Partnering to Publish: Innovative Roles for Societies, Institutions, Presses, and Libraries Presentations

ARL has released presentations from its Partnering to Publish: Innovative Roles for Societies, Institutions, Presses, and Libraries meeting.

Here's an excerpt:

The Partnering to Publish seminar, jointly sponsored by the Society for Scholarly Publishing and the Association of Research Libraries on November 10, 2010, provided an occasion to learn about current partnerships between librarians and publishers in an environment where traditional roles are changing and to explore new opportunities for cost-effective and innovative joint ventures.

| Digital Scholarship |

RLUK Wants Serials Price Reductions to Avoid Cuts That Would "Fatally Compromise" Research

Research Libraries UK has issued a press release about needed serials price reductions.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

At its recent conference, RLUK announced it would not support future journal big deals unless they showed real price reductions. With a cut to the teaching grant and research budgets flat at best, RLUK members believe that unless this happens they will be forced to cancel significant numbers of subscriptions which will fatally compromise the UK's capacity for research.

For the past several years JISC Collections have negotiated with the publishers on behalf of UKHE. RLUK is so worried about the current situation that it has instructed JISC Collections to secure contracts which will not only rescind the unreasonable price rises of the last three years, but also offer affordable deals for the future. If reasonable deals cannot be struck RLUK libraries will be forced to provide information resources to their researchers and students in other ways.

"The capacity of UK universities to continue to pay such large year-on-year increases for access to scholarly journals is not infinite," said Professor Michael Arthur, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds and Chair of the Russell Group of Universities. "To ensure the continued vitality of the UK's world-beating research base we need to reassess the costs of electronic access and find a new balance between the value added by publishers and the charges they make. We realise that finding such a balance may not be easy, but if we fail to address the problem now there will be serious long-term consequences for research and teaching in the UK."

"The UK Higher Education sector now spends almost £200m per year on access to journals and databases," explained David Prosser, RLUK's Executive Director. "This is 10% of the total QR funding the sector receives and increases above inflation each year. We understand the value publishers add to the publication process, but publishers must also understand that they cannot continue to increase prices at a time when budgets are so tight. We do not wish to cancel big deals, but we shall have no alternative unless the largest publishers substantially reduce their prices."

"Some RLUK members now pay over £1m a year to access journals from the largest publisher," said Phil Sykes, Chair of RLUK and Librarian at Liverpool University. "With annual journal price inflation running at double the rate of RPI since 2000, it has distorted the acquisition policies of libraries, with an ever-increasing proportion of budgets being spent on electronic big deals. This leads to diminishing funds for monographs, textbooks, and journals from smaller publishers, which cannot but damage scholarship and teaching in UKHE."

| Digital Scholarship |

E-Only Scholarly Journals: Overcoming the Barriers

The Research Information Network has released E-Only Scholarly Journals: Overcoming the Barriers.

Here's an excerpt:

This study is prompted by a concern from publishers and librarians that the retention of both printed and e-journal formats adds unnecessary costs throughout the supply chain from publisher to library to user. In view of the many advantages of electronic journals, this report sets out to understand the barriers to a move to e-only provision of scholarly journals in the UK, and to investigate what various players within the scholarly communications system could do in order to encourage such a move.

This study involved a thorough literature review, gathering and analysing information provided by publishers and librarians, and interviews with a range of publishers, librarians and academics. The results are presented in this report, along with some recommendations for action.

| Digital Scholarship |

Emerald Group Publishing Limited’s Use of the Attributor Anti-Piracy Service

In "Thanks but No Thanks Emerald," Kristin Eschenfelder reproduces and discusses a letter that she received from the Emerald Group Publishing Limited. In short, this letter says that Emerald is expanding it's use of Attributor to detect copyright violations from "cyberlockers" to "the full breadth of the internet," and it requests the URLs for her personal, institutional, and corporate websites so that they can be excluded from Attributor searches and its "legally-binding takedown notices."

