most e-journals published in the early 1990s were produced by scholars acting as digital publishers, at least two academic libraries established formal digital publishing programs in this period: the University of Houston Libraries and the Virginia Tech Libraries.

In August 1989, the Director of the University of Houston Libraries, Robin N. Downes, authorized the establishment and announcement of The Public-Access Computer Systems Review (PACS Review), the first open access journal in the field of library and information science. The journal began publication in January 1990, became refereed in November 1991, and ceased publication in August 2000. Authors retained the copyright to PACS Review articles. Unrestricted copying of PACS Review articles was permitted for educational, noncommercial use by academic computer centers, individual scholars, and libraries.

Only partial use statistics are available for the journal. It was initially distributed using the LISTSERV software, and LISTSERV use statistics were not tallied. From 1994 through 1996, the journal received over 81,000 Gopher requests. From March 1995 through 2005, the journal received over 3.5 file requests via the Web.

In October 1996, Robin N. Downes authorized the establishment of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, an open access, updated electronic book that provided references to new works related to scholarly electronic publishing, such as books, journal articles, magazine articles, technical reports, and white papers.

Between October 1996 and October 2006, 64 versions of the e-book were published by the University of Houston Libraries. There were over six million file requests for it during this period.

In the fall of 1989, Virginia Tech's Vice President for Information Systems, Dr. Robert Heterick, established the Scholarly Communications Project. The project was subsequently moved to the University Libraries, and it was directed by Lon Savage until December 1993, when Gail McMillan took over.

Since 1990, the Virginia Tech Libraries have published a number of e-journals, some of which were previously published by other entities prior to being migrated to the Libraries. Notably, the Scholarly Communications Project published the first issue of The Journal of the International Academy of Hospitality Research in November 1990. The journal was published in cooperation with Virginia Tech's Department of Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Management. It ceased publication in 1998. It is described in "The Journal of the International Academy of Hospitality Research."

The Virginia Tech Libraries' Scholarly Communication department currently publishes e-journals, conference proceedings, and open educational resources.

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Library Publishing Directory, Second Edition

Library Publishing Coalition has released the Library Publishing Directory, second edition .

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Published just in time for Open Access Week, the Directory illustrates the many ways in which libraries are actively transforming and advancing scholarly communications in partnership with scholars, students, university presses, and others.

In documenting the breadth and depth of activities in this field, this resource aims to articulate the unique value of library publishing; establish it as a significant and growing community of practice; and to raise its visibility within a number of stakeholder communities, including administrators, funding agencies, other scholarly publishers, librarians, and content creators.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

"Rice University Press: Nascentis Fame"

Fred Moody has published "Rice University Press: Nascentis Fame" in the Journal of Electronic Publishing.

Here's an excerpt:

Rice University Press (RUP), which began full operation in February 2007, proved a short-lived experiment. After three years of supporting one paid staff position and modest additional funding for contracted book design work, office expenses, and travel, Rice closed the press down as part of a larger, campuswide, budget-cutting effort. Faced with a choice between investing more financial and human capital in its press as a condition for gaining substantial foundation support or opting out of the experiment altogether, university administration chose the latter. Short-lived as the RUP experience was, it nevertheless offers some important lessons for people pondering the future of academic publishing and its inexorable move in a digital direction. There is no question that traditional printed-on-paper publishing is dying out and that it will be replaced by digital academic discourse distributed on a different economic model. There are, however, substantial questions about when and how this paradigm shift will come about, and the Rice University Press story may offer some answers.

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Library Publishing Directory

The Library Publishing Coalition has released the Library Publishing Directory.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Published in October 2013, the Library Publishing Directory provides a snapshot of the publishing activities of 115 academic and research libraries, including information about the number and types of publications they produce, the services they offer authors, how they are staffed and funded, and the future plans of institutions that are engaged in this growing field. . . .

