Open Access for Monographs

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The quest for a sustainable model to save the endangered scholarly book

Janneke Adema and Eelco Ferwerda

Janneke Adema holds an MA in History, an MA Acknowledgements in Philosophy (both University of Groningen) and, This article is based on two papers, one given at the an MA in Book and Digital Media Studies (Leiden APE (Academic Publishing in Europe) 2010 con- University). She has been conducting research for ference, and one at the UKSG (UK Serials Group) the OAPEN (www.oapen.org) project from 2008 to 2010 conference, and on the report Overview of 2010. Her research for the project focused on user Open Access Models for eBooks in the Humanities needs and publishing models concerning Open Access and Social Sciences, published by OAPEN in 2010. books in the Humanities and Social Sciences. At the The OAPEN project is co-funded by the European moment she is doing a PhD in Media and Communi- Union in its eContentplus programme cation at Coventry University. She maintains an academic weblog at www.openrefl ections.wordpress.com. Abstract This article questions the sustainability of the cur- E-mail: [email protected] rent print-based subscription model for publishing books in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The Eelco Ferwerda has been involved in electronic publish- lack of availability and dissemination of the schol- ing since 1995. He joined Amsterdam University Press arly monograph (in print and digital), has led to a in 2002 as Publisher of Digital Products and is respon- quest for new business models based on the Open sible for all digital publications. Before joining AUP, he Access publishing of books. The common charac- worked in various new media subsidiaries at the former teristics of these new models are discussed and a Dutch newspaper publisher PCM, lastly as Manager new model for the funding and publishing of Open Business Development for PCM Interactive Media. Access books is introduced. This model, developed He is the Project Manager of OAPEN and leads the within the OAPEN project, is based on an author- Work package to establish its Open Access Publica- pays scheme and on the principle that research and tion model. He received the Dutch SURFshare Open the dissemination of research results should not be Access award in recognition of his work for OAPEN. separated, as they both are essential elements in He also heads the committee to establish the Euro- the scholarly communication process. pean University Presses Association. In his seminal article, “The New Age of Books,” E-mail: [email protected] from 1999, Robert Darnton prophesizes that “the old-fashioned codex, printed on folded and gath- DOI: 10.1163/095796509X12777334632708 ered sheets of paper, is not about to disappear

into cyberspace.” Later on in his article, he claims In the digital age, this need for the printed that “the best case to be made for e-books concerns monographic format has been translated into a scholarly publishing, not in all fi elds, but in large complementary need for the digital variant of the stretches of the humanities and social sciences book. But as research shows, the print and the on- where conventional monographs – that is, learned line medium fulfi ll different functions for scholars. treatises on particular subjects – have become pro- The printed book is mainly used for in-depth study, hibitively expensive to produce.”1 while the electronic version is more often used for More than ten years later this prophecy remains consultation and reference purposes. Scholars in- fresh and insightful, and it is perhaps even clearer creasingly rely on electronic resources for their in- now that the discrepancy it plays with, the contin- formation retrieval, including e-books, but they use ued co-existence of the printed book alongside its these e-books to browse through large amounts of electronic version, is not an incongruity at all. As content, and their reading takes on much more of recent research amongst scholars in the Humani- a scanning nature.6 Many sources have stated that ties and Social Sciences (HSS) confi rms, there is researchers, regardless of their fi eld, would love to a need for both a printed and an online version of have more e-books, and they feel that the availabil- the scholarly monograph.2 However, as we will ar- ity and accessibility of e-books in libraries are still gue in this article, both are lacking in availability very limited.7 Libraries likewise state that they are at the moment, mainly due to the adverse dynam- unable to keep up with the demand.8 ics within the current scholarly publishing system. This lack of availability has led to an accelerated The crisis in scholarly communication search for new models based on the principle of Although there is a clear feeling of a lack of avail- Open Access, to improve the availability and re- ability of e-books in libraries, the availability of duce costs. We will discuss the common character- printed monographs in libraries has also been istics of these new models, zoom in on the issue of dwindling. Already extensively described by Darn- sustainability and in conclusion propose an alter- ton in his 1999 article, the serials crisis and the native Open Access model for books, based on an subsequent disastrous consequences it has had for author-pays scheme. books persist in the fi rst decade of the new century.9 Libraries are buying fewer monographs main- The prominence of the book in HSS ly because of the rising costs of journals. In their The format of the scholarly book, as opposed to the acquisition decisions, libraries have to choose be- journal article, remains important in many fi elds of tween continuing subscriptions and the big deals. HSS. Although the article’s popularity continues Book publishers have been forced to lower their to increase,3 the book’s reputation and perceived print runs. In the 1970s average print runs of 2000 value remain stable. The need for the book format books were quite common, whereas at the start of in these fi elds is explained mainly by the possibility the new century, fi gures of around 400 copies have it offers to develop a sustained argumentation or become more commonplace.10 train of thought. This makes the monograph well These fi gures make one wonder about the effec- suited for the strongly analytical, complex and dis- tiveness of the print-based communication system cursive material that underlies many fi elds in HSS. and whether we could still call this an adequate One could also state that books and articles seem means of dissemination of scholarly research. to fulfi ll different functions in HSS (analysis of pri- But for HSS scholars, it also means that their mary texts or data versus critical dialogue).4 reputation and career are affected. As it becomes Furthermore, the prestige associated with writ- harder to get material published, younger scholars ing and publishing a (printed) book remains un- trying to get their thesis published, publications in contested. For young scholars, it is seen as the real languages other than English and minority fi elds threshold into academia and is often a requirement are hit the hardest. for tenure and promotion.5