Category: Scholarly Journals

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Releases First Quarter Fiscal Year 2010 Results

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. has released its first quarter fiscal year 2010 results.

Here's an excerpt:

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (NYSE: JWa and JWb) announced today that revenue for the first quarter of fiscal year 2010 grew 2% on a currency neutral basis, a result of strong growth in Higher Education (HE) and Scientific, Technical, Medical, and Scholarly (STMS) journals. As expected, Professional/Trade (P/T) revenue was down from last year’s first quarter. Including the $21 million negative effect of foreign exchange, Wiley’s revenue declined 3% to $388 million. . . .

Global STMS revenue for the first quarter advanced 2% to $229 million on a currency neutral basis, but declined 5% including unfavorable foreign exchange of $15 million. Increased revenue from journal subscriptions, new journal business, and global rights was partially offset by softness in books, advertising, and backfiles. Some of the shortfall in backfiles is due to timing.

Direct contribution to profit declined 4% from prior year to $94 million on a currency neutral basis, or 3% including favorable foreign exchange. The decline reflects the benefit of a bankruptcy recovery ($2 million) in the prior year, as well as increased journal royalties, editorial costs, and selling expenses, partially due to timing. . . .

For the quarter, journal revenue of $191 million was up 5%, excluding a negative foreign exchange impact of $11 million. The increase is attributed to higher subscription revenue and rights income, new business, and journal reprints, partially offset by lower revenue from backfiles and advertising.

"Abridgment as Added Value"

Peter Suber has published "Abridgment as Added Value" in the latest SPARC Open Access Newsletter.

Here's an excerpt:

Imagine that an open access (OA) journal could generate revenue by selling abridgments of its full-text OA articles. Imagine that the revenue even made it unnecessary to charge author-side publication fees. That would be a supremely elegant business model, if only it could be made to work.

BMJ has made it work for more than 10 years, and next year will take the idea even further.

All BMJ research articles are full-text OA in the digital edition of the journal. The print edition, which is toll access (TA), contains 3-5 page abridgments of each research article. BMJ calls this system ELPS (for "electronic long, paper short"). The OA edition of the journal charges no publication fees, and the full-text research articles have no word limit.

Nine months ago, BMJ introduced even shorter, one-page abridgments called picos, and published selected articles in the pico format rather than the longer 3-5 page format. The experiment has been so successful that BMJ announced last month that it will phase out ELPS and go all-pico. Starting in January 2010, all BMJ research articles will have pico abridgments in the TA print edition, and the full texts will still be no-fee OA in the digital edition.

The Future of Scholarly Journals Publishing Among Social Science and Humanities Associations

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.

Early Open Access Journal, the PACS Review, Established 20 Years Ago Today

On August 16, 1989, I announced the establishment of The Public-Access Computer Systems Review. If it was published today, this e-journal would be called a "libre" open access journal since it was freely available, allowed authors to retain their copyrights, and had special copyright provisions for noncommercial use.

Here's the announcement:

Thanks to everyone who sent me messages regarding the possibility of starting an electronic journal. There was a very favorable response to this idea, and I am willing to give it a try.

The Public-Access Computer Systems Review will contain short articles (1 to 7 single-spaced pages), columns, and reviews. PACS Review will cover all computer systems that libraries make available to their patrons, including CAI and ICAI programs, CD-ROM databases, expert systems, hypermedia systems, information delivery systems, local databases, online catalogs, and remote end-user search systems. All types of short communications dealing with these subjects are welcome. Articles that present innovative projects in libraries, even those at an early stage of their development, are especially welcome. Proposals for regular (or irregular) columns will be considered on an ongoing basis. There will be a section for reviews of books, journal articles, reports, and software. As a style guide, use Kate L. Turabian's A Manual for Writers (5th edition). If you are in doubt about whether your topic falls in the purview of PACS Review, consult my article: "Public-Access Computer Systems: The Next Generation of Library Automation Systems." Information Technology and Libraries 8 (June 1989): 178-185.