Will this expanded use of Attributor affect self-archiving of articles from Emerald journals?

Emerald's publication policies are detailed in its Authors' Charter and its Review Copyright Assignment Form. Emerald requires that authors assign their article copyrights to Emerald as a condition of publication.

The Authors' Charter states that (I have added italics in certain places in the below quotes):

Authors are not required to seek Emerald's permission to re-use their own work. As an author with Emerald you can use your paper in part or in full, including figures and tables if you want to do so in a book, in another article written for us or another publisher, on your website, or any other use, without asking us first.

It further states that:

It does NOT, in any way, restrict your right or academic freedom to contribute to the wider distribution and readership of your work. This includes the right to: . . . .

2. Reproduce your own version of your article, including peer review/editorial changes, in another journal, as content in a book of which you are the author, in a thesis, dissertation or in any other record of study, in print or electronic format as required by your university or for your own career development.

3. Deposit an electronic copy of your own final version of your article, pre- or post-print, on your own or institutional website. The electronic copy cannot be deposited at the stage of acceptance by the Editor.

Authors are requested to cite the original publication source of their work and link to the published version — but are NOT required to seek Emerald's permission with regard to the personal re-use of their work as described above. Emerald never charges its authors for re-use of any of their own published works. Emerald does not allow systematic archiving of works by third parties into an institutional or subject repository.

The Review Copyright Assignment Form says:

This assignment of copyright to Emerald Group Publishing Limited is done so on the understanding that permission from Emerald Group Publishing Limited is not required for me/us to reproduce, republish or distribute copies of the Work in whole or in part.

Given the above, it would appear that the author can: (1) self-archive an article on his or her personal website, (2) self-archive an article in his or her institutional repository, and (3) self-archive an article in a subject archive (the restriction is for “systematic archiving of works by third parties,” not self-archiving). Institutional repository staff or subject repository staff cannot archive articles for authors.

If this is not correct, it would be helpful to hear from Emerald what its interpretation of these documents is.

Unlike the RIAA and the MPAA, scholarly journal publishers have a limited primary customer base—academic libraries. Moreover, academic librarians are authors as well as customers, and, for some publishers, they are a significant subset of their authors. The endless serials crisis has already seriously strained relations between academic librarians and publishers. Hopefully, scholarly journal publishers will be sensible and sensitive to customer concerns in their attempts to cope with difficult digital copyright issues.

[See Emerald's reply in the comments.]

"First Results of the SOAP Project. Open Access Publishing in 2010"

Suenje Dallmeier-Tiessen et al. have self-archived "First Results of the SOAP Project. Open Access Publishing in 2010" in arXiv.

Here's an excerpt:

The SOAP (Study of Open Access Publishing) project has compiled data on the present offer for open access publishing in online peer-­-reviewed journals. Starting from the Directory of Open Access Journals, several sources of data are considered, including inspection of journal web site and direct inquiries within the publishing industry. Several results are derived and discussed, together with their correlations: the number of open access journals and articles; their subject area; the starting date of open access journals; the size and business models of open access publishers; the licensing models; the presence of an impact factor; the uptake of hybrid open access.

Self-Archiving Study: PEER Annual Report—Year 2

The PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research) project has released PEER Annual Report—Year 2.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Reporting on the past 12 months of activity in this ground breaking collaboration between publishers, repositories and the research community investigating the effects of Green Open Access, the PEER Annual Report highlights the complexity of the infrastructure required for PEER and the substantial progress achieved towards the project’s objectives.

To simulate the large-scale, systematic depositing of authors’ final peer-reviewed manuscripts accepted for journal publication, 12 participating publishers are providing content and associated metadata from 241 participating journals. Half of the manuscripts are being submitted directly to PEER, while for the other half, authors are invited by publishers to self-deposit into the project.