Specifically it is hoped that this Directory will:

  • Introduce all readers to the emerging field of library publishing and help articulate its unique characteristics as a distinctive "publishing field."
  • Facilitate collaboration among library publishers and other publishing entities, especially the university presses and learned societies that share their values.
  • Alert authors of scholarly content to a range of potential publishing partners dedicated to supporting their experimentation with new forms of scholarly communication and open access business models.

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Maria Bonn Named Associate University Librarian for Publishing at Michigan

Maria Bonn has been named Associate University Librarian for Publishing at the University of Michigan Library. Bonn is currently the Director of Michigan's Scholarly Publishing Office.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"Scholarly publishing and libraries are both in tremendous upheaval as a result of major technological change," said Paul N. Courant, dean of libraries, who noted the new post has been created to oversee the library's growing suite of publishing and scholarly communications initiatives.

"We need leaders with the vision and insight to help us thrive in this new environment, and find new ways to support the academy's mission of communicating its discoveries and ideas," Courant said. "Maria Bonn is the right person to play this new and exciting role on behalf of Michigan and the academy more broadly."

For the last 10 years, Bonn has pioneered the production of electronic books and journals. Her role has included developing the profile of the library in scholarly communication. Under Bonn's leadership, the Scholarly Publishing Office was created.

The experimental publishing unit provides electronic publishing tools and systems for both born-digital and converted publications, publishes a reprint series of public domain works from the library's collections. The unit is also involved in several collaborative activities including the ACLS Humanities EBook project, the LLMC-Digital project, the Digital Culture Books Imprint, Open Humanities Press, and the Text Creation Partnership.

"Creating this new position signals a unique awareness on the part of the University of Michigan that the University's publishing activity can best be supported and grown in the context of the library," Bonn said.

According to Bonn, the library has already created a powerful publishing capacity by bringing together the University of Michigan Press, the Scholarly Publishing Office, Deep Blue, and the Text Creation Partnership under one umbrella.

"This alliance gives us the potential to make a significant intervention in mission-driven scholarly publishing," she said. "I look forward to building upon the existing strengths of the publishing units to create resources and services that meet the needs of the university and of the larger scholarly community."

Bonn will also serve as an advisor to the University community on issues surrounding scholarly publishing and communication policy and will support innovative projects in those areas both in and out of the library.

Bonn has a doctorate in American literature from SUNY Buffalo and a master's in information and library science from U-M. She published work on contemporary American literature, particularly the literature of arising from American involvement in Vietnam. She spent several years as an academic and instructor at universities including the Sichuan International Studies University in Chongqing, China and Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey.

After receiving her MILS in 1996, Bonn joined the U-M Library first as an interface specialist for the Digital Library Production Service, then in Digital Library Program Development, where she began the work that grew into the Scholarly Publishing Office.

ARL Publishes Research Library Publishing Services: New Options for University Publishing

The Association of Research Libraries has published Research Library Publishing Services: New Options for University Publishing by Karla L. Hahn.

Here's an excerpt from the "Executive Summary":

To foster a deeper understanding of an emerging research library role as publishing service provider, in late 2007 the Association of Research Libraries surveyed its membership to gather data on the publishing services they were providing. Following the survey, publishing program managers at ten institutions participated in semi-structured interviews to delve more deeply into several aspects of service development: the sources and motivations for service launch, the range of publishing services, and relationships with partners.

The survey verified that research libraries are rapidly developing publishing services. By late 2007, 44% of the 80 responding ARL member libraries reported they were delivering publishing services and another 21% were in the process of planning publishing service development. Only 36% of responding institutions were not active in this arena.

These libraries are publishing many kinds of works, but the main focus is journals; 88% of publishing libraries reported publishing journals compared to 79% who publish conference papers and proceedings, and 71% who publish monographs. Established journal titles dominate this emerging publishing sector and are the main drivers of service development, although new titles are also being produced. Although the numbers of titles reported represent a very thin slice of the scholarly publishing pie, the survey respondents work with 265 titles: 131 are established titles, 81 are new titles, and 53 were under development at the time of the survey. On average, these libraries work with 7 or 8 titles with 6 currently available. . . .

