Against the Grain
Volume 24 | Issue 6 Article 31
December 2012 From the University Presses-Open Access Monographs and the Scholarly Communication Ecosystem Alex Holzman Temple University Press, [email protected]
Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/atg Part of the Library and Information Science Commons
Recommended Citation Holzman, Alex (2012) "From the University Presses-Open Access Monographs and the Scholarly Communication Ecosystem," Against the Grain: Vol. 24: Iss. 6, Article 31. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7771/2380-176X.6245
This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. From the University Presses — Open Access Monographs and the Scholarly Communication Ecosystem Column Editor: Alex Holzman (Director, Temple University Press; Phone: 215-926-2145)
hen I was a child, my family was in one pane whose view lends itself toward sup- ing course adoptions and Asbury Park, New Jersey, during a port of open access. The pane yielding a view of individual faculty mem- Whurricane. We were not evacuated, university presses, however, strongly suggests bers buying a book, don’t and so I was able to watch the storm. The the need to generate revenue when distributing total full-cost recovery massive waves and the destruction wrought scholarship. Few administrators have the op- needs, they are free-rid- on the boardwalk impressed me mightily, my portunity to consider the scholarly communica- ing the system. first lesson of nature’s power. But my great- tions ecosystem as an integrated whole. Such a free-rider system was never ideal, est thrill was the free ice cream handed out It seems worthwhile, then, to spend a little and with university budgets increasingly by boardwalk shop owners the day before the time first on bringing all of us scholarly com- squeezed in places with and without presses, storm, an unloading of inventory in anticipa- munication constituents to a window focused it’s getting worse. The old model is now tion of the inevitable power outages they knew on the specific question of cost and how it clearly broken. Whatever a new model might were coming. My entirely logical conclusion opens up the need to consider the full-window be, simply invoking the use of new “digital from this first experience — hurricanes provide view of the entire ecosystem and one idea that strategies” represents a hope more than an wonderful theater and free ice cream. Let’s full view suggests. actual model. have more of them! For a moment I’ll narrow the cost window Let’s stay with the old cost recovery system My adult reaction to Sandy’s devastation even further, sticking to the cost of publishing for a moment. If universal adoption of open this past fall and to Katrina and other horrific monographs. This is practical because a) I access comes about, how would cost recovery storms in recent years was, of course, entirely know monographs far better than I do seri- work in such a system? In short, who pays? different as I learned to view their effects als and b) most university presses are more The university whose name the press bears? through a much broader lens. Sometimes point focused on the long-form argument book than As we just saw, that doesn’t work any more of view is everything. the journal-based article. even in the present system. Press subventions I’ve been thinking about point of view No recent study I know has quantified the are shrinking, not growing, and no university lately, especially as it relates to those of us who “first-copy” costs of scholarly monographs can reasonably be expected to pay that much think about open access in terms of monograph — everything involved in production up to to support scholarship when so many others distribution. We university press publishers see printing and binding of physical books and the — all those colleges and universities that a grave threat to course adoption sales, our larg- creation of the various files needed for digital don’t have presses — would pay nothing in est source of revenue. We also — if we think publication. Costs vary depending on length, full open access. about it a bit — see that OA has the potential number of illustrations, complexity of design, Should authors pay? How many faculty to resolve the free rider problem inherent in permissions (university press publishers are members have that kind of money at their the current system, where those universities as scrupulous about copyright when buying disposal? We surely don’t want them paying with presses indirectly underwrite the costs to as they are when selling rights), how soon the out of pocket — that would leave only peer those who don’t through the subventions they book is needed, and other factors. Based on review to distinguish their efforts from pure provide to their presses. some recent conversations with other press vanity publishing. Librarians tend to articulate their open access directors and industry experts plus the data at Should their departments then pay? That’s positions in terms of ideology — the societal my own press, it’s not unreasonable to suggest a non-starter, since department budgets come benefit of making scholarship available to all at that the cost per title, counting marketing and from the university budget and we’ve already no direct cost. But I think their advocacy stems overheads — staff salaries, the cost of running noted that in terms of scholarly communication at least as much from economic concerns created an office, research and development, Website the latter is shrinking, not expanding. One could by the ever-increasing serials costs and the con- and platform updating, new post-publication imagine a new system where an institutional comitant decline in their budgets as a percentage formats, etc. — is $20,000 per title. repository replaces a university press or stands in of overall university expenditures. The traditional “sale-to-end-user” model at places where presses never existed, but results Faculty, because they rarely directly pay has generally recovered 75% to 80% of cost, with IRs to date suggest that true widespread to access scholarship, seem mostly to support including the additional printing, binding, and participation and subsequent dissemination OA, but while a core few actively promote it, distribution costs. Figure that the average press requires some very specific skills not currently most do not engage it as actively as librarians publishes 60 annual monographs (by which I found easily within the university. or university press staff. The need for faculty to mean books whose primary market is libraries Retaining the $20,000 cost per monograph publish their own research in outlets that prom- and students enrolled in