The initial editorial staff of the PACS Review will be as follows:

Editor: Charles W. Bailey, Jr., University of Houston

Editoral Board: Nancy Evans, Carnegie Mellon University
David R. McDonald, University of Michigan
Mike Ridley, McMaster University
R. Bruce Miller, University of California, San Diego

The PACS Review will come out on a regular schedule. I will determine the schedule based on the interest you show in submitting articles. If desired, authors can retain copyright to their works by notifying the editor. The logistics of distribution of the Review will be worked out at the release of the first issue. Either individual articles will be sent as PACS-L messages [PACS-L was a LISTSERV mailing list] or a table of contents will be sent and users will retrieve articles from the file server (at this point we do not have full documentation for the file server aspect of PACS-L). The PACS Review will have a volume and issue enumeration. It will be paginated.

I hope PACS Review will be timely, lively, and thought provoking. I hope that it will complement the PACS-L conference, potentially resulting in a unique interaction between formal and informal electronic communications. I welcome your contributions to this experimental electronic journal. Please send all articles to me at LIB3@UHUPVM1. Your contributions will determine whether this journal gets off the ground or not. Let's see if electronic publishing of library journals has a future!

The first issue of the PACS Review was published in 1990 and the last in 1998, for a total of 42 issues.

The following articles discuss the PACS Review:

  • Bailey, Charles W., Jr. "Electronic (Online) Publishing in Action . . . The Public-Access Computer Systems Review and Other Electronic Serials." ONLINE 15 (January 1991): 28-35. (Preprint)
  • Ensor, Pat, and Thomas Wilson. "Public-Access Computer Systems Review: Testing the Promise." The Journal of Electronic Publishing 3, no. 1 (1997).

Also see my "A Look Back at Twenty Years as an Internet Open Access Publisher."

ARL Webcast: Reaching Out to Leaders of Scholarly Societies at Research Institutions

The Association of Research Libraries has released its archived "Reaching Out to Leaders of Scholarly Societies at Research Institutions" webcast. Access is free, but registration is required.

Here's an excerpt from the press release :

On August 6, 2009, the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) hosted a Web conference on “Reaching Out to Leaders of Scholarly Societies at Research Institutions,” August 6, 2009, from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. (EDT) as part of an ongoing initiative to enhance library outreach.

Complementing the recently released guide on outreach to scholarly society leaders, the 60-minute webcast will introduce the goals and key talking points for campus outreach to leaders, editors, and members of academic scholarly societies. It will support development of faculty outreach programs at ARL member libraries by offering strategy and tactics for increasing engagement with association leaders at the institution.

Successful campus outreach should encourage and support society leaders to engage in positive change that advances the scholarly communication system, promotes new research modes, and offers a path forward in a time of paradigm shift.

Five Videos on PLoS Medicine

PLoS Medicine has released five digital videos in which Ginny Barbour, Chief Editor, discusses the journal.

Here's an excerpt from the post:

In the first video Ginny talks about the experience of launching PLoS Medicine nearly five years ago. This leads to the discussion in the second video about the decision to focus on the specific diseases and risk factors that cause the greatest burden worldwide. The third video is about the importance of open access to medical information; the fourth and fifth videos discuss PLoS Medicine's plans for the future and the achievements of open access respectively.

Rejecta Mathematica: Send Your Rejected Math Articles Yearning to Be Published

The first issue of Rejecta Mathematica, an open access journal that publishes papers that have been rejected by other math journals has been published.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

We are pleased to announce that the inaugural issue of Rejecta Mathematica is now available at math.rejecta.org! To recap our mission, Rejecta Mathematica is an open access, online journal that publishes only papers that have been rejected from peer-reviewed journals in the mathematical sciences. In addition, every paper appearing in Rejecta Mathematica includes an open letter from its authors discussing the paper's original review process, disclosing any known flaws in the paper, and stating the case for the paper's value to the community.

Elsevier Launches Article of the Future Project

Elsevier has launched its Article of the Future project.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Elsevier, the leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announces the "Article of the Future" project, an ongoing collaboration with the scientific community to redefine how a scientific article is presented online. The project takes full advantage of online capabilities, allowing readers individualized entry points and routes through content, while exploiting the latest advances in visualization techniques.