Peer reviewed works dominate library publishing programs and editors or acquisitions committees typically maintain their traditional roles in identifying quality content. Libraries often provide technical support for streamlined peer review workflows, but they are not providing peer review itself. The manuscript handling services provided by some publishing programs were a significant attraction to the editors of established publications.

Library publishing program managers report substantial demand for hosting services. Libraries increasingly are positioned to provide at least basic hosting services. Open source software such as the Public Knowledge Project’s Open Journal Systems and DPubs along with new commercial services such as those offered by The Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress) through Digital Commons allows libraries to support basic journal hosting relatively easily.

Advice and consulting regarding a variety of publishing practices and decisions are perhaps even more popular services. There are pressing demands for information and advice about issues such as moving print publications into electronic publishing, discontinuing print in favor of electronic alternatives, publishing works with limited revenue-generating capability, revenue generation, standards of various sorts, markup and encoding, metadata generation, preservation, contracting with service providers, and copyright management.

Indiana University Libraries Publish Open Access Journal

The Indiana University Libraries have announced that they are publishing Museum Anthropology Review in partnership with Editor Jason Baird Jackson, associate professor in the IU Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology.

Here's a description of the journal from its Submission Information page:

Museum Anthropology Review (MAR) is an open access journal whose purpose is the wide dissemination of articles, reviews, essays, obituaries and other content advancing the field of material culture and museum studies, broadly conceived.

Read more about it at "Editorial: Museum Anthropology Review Joins IUScholarWorks at the Indiana University Bloomington Libraries, Switches to Open Journal Systems" and "IU Bloomington Libraries Publish Their First Electronic Journal, Showcasing Faculty Partnerships."

Rice University Releases Travelers in the Middle East Archive

Rice University has released the Travelers in the Middle East Archive under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic License.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

IMEA provides access to:

  • Nearly 1,000 images, including stereocards, postcards and book illustrations
  • More than 150 historical maps representing the Middle East as it was in the 19th and early 20th centuries
  • Interactive geographical information systems (GIS) maps that serve as an interface to the collection and present detailed information about features such as waterways, elevation and populated places
  • Successive editions of classic travel guides and major museum collection catalogues
  • Convenient educational modules that set materials from the collection in historical and geographic context and explore the research process

TIMEA is able to offer seamless access for researchers by providing a common user interface to digital objects housed in three repositories. Texts, historical maps and images reside in DSpace, an open-source digital repository system. Educational research modules are presented within Connexions, an open-content commons and publishing platform for educational materials. TIMEA also uses Google Maps and ESRI’s ArcIMS map server.

Review by a Prominent Press, Publication by the Rice University Press

In the fall, Rice University Press will publish Images of Memorable Cases by Herbert L. Fred. What's unusual is that the book was first reviewed by "a prominent press," which deemed it worthy of publication, but decided that it was not economically viable to do so by conventional means. However, the Rice University press, a digital press that offers free online access and low-cost print-on-demand books, saw a good fit with its new The Long Tail Press program, which will publish books vetted by other presses that they cannot feasibly publish. The change in publication strategy brought the print copy price down to about $80 from a projected $175.

The Rice University Press is also starting a collaborative publishing effort with Stanford University Press, which will review books for potential publication, with the works either being published by Rice alone or by both Rice and Stanford in a "hybrid" print/online model.

Other Rice University Press postings: "Digital University/Library Presses, Part 11: Other Digital Presses," "Rice University Names Head of Its Digital Press," and "Rice University Press Publishes Its First Open Access Digital Document."

Source: Jaschik, Scott. "New Model for University Presses." Inside Higher Ed, 31 July 2007.

Rice University Names Head of Its Digital Press

Fred Moody has been chosen to head the reborn-digital Rice University Press. Based in Seattle (where he will remain), Moody is a journalist and author of books such as I Sing The Body Electronic, Seattle and the Demons of Ambition: From Boom to Bust in the Number One City of the Future, and The Visionary Position: the Inside Story of the Digital Dreamers Who Are Making Virtual Reality a Reality. Moody holds an MLS from the University of Michigan.

