Open Access, future publishing trends, & implications for libraries

Return of the Big Brands: How Legacy Publishers Will Coopt Open Access

"Unsurprisingly, the Activist perspective caught fire in libraries, where open access was seen as a means to offset the growing market dominance of a handful of scholarly publishers. Unacknowledged then and now in library circles is that a fully OA universe is one without libraries..."

"Thus we have the cascading model: articles rejected by the editors of the big brand-name journal are directed to other publications in the same family. This cascade can be to toll-access publications (the shining example is the line extension of the Nature Publishing Group) or to OA venues that exist to soak up the funding from OA mandates. The toll-access variant is challenged, however, by the limitations of library budgets. It just may be that no one is going to be able to emulate Nature, as Nature got there first (the value of strategic vision) before libraries were sidelined as publishing growth markets. Thus practitioners of the cascading model are likely to move to the Gold OA model..."

"Libraries will continue to purchase large aggregations, though from fewer and fewer publishers; and funding bodies will continue to build the market for mandated OA publication with attendant APCs (simultaneously and causally reducing the amount of money that goes toward research). Library publishing will suffer as more authors migrate to the branded OA services. The publishing market for scholarly material will grow.." 

Reflection & comment by Joseph Esposito

from: the scholarly kitchen posted Oct 14, 2015

Academic publishers reap huge profits as libraries go broke

 'Oligarchy' of publishers

5 companies publish more than 50 per cent of research papers, study finds

(53 per cent of scientific papers, 70 per cent of papers in the social sciences)

Larivière says the cost of the University of Montreal's journal subscriptions is now more than $7 million a year  – ultimately paid for by the taxpayers and students who fund most of the university's budget. Unable to afford the annual increases, the university has started cutting subscriptions, angering researchers.
"The big problem is that libraries or institutions that produce knowledge don't have the budget anymore to pay for [access to] what they produce," Larivière said.

 Vincent Larivière, University of Montreal           From: CBC News June 15th 2015 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/

The Oligopoly of Academic Publishers in the Digital Era

Essentially, they've become an oligarchy, Larivière and co-authors Stefanie Haustein and Philippe Mongeon say in a paper published last week in the open access, non-profit journal PLOS ONE.

Providing Library Research Support for Scholarly Publishing Literacy

This paper argues that scholarly publishing literacy should be treated as an extension of information literacy delivered through a broader research support framework. This paper presents a research librarian's perspective, and draws on literature and the author's practice to illustrate key points. Issues for further investigation are identified.

Can we “fix” open access? (re the recent 'sting' article in Science)

Following all the hype around  the recent 'sting' article in Science (which has indeed "set off lots of smug satisfaction amongst those who fear open access...") I was happy to read these comments by Kevin Smith from Duke University  (some RUL staff met Kevin at the Berlin10 conference in Stellenbosch last year)

 

 As Duke University’s first Scholarly Communications Officer, Kevin Smith’s principal role is to teach and advise faculty, administrators and students about copyright, intellectual property licensing and scholarly publishing

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As Duke University’s first Scholarly Communications Officer, Kevin Smith’s principal role is to teach and advise faculty, administrators and students about copyright, intellectual property licensing and scholarly publishing. - See more at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/author/ksmithl2duke-edu/#sthash.k2gT4FzL.dpuf

As Duke University’s first Scholarly Communications Officer, Kevin Smith’s principal role is to teach and advise faculty, administrators and students about copyright, intellectual property licensing and scholarly publishing. - See more at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/author/ksmithl2duke-edu/#sthash.k2gT4FzL.dpuf

Another useful link - from The Guardian Higher Education network

Open access publishing hoax: what Science magazine got wrong

The sting operation on publishers doesn't point to the real crisis, says Curt Rice – the meltdown of the peer review system

 

 

As Duke University’s first Scholarly Communications Officer, Kevin Smith’s principal role is to teach and advise faculty, administrators and students about copyright, intellectual property licensing and scholarly publishing. - See more at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/about/#sthash.k4FiY4bs.dpuf

As Duke University’s first Scholarly Communications Officer, Kevin Smith’s principal role is to teach and advise faculty, administrators and students about copyright, intellectual property licensing and scholarly publishing. - See more at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/author/ksmithl2duke-edu/#sthash.k2gT4FzL.dpuf

As Duke University’s first Scholarly Communications Officer, Kevin Smith’s principal role is to teach and advise faculty, administrators and students about copyright, intellectual property licensing and scholarly publishing. - See more at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/author/ksmithl2duke-edu/#sthash.k2gT4FzL.dpuf