The Article of the Future launches its first prototypes this week, revealing a new approach to presenting scientific research online. The key feature of the prototypes is a hierarchical presentation of text and figures so that readers can elect to drill down through the layers based on their current task in the scientific workflow and their level of expertise and interest. This organizational structure is a significant departure from the linear-based organization of a traditional print-based article in incorporating the core text and supplemental material within a single unified structure.

A second key feature of the prototypes is bulleted article highlights and a graphical abstract. This allows readers to quickly gain an understanding of the paper's main "take home" message and serves as a navigation mechanism to directly access specific sub-sections of the results and figures. The graphical abstract is intended to encourage browsing, promote interdisciplinary scholarship and help readers identify more quickly which papers are most relevant to their research interests. . . .

The prototypes have been developed by the editorial, production and IT teams at Cell Press in collaboration with Elsevier"s User Centered Design group using content from two previously published Cell articles. They can be viewed at http://beta.cell.com where Elsevier and Cell Press are inviting feedback from the scientific community on the concepts and implementations. Successful ideas from this project will ultimately be rolled-out across Elsevier"s portfolio of 2,000 journals available on ScienceDirect.

"The Dissemination of Scholarly Information: Old Approaches and New Possibilities"

Economists Omar Al-Ubaydli (George Mason University) and Rufus Pollock (Cambridge University) have self-archived "The Dissemination of Scholarly Information: Old Approaches and New Possibilities."

Here's an excerpt:

In this paper we began by setting out the basic goals of the scholarly communication system. We compared the current, journal dominated system, against those goals and found it wanting, and explored in detail alternative options in which distribution and filtering are separated and centralized filtering is replaced by a distributed, decentralized approach.

Using a simple model we explored the factors underlying the development of the current journal paradigm. There were two main factors: a) the high costs of information transmission in the pre-digital era (and, associatedly, fixed costs and economies of scale in transmission which make journals an effective club good) b) the natural complementarity of filtering to distribution which leads journals to act as filtering as well as distributional mechanisms.

With the collapse of transmission costs in the era of the Internet these original rationales for journals have disappeared. It is now possible for distribution and filtering to be separate and for the development of richer, and more complex filtering models based on decentralized, distributed mechanisms—with this latter process dependent on the first (if distribution and filtering are tied—as in the traditional journal model—distributed mechanisms make little sense).

We explored the various benefits of such alternative distributed mechanisms—and also provide a detailed description of how such a mechanism would function in appendix A. One of the main implications of our work discussion is that a crucial benefit of the open-access approach, in addition to the obvious one of reducing the deadweight loss to access, is that it permits the development of radically new matching mechanisms based on a richer set of information which offer major efficiency (and other) advantages. This second benefit, though often overlooked, is a major one, and is, in the long run we believe, likely to be the most significant.

Unfortunately, it is hard for new approaches to take hold because of the lock-in to the traditional 'closed' journal model engendered by the mutual expectations of authors and readers. Given the potential benefits afforded by innovation in this area, it is crucial that the potential of new approaches be thoroughly considered so that the scholarly community can adequately assess the options and, if necessary, take collective action to achieve mutually beneficial change.

Scholarly and Research Communication Established

A new open access journal, Scholarly and Research Communication, has been established.

Here's an excerpt from the journal's home page:

Scholarly and Research Communication is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary, Open Access, online journal that publishes original contributions to the understanding of production, dissemination, and usage of knowledge. It emphasizes the dynamics of representation and changing organizational elements, including technologically mediated workflows, ownership, and legal structures. Contributions are welcomed in all media and span formal research and analysis; technical reports and demonstration; commentary, and review.

Also see Rowland Lorimer's presentation "Scholarly and Research Communication: A Journal and Some Founding Ideas."

"SPARC-ACRL Forum: Doomsday Clock Countdown for Scholarly Communications?"

In "SPARC-ACRL Forum: Doomsday Clock Countdown for Scholarly Communications?," Josh Hadro reports on the 2009 SPARC-ACRL Forum, including libraries' new "zero tolerance for price increases."

Here's an excerpt:

"It’s time to give up the kumbaya of librarianship," [James] Neal said as he approached his last few proposals, and "radicalize our approach to collaboration."