Below is an excerpt from the Rice News article ("Moody Tapped to Head Rice University Press"):

The press will start out publishing art history books and grow as peer review panels are added. A second imprint at the press—called Long Tail Press—will be added so publishing can be done in partnership with other university presses. It will allow for previously published books to be published again on a digital platform. It will also allow for books that have been accepted at fellow university presses, but haven’t been printed because of cost, to be published.

"My goal is to grow Rice’s reputation for quality first, and to grow the size of the press—in terms both of number of books published and number of disciplines published—almost as fast," Moody said. "The idea is not so much to grow a huge business as to grow the best forum in the world for scholarly research."

(Prior postings about digital presses.)

Rice University Press Publishes Its First Open Access Digital Document

The recently re-established Rice University Press, which was reborn as a digital press, has published its first e-report: Art History and Its Publications in the Electronic Age by Hilary Ballon (Professor and Director of Art Humanities at the Columbia University Department of Art History and Archaeology) and Mariet Westermann (Director and Professor at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University).

The introduction notes:

Just as we were finishing our report, Rice University Press announced that it would re-launch itself as a fully electronic press with a special commitment to art history. We were delighted to find Rice willing to partner with the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to publish our report electronically, with the kinds of hyper-linking, response capability, and print-on-demand options we consider vital to the success of scholarly publication on line. At Rice University Press, Chuck Henry, Chuck Bearden, and Kathi Fletcher generously steered us through the technological and legal process. We received enthusiastic support at CLIR from Susan Perry, Michael Ann Holly, Kathlin Smith, and Ann Okerson.

Like all digital works to be published by the press, this one is under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license. At this time, it does not appear that a print-on-demand version of the work is available from Rice University Press.

10th Anniversary Version of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography

Version 64 of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography is now available. This selective bibliography presents over 2,780 articles, books, and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet.

This is the 10th anniversary version of SEPB, whose first version was published in October 1996.

The PDF version of SEPB is produced annually. The 2005 PDF file is available (Version 60, published 12/9/2005).

The Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals, by the same author, provides much more in-depth coverage of the open access movement and related topics (e.g., disciplinary archives, e-prints, institutional repositories, open access journals, and the Open Archives Initiative) than SEPB does.

The "Open Access Webliography" (with Ho) complements the OAB, providing access to a number of Websites related to open access topics.

Changes in This Version

The bibliography has the following sections (revised sections are in italics):

Table of Contents

1 Economic Issues
2 Electronic Books and Texts
2.1 Case Studies and History
2.2 General Works
2.3 Library Issues
3 Electronic Serials
3.1 Case Studies and History
3.2 Critiques
3.3 Electronic Distribution of Printed Journals
3.4 General Works
3.5 Library Issues
3.6 Research
4 General Works
5 Legal Issues
5.1 Intellectual Property Rights
5.2 License Agreements
6 Library Issues
6.1 Cataloging, Identifiers, Linking, and Metadata
6.2 Digital Libraries
6.3 General Works
6.4 Information Integrity and Preservation
7 New Publishing Models
8 Publisher Issues
8.1 Digital Rights Management
9 Repositories, E-Prints, and OAI
Appendix A. Related Bibliographies
Appendix B. About the Author
Appendix C. SEPB Use Statistics

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Resources includes the following sections:

Cataloging, Identifiers, Linking, and Metadata
Digital Libraries
Electronic Books and Texts
Electronic Serials
General Electronic Publishing
Images
Legal
Preservation
Publishers
Repositories, E-Prints, and OAI
SGML and Related Standards

Further Information about SEPB

The HTML version of SEPB is designed for interactive use. Each major section is a separate file. There are links to sources that are freely available on the Internet. It can be can be searched using Boolean operators.