All submitted content is being received by the PEER Depot, a central repository created specifically for the project by INRIA, which undertakes filtering for EU research content, metadata matching and transformations, and embargo management prior to distribution to participating repositories.

By the end of year 2 (August 2010), almost 25,000 unique publisher provided manuscripts had been processed by the PEER Depot, resulting in 10,000 EU manuscripts after processing (some still under embargo), with embargo expired manuscripts distributed to participating repositories.

The three areas of usage, economic and behavioural research commissioned by PEER are well underway, with the Baseline Behavioural Report already publicly available from the PEER website.

New Shared Support Membership Option from BioMed Central

BioMed Central now offers a Shared Support Membership option.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Today, BioMed Central officially announced the launch of Shared Support Membership — a new and innovative Membership package for institutions that want to provide financial support for their researchers open access publications, but at the same time manage their expenditure.

Whilst many institutes encourage their researchers to publish in open access journals, with limited publication budgets, it is often a complicated process to apportion the right amount of funds to cover Article Processing Charges (APC’s). To alleviate some of the financial burdens, Shared Support combines the best of BioMed Central’s other Membership types (Prepay and Supporter) and splits the costs of publishing with BioMed Central down the middle — the institute pays 50% and the submitting author pays the remaining 50%.

This new Membership type therefore offers a more balanced, easier way to handle the cost associated with open access publication. It also allows both parties to benefit from significant discounts of between 5-15% depending on how much funding the institute decides to pre-pay into their Membership account.

There is no joining fee for Shared Support Membership. Members can also immediately benefit from the supply of automated repository feeds using SWORD, which ensure that any articles published in BioMed Central journals will be automatically deposited into their institutional repositories.

"The Google Book Settlement as Copyright Reform"

Pamela Samuelson has self-archived "The Google Book Settlement as Copyright Reform" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

This Article explains why certain features of U.S. law, particularly copyright law, may have contributed to Google’s willingness to undertake the GBS project in the first place and later to its motivation to settle the Authors Guild lawsuit. It then demonstrates that the proposed settlement would indeed achieve a measure of copyright reform that Congress would find difficult to accomplish. Some of this reform may be in the public interest. It also considers whether the quasi-legislative nature of the GBS settlement is merely an interesting side effect of the agreement or an additional reason in favor or against approval of this settlement.

Hindawi’s Open Access Journals Get Over 2,000 Submissions per Month

Hindawi's open access journals now receive over 2,000 article submissions per month.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Hindawi is pleased to announce that its growing portfolio of open access journals have collectively received more than 2,000 monthly submissions for this first time this August, only a year and a half after having passed 1,000 monthly submissions in February 2009.

"Over the past couple of years we have seen very strong growth both from new journals that we have developed as well as from many of our more well-established journals" said Mohamed Hamdy, Hindawi's Editorial Manager. "Our five largest journals have grown to more than 700 annual submissions each, and at the same time, quite a few of the journals that we have developed within the past two years are already receiving more than 100 annual submissions."

"We are very pleased with the steady growth that we have seen in our submissions during the three and half years since we converted the last of our subscription-based journals to an open access model" said Paul Peters, Hindawi's Head of Business Development. "I believe that the success that we have seen comes from the high level of service that we provide to our authors, as well as the rigorous editorial standards of our journals. Over the past few years we have rejected about two thirds of the submissions that we receive across our journal collection, and these high standards have enabled our journals to establish strong reputations within the academic community."

Helmholtz Association Signs with SpringerOpen

The Helmholtz Association, a group of 16 German scientific-technical and biological-medical research centers, has signed an agreement with SpringerOpen to support its researchers' open access publishing efforts.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Helmholtz Association has signed up for open access membership with Springer scientific publishing. The agreement means that the research centres in the Helmholtz Association will pay the fees charged to authors for articles published in SpringerOpen and BioMed Central journals. The Helmholtz Open Access Project assisted in the proceedings.