We are just a few minutes from midnight, he said as he invoked the Doomsday Clock metaphor to dramatically portray the relationship between libraries and publishers. We are, he warned, quickly headed "toward potentially explosive conditions."

Overlay Journal Infrastructure for Meteorological Sciences (OJIMS): Final Report

JISC has released the Overlay Journal Infrastructure for Meteorological Sciences (OJIMS): Final Report.

Here's an excerpt:

The Overlay Journal Infrastructure for Meteorological Sciences (OJIMS) project developed the mechanisms that could support both a new on-line Journal of Meteorological Data and an Open-Access Repository for documents related to the meteorological sciences. The project had three fundamental aims:

  • Creation of overlay journal mechanics.
  • Creation of an open access subject based repository for Meteorology and atmospheric sciences.
  • Construction and evaluation of business models for potential overlay journals. . . .

  • The proposal for the Journal of Meteorological Data is that it would be an on-line, peer-reviewed data journal. It would extend the scientific discipline of peer review to data, providing recognition for the work of creating data. The rigorous, but manageable, standards for metadata and documentation prescribed will facilitate re-use of the data, encourage appropriate application of the data to scientific problems and enable experiments to be repeated. A review process was proposed which encompasses three elements: a data description document, metadata and the data themselves. All three elements would be reviewed, but citation would be of the text article

    .

John Wiley & Sons Fiscal Year 2009 and Fourth Quarter Results

John Wiley & Sons has released its fiscal year 2009 results.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

SCIENTIFIC, TECHNICAL, MEDICAL, AND SCHOLARLY (STMS)

  • Full year revenue +9% and fourth quarter revenue +17% on currency neutral basis (a nonrecurring acquisition accounting adjustment reported in fiscal year 2008 contributed 2% to the full year growth rate)
  • Full year contribution to profit +14% and fourth quarter contribution to profit +22% on a currency neutral basis
  • New contracts in fiscal year 2009 to publish 32 society journals; renewed or extended contracts for 87 journals; did not renew agreements to publish 9 journals

Global STMS revenue for fiscal year 2009 declined 1% to $969 million due to unfavorable foreign exchange of $97 million. Revenue advanced 9% on a currency neutral basis and including a $17 million acquisition accounting adjustment, which reduced revenue in fiscal year 2008. Increased revenue from journal subscription renewals, new business, global rights, and STMS books was partially offset by lower sales of backfiles, reprints, and custom publishing.

Direct contribution to profit for the fiscal year grew 4% from prior year to $399 million. On a currency neutral basis, contribution to profit advanced 14%. The year-over-year increase reflects top-line results and a $17 million accounting adjustment related to the Blackwell acquisition that reduced revenue in the comparable prior year period, partially offset by higher editorial fees due to the addition of more society journals and performance-related compensation.

For the fourth quarter, global STMS revenue was down 2% with a negative foreign exchange effect of $54 million. On a currency neutral basis, revenue advanced 17% due to the resolution of the third quarter journal billing delays, which shifted some revenue into the fourth quarter. Revenue also advanced due to new business. Higher global rights income was offset by lower backfile sales and advertising revenue. Direct contribution to profit for the quarter increased 3%, or 22% excluding the unfavorable impact of foreign exchange, mainly due to top line results.

STMS Journals
All regions exhibited journal sales growth, excluding unfavorable foreign exchange. The performance is mainly attributed to renewals, new business, and the acquisition accounting adjustment in fiscal year 2008. Subscription and pay-per-view revenue was up year-over-year, while backfile revenue fell due to the economic climate, particularly in the US. . . .

Journal Licenses
Journal licenses, which represent approximately 60% of our journal subscription revenue, provide academic, government, and corporate customers with online access to multiple journals. In the fourth quarter, agreements were signed or renewed with universities, library consortia, and government agencies in the US, Norway, Japan, China, Brazil, Canada, Greece, Chile, Denmark, and India.

STMS Books and References
Book sales and other related income, which account for approximately 17% of STMS revenue, were up 5% over fiscal year 2008 on a currency neutral basis. The total number of books published was up slightly. Online book sales rose approximately 20% to $10 million.