The HTML document includes three sections not found in the Acrobat file:

  1. Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog (biweekly list of new resources; also available by mailing list and RSS feed)
  2. Scholarly Electronic Publishing Resources (directory of over 270 related Web sites)
  3. Archive (prior versions of the bibliography)

The 2005 annual PDF file is designed for printing. The printed bibliography is over 210 pages long. The PDF file is over 560 KB.

Related Article

An article about the bibliography has been published in The Journal of Electronic Publishing.

Digital University/Library Presses, Part 2: Linköping University Electronic Press

The Linköping University Electronic Press publishes freely available digital conference proceedings, databases, journals, series, reports, and theses. It was established in 1996. As of April 2004, the E-Press became "an independent department within Linköping University Library." The E-Press has five staff members. There is an E-Press Governing Board.

Conference proceedings, journals, series, and reports have editors. The journals are peer reviewed. Two out of four journals appear to have ceased publication. A "news journal" that was related to one of the peer-reviewed journals also appears to be inactive. The other digital publishing programs (e.g., conference proceedings and series) are active. The E-Press ensures the Internet availability of works for at least 25 years after publication. Instructions for how to publish works in the E-Press are available, including how to start new conference proceedings, journals, and series. Site-wide use statistics are available.

Authors sign publishing agreements and retain their copyrights. In accordance with its copyright polices, the E-Press permits specified uses of its works:

  • To read and/or download LiU E-Press papers on-line, without restrictions.
  • To make single printouts of LiU E-Press papers for your own use in research, teaching, or otherwise.
  • To hand over a single printout of an LiU E-Press paper to a colleague in the course of work.
  • To quote short passages in an LiU E-Press paper, as well as the abstract, in order to describe, summarise, or argue against what is said there.
  • To download images, diagrams or cartoons on-line for personal use (i.e. not to spread it to other persons or on homepages).

It’s worth noting that Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, which appears to have ceased publication, used an innovative peer-review procedure:

  • Open reviewing during three months, where the article is advertised to the community of researchers in its specialized area, and a public, on-line discussion is organized about its contents.
  • Confidential refereeing after the open reviewing period has concluded. Here, leading researchers in the specialized area of the article weigh the article as well as the review discussion and decide whether or not to accept the article.

For more information on the Linköping University Electronic Press, see the FAQ.

Prior postings on this topic:

Digital University/Library Presses, Part 1: ANU E Press

Established in May 2004, the ANU E Press at the Australian National University fosters new scholarly publishing models, such as:

  • the production of electronic editions of academic monographs of interest to both scholarly and general-interest readers
  • web-based dissemination of digitally reformatted publications
  • support for presentation and dissemination of interactive publications and teaching materials
  • the development of technologies that enhance peer review while accelerating dissemination of scholarly publication

The ANU E Press has the following features:

  • open e-publication
  • institution-based repositories with appropriate listings and metadata/discovery mechanisms
  • a centralised repository
  • a low-cost, common-good funding model
  • moderation/peer review
  • copyright preserved by creators
  • facilities for access to and transfer of electronic information, for example, a print-on-demand facility

A representative ANU E Press title is Negotiating the Sacred: Blasphemy and Sacrilege in a Multicultural Society, which is freely available in HTML, PDF, and mobile device formats and can be ordered as a print-on-demand book.

A complete list of titles is available.

For more information, see the Frequently Asked Questions Web page.

UH E-Publications Have A New Virtual Home

The University of Houston Libraries’ e-publications have moved to a new server. The old URLs have been mapped to the new ones, but some minor Web page cleanup is being done to accommodate the new venue and searching is temporarily down. Pardon our digital dust.

PACS-L http://epress.lib.uh.edu/pacsl/pacsl.html
PACS-P http://epress.lib.uh.edu/pacsp/pacsp.html
Public-Access Computer Systems News http://epress.lib.uh.edu/news/pacsnews.html
Public-Access Computer Systems Review http://epress.lib.uh.edu/pr/pacsrev.html
Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography http://epress.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepb.html
Scholarly Electronic Publishing Resources http://epress.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepr.htm
Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog http://epress.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepw.htm

Update: Migration complete. Everything should be working now.