From Tweet to Blog Post to Peer-Reviewed Article: How to be a Scholar Now

From Tweet to Blog Post to Peer-Reviewed Article: How to be a Scholar Now

Digital media is changing how scholars interact, collaborate, write and publish. Here, Jessie Daniels describes how to be a scholar now, when peer-reviewed articles can begin as Tweets and blog posts. In this new environment, scholars are able to create knowledge in ways that are more open, more fluid, and more easily read by wider audiences.
Digital media is changing how I do my work as a scholar. How I work today bears little resemblance to the way I was trained as a scholar, but has everything to do with being fluid with both scholarship and digital technologies.  To illustrate what I mean by this, I describe the process behind a recent article of mine that started with a Tweet at an academic conference, then became a blog post, then a series of blog posts, and was eventually an article in a peer-reviewed journal.

Open Access scientific publishing - should you be interested?

In October 2013 Rhodes University will be holding an Open Access Week during which it is anticipated that that Rhodes will join 23 other African institutions (including ASSAF, Universities of Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Pretoria, Witwatersrand, KwaZulu-Natal, Johannesburg, South Africa and Free State) in becoming a signatory of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities

Academia will eat itself*: the awkward love triangle of scholarly publishing

Academia will eat itself*: the awkward love triangle of scholarly publishing

from the Law Librarian  and the E-Resources Librarian Sunderland University

There are three major stakeholder groups in scholarly publishing: publishers, academics, and libraries. The awkward love triangle arises because each of these groups needs one of the others, but this relationship is not symmetrical between any two parties. This reminded me of the German chemist Kekulé, who had a dream about a snake eating its own tail, which inspired him to propose a cyclic (ring) structure for benzene. Because of the asymmetrical love triangle, it’s difficult to reach agreement through negotiation, as none of the three stakeholder groups can bargain fairly with each other.  One party needs something from another, but it’s always the other who holds all the cards.

Predatory Publishers

Interesting contribution in Library Journal newsletter:
 
"There are definitely publishers who come to mind when I hear the expression “predatory publishers.” My first thought is of the high-profile academic publishers who are increasing their journal prices by ten or 20 percent per year, leaving libraries with impossible choices to be made between maintaining their journal subscriptions in key fields or buying that year’s monographic production. None of these are on Jeffrey Beall’s “Possible Predatory Publishers” list at the Scholarly Open Access site, however. Beall’s list consists of newly formed open access (OA) journals that charge authors a fee for each article published but that allegedly do not follow accepted academic practice for quality publication or are even fraudulent in nature...."

30 tips for successful academic research and writing

Choosing something that you are passionately interested in to research is a great first step on the road to successful academic writing but it can be difficult to keep the momentum going. Deborah Lupton explains how old-fashioned whiteboards and online networking go hand-in-hand, and advices [sic] when it is time to just ‘make a start’ or go for a bike ride. 

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2012/11/28/lupton-30-tips-writing/

Looking back after 20 years

This is a really interesting (short) article about the development of journals - do try and read it.

"It has been approximately 20 years since distributing scholarly journals digitally became feasible. This
article discusses the broad implications of the transition to digital distributed scholarship from a
historical perspective and focuses on the development of open access (OA) and the various models for
funding OA in the context of the roles scholarly journals play in scientific communities.
..... It took hundreds of years to develop a finely honed paper journal system. In a mere 20 years, digitally
distributed journals are still evolving and have a long way to go in working out the format, conventions,
and economics that will allow the use of this new media to be as effective and as efficient as the paper
media that they are replacing...."

Open Access, A2K & Scholarly Communication (LibGuide from Denise Nicholson at Wits)

This LibGuide provides useful information about the Open Access Movement, open access publishing and scholarly communication trends.

Scholarly information - past, present and future

Editor Sian Harris spoke about changes in the scholarly publishing industry at Online Information 2011. Topics included e-journals, e-books, access, data and predictions for the future.

Source : Research Information
15 December 2011

Scholarly publishing should be free

Another dreamer??
Author suggests:   get rid of for-profit scholarly publishing altogether and let the libraries again host the work of their scholars, as it once was. This new decentralised, federated database of scholarly work would be all the below and more: A single semantic, decentralised, federated database of literature and data; Personalised filtering, sorting and discovery; Peer-review administrated by an independent body; All the metrics you (don't) want (but need); Tagging, bookmarking etc.;Technically feasible today.

Regional journals can boost science capacity

This week's issue of Sci.Dev.net has some interesting articles about scholarly publication including one by Wieland Gevers on the above topic

http://www.scidev.net/en/opinions/regional-journals-can-boost-science-capacity.html



Wieland Gevers was, until recently, the executive officer of the Academy of Science of South Africa, and is the chair of its Committee on Scholarly Publishing.