Hindawi’s Open Access Journals’ Impact Factor Up over 27%

Hindawi's open access journals' average impact factor is up over 27% in the last year.

Here's an excerpt from the press release on liblicense-l:

Hindawi Publishing Corporation is pleased to announce that it has seen very strong growth in the Impact Factors of its journals in the recently released 2008 Journal Citation Report published by Thomson Scientific. This most recent Journal Citation Report shows the average Impact Factor of Hindawi's journals increasing by more than 27% over the past year, with two of Hindawi's largest journals, EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing and Mathematical Problems in Engineering, rising by 70% and 45% respectively. . . .

In addition to the 14 journals that were included in the 2007 Journal Citation Report, three of Hindawi's journals received Impact Factors for the first time this year: Clinical and Developmental Immunology, EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking, and Journal of Nanomaterials.

“Not Served on a Silver Platter! Access to Online Mathematics Information in Africa”

Anders Wandahl has self-archived "Not Served on a Silver Platter! Access to Online Mathematics Information in Africa" in arXiv.org.

Here's an excerpt:

The "truly free" resources listed in the table [e.g., open access journals] above are free to anyone and anywhere. Resources provided by other programmes and initiatives, which are described below [e.g., HINARI], are also free to end-users in all or most African countries. However, there is an importance difference between these two groups of resources. The second group requires some sort of authentication before the user is allowed access. . . .

In order for the IP number control system to work smoothly, the public IP number(s) should be fairly stable. In Africa, this is not always the case, since a change of the Internet Service Provider (ISP) also usually means a change of the IP number. African institutions sometimes see an advantage in negotiating terms and prices with a new Internet Service Provider now and then, in order to find a more favorable deal, but this means that the new IP numbers must be supplied to all journals and publishers before access is reestablished.

To complicate this picture a little further, there is a distinction between static and dynamic IP numbers. In general, there is a world-wide shortage of IP numbers. In order to cope with this situation, the numbers are sometimes assigned to universities and institutions in a dynamic as opposed to static way. A dynamically assigned IP number may change any time (even though they usually are pretty stable over time). A static number is assigned once and is not supposed to change as long as you have a running contract with an Internet Service Provider, which makes them better for authentication purposes. The flip-side of the coin is that static numbers are more expensive.

RoMEO Application Programmers’ Interface Version 2.4 Released

SHERPA has released version 2.4 of the RoMEO Application Programmers' Interface (API).

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The new version uses a totally new algorithm and is faster than earlier 1.x versions. It also supplies data for the fields that were missing in earlier versions—paid open access, and compliance with research funders' mandates. . . .

If you are using an older version of the prototype, we strongly recommend that you upgrade your application to use V.2.4 as soon as possible, because we will be discontinuing the old versions at the end of 2009. Version 2.4 is largely compatible with earlier versions. The main things that may require attention are: the new URL, handling the extra fields, and handling changes to the parameter and copyright fields.

“One Year (Almost) with the Open Access Authors Fund”

Andrew Waller has self-archived his "One Year (Almost) with the Open Access Authors Fund" presentation in E-LIS.

Here's the abstract:

This presentation described the origin of and policies and procedures relating to the Open Access Authors Fund at the University of Calgary. The activities of the Fund in its first year were presented and discussed. Other Open Access activities at the University of Calgary were also briefly discussed.

Costs and Benefits of Research Communication: The Dutch Situation

The SURFfoundation has released Costs and Benefits of Research Communication: The Dutch Situation.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

This study examines the costs and potential benefits of alternative models for scientific and scholarly publishing in the Netherlands. It is a follow-up of the Australian study 'Research Communication Costs, Emerging Opportunities and Benefits' (Houghton et al. 2006) and the UK/JISC study 'Economic Implications of Alternative Scholarly Publishing Models'. The Dutch study was commissioned by SURFfoundation and led by Professor John Houghton from the Centre of Strategic Economic Studies at Melbourne's Victoria University and Jos de Jonge and Marcia van Oploo of EIM Business & Policy Research in the Netherlands. . . .

