Issues in Scholarly Communication
Current Situation
Scholarly journals are in a state of flux. The current economic downturn highlights the unsustainability of the current business models. In Signs of epistemic disruption: Transformations in the knowledge system of the academic journal, William Cope and Mary Kalantzis place scholarly journals in the context of the current system of scholarly communication, then discuss suggestions for the future.
As a scholar, what can I do now?
Many publishers will allow authors to post a pre-print or post-print version of their articles to a digital repository (such as the UW Digital Collections Center MINDS@UW) or to self-archive on a personal web site. Search for a summary of permissions normally given as part of publisher's copyright transfer agreements at SHERPA/RoMEO. Please read the FAQ at MINDS@UW for a good overview of questions to ask before publishing and actions to take after publishing. More questions? Please ask William Doering, our MINDS@UW liaison.
Background
- Even with small budget increases, Murphy
Library is no longer able to support
traditional print access to scholarly
communication through journal subscriptions
alone.
- We are NOT alone – even major research
libraries such as Harvard and Cornell are
canceling periodicals.
- When choosing where to publish, consider
licensing agreements, alternative
publishers, institutional- and
self-archiving as described in the
PowerPoint presentation and the links below.
- Between 1986 and 2001, journal prices
overall increased by 8.5%/year.
- Between 1986 and 2001, the CPI overall grew
by 3.4%/year.
- Journal prices grew twice as fast as health care prices during the same period.
Consolidation among publishers is also pushing journal pricing upwards. The Information Access Alliance is advocating anti-trust legislation to protect the public interest in research.
Additional Resources
Control Your Copyright (from UW-Madison
Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication
and Publishing)
Important information about how you can
retain copyright to your scholarly work,
including sample contracts and addenda.
Journal Cost-Effectiveness Database
Use this database to see if the journal to
which you're thinking of submitting a
manuscript is cost-effective.
The High Cost of Scholarly Journals (and What to
Do About It)
Published article from Change magazine
by Richard Edwards and David Shulenburger.
Brave Initiative: FSU Professor Resigns from Editorial List to Protest Pricing Policies
SPARC: Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition
Create Change
A resource for faculty and librarian action to
reclaim scholarly communication.
Academic Journal Policy Database
A database (maintained by the University of
Cincinnati) containing publisher policies on
their academic journals. A good place
for authors to visit to compare publisher
policies regarding copyright, archive
rights, etc.
Project RoMEO (Rights MEtadata for Open
Archiving)
Self-archiving terms from many publishers.
Sample Publishing Agreement Language
(from the Scholarly Communication Center at
NCSU Libraries Learning and Research Center
for the Digital Age)
Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography
by Charles W. Bailey
A selective bibliography of over 1,800
articles, books, and other sources regarding
scholarly electronic publishing efforts
since 1996.
Ebbinghouse, C. (2005, March). Open Access: The Battle for Universal, Free Knowledge. Searcher, 13(3), 8-17.
Collections of Open Access Journals/Dissertations/Theses
BioMed Central* Breaking News: Springer Acquires BioMed Central
Directory of Open Access Journals
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD)