The Journal of Electronic Publishing Is Reborn

Good news! The Journal of Electronic Publishing is coming back after a long hiatus (the last issue was published in August 2002). New issues will be announced on PACS-P and other lists. See the press release below for details.

Contact: Maria S. Bonn Director, Scholarly Publishing Office, 734-763-3343, mbonn@umich.edu

Journal of Electronic Publishing Re-Launched by Library’s Scholarly Publishing Office

Ann Arbor, May 31, 2005—The Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan University Library will re-launch The Journal of Electronic Publishing (JEP) in January, 2006.

"JEP is an excellent fit for us in several ways," says Maria Bonn, Director of the Scholarly Publishing Office. "It is another outstanding journal that we can make available free over the Internet, it fits with our commitment to library-based scholarly publishing, and it covers the very area we are involved in, electronic publishing." Michigan’s Scholarly Publishing Office currently publishes 10 journals and four scholarly monograph series online.

JEP was started by the University of Michigan Press in 1995. In 2003 the press agreed to transfer the journal to the Columbia University Press, but the transfer was never completed and the journal—still at http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/—has had no new issues since then.

"Since its first issue, JEP has been a source of innovative ideas, best practices, and leading-edge thinking about all aspects of publishing, authorship, and readership in the electronic environment," says Mark Sandler, Collection Development Officer for the University of Michigan University Library. Returning after a three-year hiatus, JEP will "continue to document the changes in publishing with the growth of the Internet, and to stimulate and shape the direction of those changes."

The Scholarly Publishing Office (SPO; http://spo.umdl.umich.edu) was founded in 2001 to support academic publishing through a library-based publishing platform. SPO is also teaming with SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition; http://www.arl.org/sparc/index.html) on the recently announced Publisher Assistance Program to provide business planning and digital publishing services to facilitate open-access publishing in the social sciences and humanities. Those services will be available to JEP as well, ensuring its future and keeping it at its original University of Michigan home.

SPO’s first issue of JEP will be in January, 2006. "JEP burst on the scene with a focus on experimentation, vision, and prediction," Sandler said. He said that now, ten years later, electronic publishing practices have stabilized for some formats and markets (for instance, scholarly journals have shown significant convergence of distribution and pricing models), but that many unresolved issues remain for newspapers, trade books, magazines, and newer forms of publishing like blogs and wikis. "All aspects of electronic publishing still face considerable change and sometimes upheaval, and a great deal of the creative turmoil that JEP captured in the mid-nineties still challenges publishers, authors, librarians, and readers. We still struggle to understand author and reader preferences, and still search for stable economic models that will allow publishing to flourish in an age of electronic communication," he said. "The new JEP will continue to look back over the past 20 or 30 years to see how we’ve come to this point in the history of publishing, and look forward to where publishing may be heading. It will look inward at key players and practices of publishing, and also look outward at movements on the margins that are challenging traditional publishing interests, and at readers worldwide affected by the interplay of technological and economic forces that have revolutionized social communication."

JEP‘s editor, Judith Axler Turner, will remain at the helm, with editorial input and publishing support from Mark Sandler and Maria Bonn. A new editorial board will be constituted, and JEP will solicit articles that present wide-ranging and diverse viewpoints on contemporary publishing practices, and encourage dialogue and understanding between key decision-makers in publishing and those who are affected by the decisions being made.

The first new issue will focus on the changes in electronic publishing in the past three years, exploring topics such as the rise of open access publishing, the increasingly complicated intellectual property landscape, the rise of new communication technologies, and the new economics of scholarly publishing. JEP is actively seeking feedback on its new direction and is also looking for high-quality submissions on these topics. Authors and others are invited to discuss JEP‘s future or submit articles by contacting the editorial team at JEP-info@umich.edu. Back issues of JEP may currently be found at http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/