The study Costs and Benefits of Research Communication: The Dutch Situation compares three publication models. The greatest advantage is offered by the Open Access model, which means that the research institution or the party financing the research pays for publication and the article is then freely accessible. Adopting this model could lead to an annual saving of EUR 133 million. Even if the Netherlands were the only country to adopt this publication model and continued to pay for licences to access periodicals, there would still be a saving of EUR 37 million.

PLoS Progress Report: June 2009

The Public Library of Science has released the PLoS Progress Report: June 2009.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Reading it will tell you more about our story, our success and our vision for the future through the voices of many people who have helped us to get where we are today. In it you will find:

Discussions about important questions such as:

  • Five years after entering the publishing arena, what does the PLoS financial picture tell us? How will PLoS and OA affect STM (science, technology and medical) publishing in the future?
  • Examples of PLoS articles that have really changed outcomes on the ground: for example some that have improved global health, liberated research, helped scientists advance their careers, protected privacy, unearthed fossils, accelerated science or even changed policy.
  • Many personal messages from our supporters: "The innovation of PLoS was high-quality; open-access science. The innovation of PLoS ONE in some ways, is even larger because it allows radical reorganizations of scientific knowledge, which can enable new discoveries." Dr Jesse Ausubel, Director, Program for the Human Environment, The Rockefeller University.
  • Impressive statistics about the size of the PLoS community: 13,000 peer-reviewers. 26,000 authors, 1,400 board members and millions of unique visitors in 2008.
  • Information about our diverse portfolio of journals: why each exists and what they do for the organization and the audiences that they serve.
  • The reasons why PLoS still needs the financial support of our donors: to fuel OA advocacy and fund innovation in new online tools and how you can help us.
  • Our current financial statement: posted here ahead of our 990 filing on Guidestar, a commonly used resource for financial information about non profits.
  • The team: Board of Directors, Senior Staff and Editorial Boards.

Position Statement From University Press Directors on Free Access to Scholarly Journal Articles

Ten university press directors have issued a statement about free access to scholarly journal articles.

Here's an excerpt:

  1. The undersigned university press directors support the dissemination of scholarly research as broadly as possible.
  2. We support the free access to scientific, technical, and medical journal articles no later than 12 months after publication. We understand that the length of time before free release of journal articles will by necessity vary for other disciplines.
  3. We support the principle that scholarly research fully funded by governmental entities is a public good and should be treated as such. We support legislation that strengthens this principle and oppose legislation designed to weaken it.
  4. We support the archiving and free release of the final, published version of scholarly journal articles to ensure accuracy and citation reliability.
  5. We will work directly with academic libraries, governmental entities, scholarly societies, and faculty to determine appropriate strategies concerning dissemination options, including institutional repositories and national scholarly archives.

Read more about it at "10 University-Press Directors Back Free Access to Scholarly Articles."

Forty Percent of UK University Libraries to Cut Materials Budgets in 2009-10 Academic Year

The Times Higher Education reports that 40% of surveyed UK university libraries intend to cut journals and books from their materials budgets in the 2009-10 academic year, and a fifth expect to cut at least one "big deal" electronic journal package. (Thanks to Colin Steele.)

“No-Fee OA Journals in the Humanities, Three Case Studies: A Presentation by Open Humanities Press”

S. A. Jottkandt has self-archived "No-Fee OA Journals in the Humanities, Three Case Studies: A Presentation by Open Humanities Press" in E-LIS.

Here's the abstract:

Open Humanities Press (OHP) is the first open access publisher devoted to contemporary critical theory. OHP was created as a grassroots movement of academics, librarians, journal editors and technology specialists to address the growing inequality of readers' access to critical materials necessary for our research. In this presentation, I offer case studies of journals edited by the founders of the new OA academic journal consortium, Open Humanities Press, as a starting point for a discussion of how professional open access publishing may be achieved without author-side fees (a "business model" that for both practical and cultural reasons is inappropriate in the context of humanities publishing). While reputable open access publishing in the humanities confronts significant challenges, the problem of how to finance it—the problem that is frequently raised as the Gold path's chief obstacle in the sciences—appears far and away the least pressing.

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