FW: [SCHOLCOMM] hybrid oa monographs was RE: OA funds (Re: a meta moment: ...)
Glenn Hampson
Of interest from the scholcomm listserv (in case you aren’t on it)
From: scholcom...@lists.ala.org [mailto:scholcom...@lists.ala.org] On Behalf Of Toby....@oecd.org
Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2017 8:09 AM
To: rle...@wustl.edu
Cc: scho...@lists.ala.org; sg...@psu.edu; wat...@umich.edu; rsam...@berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: [SCHOLCOMM] hybrid oa monographs was RE: OA funds (Re: a meta moment: ...)
I guess we operate a 'hybrid OA' book model. In our case, all our publications are free to read, share and embed. The free version is read-only - no ability to copy-paste or print (which makes it gratis open access - if anyone is looking at OA categories). We also load our books onto Google Books and Scribd, which offer a similar experience, free of charge. In parallel, we offer fully-functional e-editions via our own platform, e-bookstore and via the usual third-party channels - these editions are for sale and the income we earn from these editions recovers about 85% of our total cost of publishing (which includes the provision of the free, read-only service, which has a cost!). We also offer print editions, but demand for these is falling and generates around 10% of our income. The other 5% of our income comes from APCs (or should I say BPCs) and when we get these, the fully functional PDF editions are available for download free of charge via our platforms, but we still charge for print.
The central principle behind our model is this: the content itself is always freely accessible (I.e. If you have an internet connection, you can read all the content for free). For us, this ticks the box in terms of giving broad access to the knowledge we publish, for free. In the absence of alternative funding from our members or from A/BPCs, we recoup our costs by selling services around the content (e.g. the ability to download and read offline, copy-paste, embedded active links to supplementary data (the data is free, providing an active link is the service), provision of MARC records, customer support, print editions).
While this model is not in line with most other open access models (most start with the ability to download a PDF), it is the best we have come up with in view of our financial and funding circumstances. We've had this model since 2012 and the fact that we're still solvent shows that it is sustainable (and we are very grateful to our subscribers and customers for making it so).
We are continuing to explore and experiment with a view to getting to the point where we can offer a freely downloadable PDF, but first, we have to provide new added-value features that our subscribers and customers value and are prepared to pay for - all the while continuing to look for funding from alternative sources, such as BPCs. I have to say, however, all our indicators show that income from alternative sources will remain marginal for the foreseeable future.
Very happy to share more if anyone is interested.
Toby Green
OECD Publishing
Winner The Academic and Professional Publisher Award 2017
On 27 Apr 2017, at 15:41, Lewis, Ruth <rle...@wustl.edu> wrote:
This is moving away from the issue of institutional subvention for book publishing, however there are many examples of monographs where only certain chapters are open access but the rest of the book must be purchased (at full price I assume) either in paper or (sometimes) as an ebook. I would consider those examples of hybrid OA monographs? I’m most aware of the chapters paid for by Wellcome Trust’s open access policy.
Edinburgh Companion to the Critical Medical Humanities is one example, although you can search NCBI books for many more.
22% of the book (intro + 8 chapters) is CC-BY but the price of the entire book is so high it’s very hard for me to imagine that prices were reduced in response to the OA content.
On the bright side at least the Edinburgh Univ. Press publisher site announces the OA content on the book site. In most cases I don’t see any acknowledgement of OA content (all OA or only partial OA) on sites that are trying to sell you the book. The Oxford Univ. Press site does NOT acknowledge the OA content neither does the JSTOR site
Ruth Lewis
Scholarly Communications Coordinator & Science (Biology, Math, History of Science) Librarian
Washington University in St. Louis | rle...@wustl.edu | 314-935-4819
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2680-6235
From: scholcom...@lists.ala.org [mailto:scholcom...@lists.ala.org] On Behalf Of Charles Watkinson
Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2017 7:22 AM
To: Rachael G Samberg <rsam...@berkeley.edu>
Cc: Sandy Thatcher <sg...@psu.edu>; scho...@lists.ala.org
Subject: Re: [SCHOLCOMM] OA funds (Re: a meta moment: ...)
Dear Rachael,
I recognized your response to the "is there such a thing as a hybrid model for monographs" as just a musing but was struck by it because it is such an interesting question. I understand that the idea of an e-only option doesn't represent Berkeley "policy" and that you are still formulating a plan for how OA funds for books might be deployed.
Your work is important because we at U-M Library are now actively thinking about the policy framework around our institutional subvention program for OA books, part of the larger AAU-ARL-AAUP initiative, while also seeing an uptick in faculty questions about whether we have an OA fund for APCs within the Library (we did, but like Johns Hopkins we retired it several years ago for many of the same reasons).
Are books different? And, if so, how? These are questions that will be on a number of institutions' minds in the coming year and I applaud Berkeley's leadership in wrestling with this question.
It has been a useful and interesting thread.
Charles
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 9:28 PM, Rachael G Samberg <rsam...@berkeley.edu> wrote:
Hi, Charles. Looking back at the disjointed threads of responses, I can see why there might be some confusion about the reference to OA monographs. This was unintended. We will be funding OA monograph subventions. Doesn't matter if the book is also sold in print. In fact, we hope and expect that the OA versions drive up print sales, too, but that's completely separate from our intention to fund the OA monographs.
We haven't set the precise terms of the program yet; I'm working on it. Rick had asked about OA funds, and I was just noting that we're approved to expand ours to monographs, too.
Thanks,
Rachael
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 6:21 PM, Rachael G Samberg <rsam...@berkeley.edu> wrote:
Hi, Charles. That's not what we're doing. We'll be funding APCs for OA monographs irrespective of whether print versions are offered for the reasons you note.