SpringerOpen journals are peer-reviewed open access journals in new, future-focused and interdisciplinary fields. They supplement Springer’s existing portfolio and that of BioMed Central, which offers over 200 open access journals from the life sciences and biomedicine. SpringerOpen journals appear exclusively online and are published under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which enables free dissemination of copyrighted content. The license does not give Springer exclusive rights to published content.

Authors pay an open access fee for articles they publish in SpringerOpen and BioMed Central journals, and their articles immediately appear in the relevant publication at www.springerlink.com. Dr Bernhard Mittermaier, head of the Central Library at Forschungszentrum Jülich, is enthusiastic about the agreement: "We believe that the open access journals offered by Springer are a good fit for the six research fields pursued by the Helmholtz Association. We are excited to be embarking on a partnership that will open up new possibilities for developing an open access forum for the findings of our researchers. This agreement is a step towards our goal of establishing sustainable mechanisms for ensuring fair publication fees for open access journals."

Digital Videos of ALA Panel Discussion on Life after the Google Book Search Settlement

The ALA Washington Office has released digital videos of the Panel Discussion on Life after the Google Book Search Settlement at ALA Annual.

Here's an excerpt from the panel announcement:

The ALA Washington Office is hosting the ALA ad hoc Google Task Forces' breakout session titled "Panel Discussion on Life after the Google Book Search Settlement (GBS)" which will explore the possible court rulings – approval, denial or permutation there in – and how libraries would be impacted.. . .

Jonathan Band, intellectual property attorney and counsel for the ALA, will lead the discussion and pose questions to an expert group of panelists. Invited panelists include a representative from Google (Johanna Shelton-confirmed), a professor from the New York University Law School (James Grimmelmann-confirmed), a representative from the U.S. Copyright Office and a librarian from a GBS participating library.

Springer to Offer New Open Access STM Journals

Springer will offer new open access science, technology, and medicine (STM) journals.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Springer is expanding its open access offering to all disciplines. SpringerOpen will cover all disciplines within the science, technology and medicine (STM) fields and will be offered in cooperation with BioMed Central. The entire content of SpringerOpen journals—including research articles, reviews, and editorials—are fully and immediately open access, and are accessible to anyone with an internet connection. No subscription is needed.

"We are seeing an increasing interest from our authors and from funders in all areas for open access publishing options and have responded to a need in the current market," said Wim van der Stelt, EVP Business Development, Springer. "We are happy to serve our authors and editorial boards with the publishing options they want and are also pleased to supply universities, research institutions and our other patrons with the ability to use this content online freely and conveniently."

SpringerOpen journals are e-only journals. Springer is committed to delivering high-quality articles and ensuring rapid publication as with its traditional journals, from online submission systems and in-depth peer review to an efficient, author-friendly production process. The final articles are not only published in a timely manner on Springer's online information platform SpringerLink, but are also distributed to archives such as PubMed Central and to institutional repositories as requested.

SpringerOpen journals are published under the Creative Commons Attribution license, which facilitates the open distribution of copyrighted work. According to this license, Springer will not reserve any exclusive commercial rights. The journals ask the authors to pay an article-processing charge, in accordance with market standards.

ICOLC “Statement on the Global Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Consortial Licenses” Reissued

The International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) has updated and reissued its "Statement on the Global Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Consortial Licenses."

Here's an excerpt:

The ICOLC is reissuing its Statement on the Global Economic Crisis to update information providers on the state of library and library consortia budgets in 2010. The updates below reinforce the ICOLC Statement in three substantial ways.