courses), and a press to be recovered in a full open-access model, we ise both the widest dissemination and maximum faces an annual shortfall in the neighborhood of return to the question of how to recover costs. prestige via brand association, thereby enhanc- $250,000. Going open access without design- Contributions from faculty, departments, and ing their chances for tenure and promotion, ing alternative cost recovery systems would universities won’t work unless they can secure frequently takes precedence over their desire to raise that deficit to about $1.2 million. an infusion of new revenue to cover the lost promote the common good. (My sense is that Traditionally, the home university of a end-user revenue. Student fees represent an faculty see institutional repositories as a way to press fills the gap between recovered and option. But does that not result in students have their cake and eat it, too. But unless I’m unrecovered costs by providing a subvention picking up the cost of monographs while misinformed, their relatively low compliance to its press. Some universities have presses faculty and the library now get a free ride? A with institutional repository deposit mandates while most don’t, and those that do have, in hybrid system involving students, libraries, indicates a certain apathy in the matter.) essence, long subsidized the entire monograph and faculty? But isn’t that what we already I’m not quite sure where administrators publishing system by supporting this income have? Would OA then be nothing more than stand, but my overall impression is that they gap at their press. Those who don’t have shuffling deck chairs? tend to see scholarly communication through supported the system only by paying for those Ultimately, if we exclude student fees, the small windows pointing in different directions. books they actually purchase — and because only sources of new revenue would seem to be Library acquisitions budgets are seen through in the aggregate their purchases, even count- continued on page 57
56 Against the Grain / December 2012 - January 2013
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how the system works for university press among these groups (see the AAUP Task Force From the University Presses monographs. Commercial academic publish- on Economic Models for Scholarly Publishing, from page 56 ers cherry pick works that promise to sell more 2011) in recent years, and more are coming. widely and often price books maximally. Seri- But these have tended to be ad hoc and more foundations and government grants. It’s hard to als publishing works this way: universities pay local than academic-community-wide. What’s imagine foundations providing enough to make a the salaries of faculty who conduct research, needed — and it isn’t simple — is more big- major dent in costs, and that leaves government. give it freely (actually even sometimes pay to picture thinking that draws on local successes One of the major rationales for open access in give it) to commercial publishers outside the to date and tries to accommodate the financial, the journals world is that government-funded academic community or learned societies who career, and yes, the intellectual needs of a free research should be freely available to those who represent disciplines but not universities as a society that wants to maximize the dissemina- fund the government, i.e., taxpayers. But for that whole, then buy it back, in refereed, edited, tion of research. Maybe, for example, there to be true, the government funding has to include easily-searched formats — there is much added are ways to relieve some of the burden on dissemination costs, an increase in fields where value here — at prices designed to generate universities that sponsor presses by address- a grant is provided for research and an entirely profits, not maximize distribution. In the case ing the free rider issue. Maybe we can find a new line of funding where, as is often the case of learned societies, there is concern for mak- way for university presses to help universities for scholarly monographs, there has not been a ing dissemination to individuals in a given reclaim a significant portion of STM publishing research grant. We could embargo open access field affordable, but in practice that shifts the and save a significant amount of money doing for books for a time, but because humanities and rest of cost recovery and now profit (surplus) so. Whatever solutions we embrace, we must social science research does not age at anything recovery to libraries. consider the broad picture above the narrow. close to the rate hard science research does, it’s The “virtue” of the commercial system Point of view matters. hard to envision an appropriate embargo that widely used in serials publishing is that it does Whether that broadened view will suggest would not de facto return to an old end-user (or not allow for free riders. The entire academic that end users should not contribute to cost at least library) pays model. community pays to buy back its “raw” mate- recovery isn’t clear. Administrators, librar- Some readers feel that additional govern- rial in polished, vetted form. The price it pays, ians, faculty, students, and presses may find ment expenditure is a fair trade for universal though, must now generate profit, and dissemi- that a sustainable model means settling for access and provides more value for money nation can be considered only to the extent that something less than the ideal. If we don’t take than lots of other government spending. But it doesn’t interfere with profit. We’re right back a view broader than our own interests, the end a significant proportion of our contemporary to the question of where universities can get the result may be a system even more expensive body politic is opposed on its own ideological funds to pay for all this both in the current tight than the one we have now, with some unprof- grounds to “big government.” Why would economy and over the long haul. itable scholarship (in terms of revenue) being they advocate using tax dollars for distributing Hence a conclusion we might all consider. abandoned altogether. We must be careful not scholarship? There is tremendous expertise in academic to allow the pursuit of the great — unimpeded And now at last the intractable cost recov- libraries, university presses, and various digital access to all research — to prevent the achieve- ery question brings into view the scholarly departments within universities. We know ment of the good — a sustainable model with communications ecosystem. We’ve just seen there have been some productive collaborations manageable cost for all.
Against the Grain / December 2012 - January 2013