Abstract:As technology has advanced, scholarly communication has evolved, creating new opportunities for academic libraries to serve researchers. This article examines the current state and potential future of academic library-based publishing. The review of the literature explores the scholarly communication ecosystem as it pertains to new publishing paradigms supported by academic libraries, including the complexity of nontraditional publishing models. These models and their implications, as well as how they may be implemented, are then explored in the academic library environment. Next, survey data from nineteen academic librarians collected at the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in January 2015 is presented. Based on the literature and the survey data, this article argues that the principle concerns for academic library-based publishing going forward include 1) the need for the dedicated and/or sustained financial models for library-based publishing initiatives and 2) the cultural and financial capital to support librarians as they further expand their knowledge and expertise to support additional publishing-related functionalities in support of these new models. Both of these concerns ultimately tie to the persistent question of perceived quality, and by extension, reputation, of library-based publishing and open access publishing more broadly.

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Academic Library-Based Publishing: A State of the Evolving Art

Librarians as gate-openers in open access publishing: A case study in the United Arab Emirates

Since the mid-1990s, many higher education libraries have evolved from the traditional roles of primarily (1) research resource purchasers and providers and (2) research service providers into new,...

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Creating Digital Knowledge: Library as Open Access Digital Publisher

Objective . The study aims to analyse the experience of university libraries in different countries in working with the Open Textbook (OT) and to consider the prospects of creating a similar pilot project in Ukraine. Methods . The analysis covered the world publications (journals, books, conference proceedings, posts on social networks) in the field of Library and Information Science, devoted to the role of libraries in OT support, that have appeared since 2014. The author studied the aspects revealing that publication, namely OT, support services are areas with great potential for the future development of academic / university libraries. Results . Numerous evidence is presented that the topic of library as a publisher in OT support is most developed in the universities and colleges in economically developed countries, especially in the USA, Canada, Australia, and Great Britain. Library strategies for OT projects have been identified. The author clarified the nature of the initiatives and partnerships of libraries in supporting OT, as well as the basic services and roles of libraries in these projects. Conclusions . Today, the global practice of Scholarly Communication has enough evidence that the functions of the Library, lost in the course of evolution, as a Knowledge Publisher have returned under its “roof” and supplemented the existing function of Knowledge Managers. Digital Library Publishing (DLP) services in OT support help to change the learning environment and life of students (including persons with disabilities), pedagogical practices of teachers by means of free textbooks with an open license, as well as to receive reputation benefits for the university, improving the image of the latter. The possibility of eliminating systemic inequalities in access to academic resources increases the significance and changes the role of libraries in open education. The successes of Ukrainian librarians in supporting digital scholarly communication initiatives and the successful implementation of Open Access support projects (repositories, e-journals, e-conferences) give confidence that they can act as initiators and key partners in creating affordable textbooks.

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The Role of Libraries as Publishers in the Open Education Landscape: Reflecting Modern World Practice of Open Textbooks

Whereas Anglo-American universities have had a long tradition and reputation as publishers of scientific research monographs, in Germany, universities, with support of their local libraries, began experimenting with the new role as scientific publishers only two decades ago. The results for member institutions of the “German Academic Press” were relatively modest. The impact factor was far too low to attract authors of high ranked papers and theses to publish them with a small university press or even “university library press”. However, with the transition from print to digital format, the publication chain has changed significantly. Instead of publishing a print version of a thesis, post graduates have begun to search for cheaper alternatives to publish dissertations electronically at almost no costs and at the same time with considerable visibility for their research results worldwide. This was the birth of university repositories in Germany as in other countries as well, managed by faculty as “content provider” and university libraries as online archive. 

With the journal crisis and the monopoly of big academic publishers, libraries began to publish open access journals, some in cooperation with faculty. The impact factor again was poor, the content aspect of peer-reviewed high ranked journals led in the end to the golden open access way of publishing, dominated again by big companies.

The next step during the past ten years was the collaboration of libraries with digital humanities projects (e.g. digital editions, text grid activities). Valuable libraries’ manuscripts were digitized (some with help of Google) and published, where libraries held the copyright to do so. They helped attracting new user groups to library activities and getting access to rare books while preserving the original. 

With new requirements of e-science (grid computing, primary data repositories) libraries support faculty to archive, classify and publish raw research data for the scientific community. This is a big issue for university and research libraries. In not a few cases, faculty at German universities had to be persuaded to ask libraries for collaboration on publishing primary research data, for libraries are often seen as competitors in this emerging sector. In my view, this is a big mistake. We all should learn from the Google experience: a commercial company understood the tremendous potential of library collections and undertook the digitization and publishing of copyright-free prestigious books. 

Libraries should not wait to be asked to collaborate. They should push and effectively play their role as publishing partners for the sake of a non-profit access to the collective cultural heritage and research results. And librarians should ask themselves: how do we define the role of libraries in the 21st century, how do we make our unique collections public? Will public-private partnership always end up with universities and libraries as content provider and publishing companies as financial profiteers? We should keep in mind that it is the value of collections that should help libraries to participate in the publishing chain as an active player and not only as a “consumer” of published products.

Examples from German library activities will be given and discussed.

Regine Schmolling

Papers

Agents of the Publishing Chain: From Libraries as Academic Publishers to Libraries as Publishers in eScience and Digital Humanities