  1. ICOLC did not overestimate the severity of cuts to library and library consortia funding levels in its original Statement. Furthermore, we believe the worst may still be before us, as US state governments suffer the loss of stimulus funds and continued weak regional economies. All parts of the world are facing negative economic repercussions from the European debt crisis. The need for pricing restraint and options remains paramount.
  2. Fifty ICOLC member groups from around the world have participated in an anonymous survey to measure 2009 to 2010 price changes from over 30 major vendors and publishers of electronic databases and journals. This survey reveals that 38% of the price changes provided price control in the form of 1% increases or less. Seven percent (7%) of the price changes provided price reductions. We wish to commend those suppliers who have worked with libraries and consortia to contain prices. However, significant room for improvement remains. Some suppliers have done a much better job of containing prices than others. We call upon the full range of suppliers to show price restraint in 2010-2011 to enable customers to sustain as many information resource licenses as possible.
  3. We take this opportunity to highlight the added potential negative impact of exclusivity on prices, as well as access. A new Principle 3 on page 3 of this document expresses the strongly held belief of ICOLC members that, over the long-term, multiple distribution channels for licensed content provide the most affordable and suitable options for access across diverse library communities.

Swiss National Library Launches eBooks on Demand, a Fee-Based Digitization-on-Demand Service

The Swiss National Library has launched eBooks on Demand.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Swiss National Library (NL) now offers a digitisation on request service for out of copy-right books. This new paid service is known as "eBooks on Demand" (EOD). The NL already lists more than 100,000 books available for digitisation, which can be provided as a PDF to customers. . . .

To date, more than 100,000 books (mainly older publications, since only they are not under copyright) are available on request in digitised form, and can be delivered to users as an e-mail attachment, or by post on a CD.

Such works are marked in the online catalogue Helveticat (www.nb.admin.ch/helveticat) with the EOD symbol, which serves as a link to the order form. Submitting a form triggers an invoice; once this is paid, the reader receives the eBook. On request, for a small supplement, a paperback may also be supplied.

"eBooks on Demand" is a project of the NL and over 20 other libraries in ten European countries (www.books2ebooks.eu).

"Interview with Sarah Pritchard: The Changing Face of Academic Presses"

Information Today has published "Interview with Sarah Pritchard: The Changing Face of Academic Presses." Pritchard is the University Librarian at Northwestern University.

Here's an excerpt:

Q: The model that many advocate for OA books is making the text freely available online but sell the print version, so that etext will drive print sales. Do you see it as a viable model for NUP [Northwestern University Press]?

A: Absolutely, I see that as a very logical model, and I would envisage us moving to that model before we move to a totally OA environment. By the way, we are currently in the process of moving one of our journals to OA, which we are very excited about . . . TriQuarterly.

"The Google Book Settlement and the TRIPS Agreement"

Daniel J. Gervais has self-archived "The Google Book Settlement and the TRIPS Agreement" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

The proposed amended settlement in the Google Book case has been the focus of numerous comments and critiques. This "perspective" reviews the compatibility of the proposed settlement with the TRIPS Agreement and relevant provisions of the Berne Convention that were incorporated into TRIPS, in particular the no-formality rule, the most-favored nation (MFN) clause, national treatment obligations, and the so-called three-step test, which constrains the ability of WTO Members to provide new exceptions and limitations to copyright rights.

Digital Video of Intellectual Property Breakfast Club Session on Google Book Settlement

BroadbandBreakfast.com has released a digital video of the Intellectual Property Breakfast Club's the Google Book Search Settlement and E-Book Licensing session on May 11, 2010.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The panelists included:

  • Jonathan Band, Counsel, Library Copyright Alliance
  • Michael Capobianco, Vice President, Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America
  • Sherwin Siy, Deputy Legal Director, Public Knowledge

Cynthia S. Arato's Analysis of the Google Books Settlement

Cynthia S. Arato, a Partner at Macht, Shapiro, Arato & Isserles, has sent an eighteen-page memo on the Google Books Settlement to the Open Book Alliance that summarizes "the objections and argument that we lodged against the proposed settlement of the 'Google Books' lawsuit on behalf of leading foreign publishing and authors' associations, foreign publishers, and foreign authors."