Sorry if there is confusion, but all I was trying to say was that we haven't formulated the exact parameters of our program yet.
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 6:19 PM, Charles Watkinson <wat...@umich.edu> wrote:
Dear Rachael,
Exciting about Berkeley moving into supporting OA books but I do think that the idea of not funding monograph APCs / BPCs if print versions are also offered for sale is problematic. Book authors really seem to value print for displaying at conferences, impressing their colleagues, and getting out to a market of non-academics via venues like Amazon. And there is still evidence of a substantial preference for reading in print. It also feels to me that there is a danger of starving a community of non-profit humanities publishers (university presses, learned society publishers) by being too hardline on the terms of a BPC. While there are clearly some blurred lines when it comes to commercial academic publishers' electronic collections, the book market still feels different enough to the journal market to suggest caution when applying the lessons of APCs for journals too closely to books.
Charles
------------------
Associate University Librarian, Publishing
University of Michigan Library
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 6:34 PM, Rachael G Samberg <rsam...@berkeley.edu> wrote:
Alt least teoretically, some institutions could choose not to fund monograph APCs if print versions are also offered for sale.
On Wednesday, April 26, 2017, Sandy Thatcher <sg...@psu.edu> wrote:I'm not sure what a hybrid OA model would be for monograph publishing. Would someone please explain?
Sandy Thatcher
At 8:11 AM -0700 4/26/17, Rachael G Samberg wrote:
Hi, Rick, and all.
Our OA fund (Berkeley Research Impact Initiative, or BRII) has been around since 2008 and is supported through a gift fund. To the extent possible, we've continually increased support to meet demand, as we're committed to exploring multiple OA publishing models to test sustainability. We're incredibly excited to be adding (and demo-ing for the first time for us) subventions for OA monographs shortly. Stay tuned! Our monograph subventions, just as our APC subventions, will be limited to fully-OA publications--not hybrids, so there is no double dipping. For a more complete history of our program, please see this paper by my colleagues.
Perhaps of particular interest is some great programming we held in February of this year. We organized a successful author recognition event that we called "BRII & Brie." We reached out to all scholars or faculty who have received BRII funds and invited them to come speak about their work. For those who RSVP'd, we displayed posters of their scholarship, and we also created a bibliography (with statistics) which is linked off of the BRII guide in the first paragraph above.
At the author event, we had an introduction by our University Librarian about the future of OA and our initiatives. Then, five faculty members spoke for about 5-10 minutes about their papers, and how publishing them open through the BRII program had a tremendous impact. For instance, one paper was downloaded nearly 30,000 times in the first 6 months, another was able to be seen by decision-makers in rural communities deciding issues of water rights, another meant that doctors in the field were able to see real-time recommendations about how to treat patients, etc. The faculty really enjoyed sharing their work and learning about the projects of other faculty members across disciplines, so it was a win-win for them and for our OA fund program.
Another benefit of the author recognition event was that it offered opportunities for storytelling. Authors spoke about open access in their own words. This allows for idea dissemination in ways that are perhaps more effective than many macro-outreach efforts. These were themes my working group (the "Culture of Communication") discussed at length in the recent OSI 2017 meeting last week.
Thanks,
Rachael
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rick Anderson <rick.a...@utah.edu>
Date: Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 7:48 AM
Subject: [SCHOLCOMM] OA funds (Re: a meta moment: ...)
To: "scho...@lists.ala.org" <scho...@lists.ala.org>Hi, Robin -
Thanks very much for sharing the link to the article about your OA fund. We had a similar experience at our library a few years ago: we established an OA fund, found that it was popular, and ended up having to close it because we couldn't figure out how to make it sustainable without undermining other essential library services.
I would be very interested to hear about the experiences of others on this list who have established library-funded OA subvention programs - whether ultimately successful or not.
---
Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication
Marriott Library, University of Utah
Desk: (801) 587-9989
Cell: (801) 721-1687
From: <scholcom...@lists.ala.org> on behalf of Robin Sinn <rs...@jhu.edu>
Reply-To: Robin Sinn <rs...@jhu.edu>
Date: Wednesday, April 26, 2017 at 8:37 AM
To: Michelle Flinchbaugh <flin...@umbc.edu>, SCHOLCOMM <scho...@lists.ala.org>
Subject: RE: [SCHOLCOMM] a meta moment: addressing the Hayes and Kelly article about the scholcomm list-serv
Hi Michelle,
We should get together and chat - and see who else in Baltimore would like to share stories in person.
I think you'll find that many of us are in similar situations: one person, maybe part of their job has to do with scholcomm, doing what they can. I've got a new job title and job description, but am just me, trying to coordinate work with folks in different parts of the library - or even in different libraries. It's exciting and frustrating, and I can use all the help I can get. So I learn from my colleagues on this listserve.
So I'm really serious about getting together - maybe this summer? I will email you off-list. If anyone else in Baltimore is interested, let me know!
Meanwhile I and colleagues published a piece in C&RL News about our open access fund that lasted all of 3 years. A lessons learned kind of piece.
Thanks to everyone!
Robin
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Robin N Sinn
Scholarly Communications Specialist
Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore MD 21218
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Rachael G. Samberg, J.D., MLIS
Scholarly Communication Officer
University of California, Berkeley
212/218 Doe Library
Berkeley, CA 94720-6000
@UCB_ScholComm
Find open or free-to-students e-versions of assigned readings to reduce student costs.
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Rachael G. Samberg, J.D., MLIS
Scholarly Communication Officer
University of California, Berkeley
212/218 Doe Library
Berkeley, CA 94720-6000
@UCB_ScholComm
Find open or free-to-students e-versions of assigned readings to reduce student costs.
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Charles Watkinson
Michigan Publishing
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