Here's an excerpt:

Numerous provisions of the proposed Google Books settlement would, if approved, violate the treaty obligations of the U.S. For this reason, and because of its myriad other defects, the settlement should not be approved by the court. If the settlement is approved, it may give rise to legal action against the U.S. before an international tribunal and will certainly expose the U.S. to diplomatic stress.

Digital Video of Copyright, Content and Class Action Lawsuits: A Debate on the Google Book Search Settlement Meeting

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation has released a digital video of its Copyright, Content and Class Action Lawsuits: A Debate on the Google Book Search Settlement meeting.

Participants included:

  • Daniel Castro, Senior Analyst, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
  • Allan Adler, Vice President of Government Affairs, Association of American Publishers,
  • Peter Brantley, Director of Access, Internet Archive
  • Dan Clancy, Engineering Director, Google Book Search
  • Alan Inouye, Director, Office for Information Policy, American Library Association

Peer Review in Academic Promotion and Publishing: Its Meaning, Locus, and Future

The Center for Studies in Higher Education has released Peer Review in Academic Promotion and Publishing: Its Meaning, Locus, and Future.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

As part of its Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded Future of Scholarly Communication Project, the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) has hosted two meetings to explore how peer review relates to scholarly communication and academic values. In preparation for an April 2010 workshop, four working papers were developed and circulated. They are presented as drafts here. . . .

The topics of the working papers are: (1) Peer Review in Academic Promotion and Publishing: Norms, Complaints, and Costs, (2) New Models of Peer Review: Repositories, Open Peer Review, and Post Publication Metrics, (3) Open Access: Green OA, Gold OA, and University Resolutions, and (4) Creating New Publishing and Peer Review Models: Scholarly Societies, Presses, Libraries, Commercial Publishers, and Other Stakeholders.

"Seeking the New Normal: Periodicals Price Survey 2010"

Kittie S. Henderson & Stephen Bosch have published "Seeking the New Normal: Periodicals Price Survey 2010" in Library Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

A number of publishers upped prices for 2010. Springer announced a five percent increase. Elsevier price increases are also in the five percent range, with the notable exception of The Lancet. The 2010 price for The Lancet jumped nine percent over 2009 levels; that increase was still smaller than in previous years. In October, the library world reeled as Nature Publishing Group (NPG) announced a 640 percent price increase (from $39.95 in 2009 to $299 in 2010) for a print subscription to Scientific American. The cost for the digital site license also rose substantially, and a number of consortia, like the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) and the Oberlin Group, refused to renew. The announcement came only weeks after NPG bought the magazine.

U.S. Book Sales Fell 1.8% in 2009

The Association of American Publishers reports that U.S. book sales fell 1.8% in 2009.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) has today released its annual estimate of total book sales in the United States. The report, which uses data from the Bureau of the Census as well as sales data from eighty-six publishers inclusive of all major book publishing media market holders, estimates that U.S. publishers had net sales of $23.9 billion in 2009, down from $24.3 billion in 2008, representing a 1.8% decrease. In the last seven years the industry had a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.1%.

Trade sales of adult and juvenile books were steady at $8.1 billion in 2009, CAGR fell to 1.8 percent. Adult Hardbound books showed healthy growth of 6.9%, $2.6 billion in 2009, however paperbound books for adult fell 5.2% to $2.2 billion. Hardbound books in the children and young adult category fell 5.0% to $1.7 billion while their paperbound equivalent grew 2.2% to $1.5 billion. . . .

Mass Market paperbacks decreased 4.0% and brought the category CAGR to -2.2%. Total sales were $1.0 billion in 2009. . . .

Educational sales in the Elementary and High School (El-Hi) category, those books produced for K-12 education, fell 13.8% to $5.2 billion in 2009, and CAGR for this category was -1.4%. The Higher Education category, which includes sales of college textbooks reached $4.3 billion this year up 12.9% on 2008. This brought the CAGR for college textbooks to 5.0%.