Open access monographs

[Jean-Claude Guédon <jean.claude.guedon AT umontreal.ca>]

I also agree with Hillis: the article/monograph dichotomy leaves an artificial gap in between. Dealing with these "odd-sized" documents (odd from a publisher's perspective, not an author's) would be very valuable.

Best to all,

jc

Le samedi 21 juin 2008 à 12:49 -0400, J H MILLER a écrit :
>     Dear Gary, Sean, and all: I agree with the comments Gary and Sean have made, with a slight leaning toward new stuff not likely to get published by commercial or so-called university presses (so-called because some of them at least more and more behave pretty much like the commercial presses, in spite of their tax exempt status. We all know the reasons for this: reduced subvention by the universities, declining market for, for example, single author monographs or monographs by young first-time authors. Catch 22: you must already have published in order to get published.) 
>     
>     
>     I think there may be a lot of wonderful mss out there that are too long for journal articles and too short for books, i.e. 90-150 ms pp. OHP might well do a great service to scholarship by publishing these in order to prevent authors from trying to stretch 100 pp. into 250 pp. Some topics just come out 100 pp., as has happened to me this spring with a thing on telepathy in Derrida, Freud, Browning. Trying to make a regular-sized book out of this wd just dilute it. I suspect a lot of such mss exist out there. Either journal essay or full-sized book is a strait-jacket.
>     
>     
>     So: Short original monographs. That's my suggestion for the discussion. These wd need to be peer-reviewed, of course.
>     
>     
>     best, hillis
>     
>     On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 10:17 AM, Gary Hall <gary AT garyhall.info> wrote:
> >         Dear Sean,
> >         
> >         Thanks, this is really helpful. And no, I don't think this is material
> >         we have already talked through. To continue the conversation...
> >         
> >         I wonder if it wouldn't be easier, cheaper and quicker to publish a lot
> >         of the material you mention - books that go out of print and whose
> >         rights revert to the authors, specialist monographs published in xerox
> >         or photolitho, those which have exhausted their commercial potential or
> >         which have no commercial potential - in a subject-orientated or
> >         institutional OA repository? One of the ideas behind the CSeARCH archive
> >         I'm involved with via Culture Machine, for instance
> >         (http://www.culturemachine.net/csearch), is to make this possible with
> >         regard to books and monographs that are cultural studies and cultural
> >         theory-related. But I'm not trying to self-publicize: there are of
> >         course many other such OA archives (although you're right, not all of
> >         them accept books, I know).
> >         
> >         My experience of being involved with the launch of OHP was being on the
> >         receiving end of a number of queries as to if and when OHP was going to
> >         be producing monographs. And my sense was that this was motivated, not
> >         so much by a desire to have access to hard-to-get titles from the past -
> >         although I agree with you, this is very important - but more  in
> >         response to the general 'crisis' in monograph publishing in the
> >         humanities in the present. People in the humanities are simply finding
> >         it harder and harder to publish research-led books. And yet it's often
> >         these books that they're most interested in writing and which they feel
> >         can make a significant contribution to the field. It's certainly on
> >         research led monographs that their careers often depend.
> >         
> >         I very much like the idea of creating a pedagogical link between the
> >         idea of OHP publishing monographs and those departments and institutions
> >         that are producing skilled professionals for the publishing world. Long
> >         term it'd also be a great way of breaking down some of the simplistic
> >         oppositions between publishers on the one hand and academics on the
> >         other associated with OA.
> >         
> >         Thanks, Gary
> >         
> >         
> >         --
> >         Gary Hall Professor of Media and Performing Arts
> >         School of Art and Design, Coventry University
> >         Co-editor of Culture Machine http://www.culturemachine.net
> >         Director of the Cultural Studies Open Access Archive
> >         http://www.culturemachine.net/csearch
> >         Co-founder of the Open Humanities Press
> >         http://www.openhumanitiespress.org
> >         My website http://www.garyhall.info
> >     
> >         
> >     
> >         
> >         
> >         
> >         Sean Cubitt wrote:
> >         > Dear Colleagues
> >         >
> >         > A coup,e of swift thoughts, as I have deadlines to chase this weekend
> >         >
> >         > 1. there are numbers of books which go out of print every year. Standard
> >         > contracts seem in general to revert rights to authors. Republishing
> >         > significant lost humanities titles, especially those whose specialism or
> >         > timeliness militates against republication might eb a significant activity
> >         > to broker. If scanned, such texts require a lot less production.
> >         >
> >         > 2. I presume Mark davis is on this list - mark's department and no doubt
> >         > others across the world produce highly skilled professionals for the
> >         > publishing industry. There might be a possibility of creating a pedagogical
> >         > link to the mutual benefit of both parties
> >         >
> >         > 3. In my current research I keep coming up on 1960s and 70s specialist
> >         > monographs published in what appears to be xerox or photolitho, especially
> >         > in history and phlosophy of science. Unless a learned society has a
> >         > monographs arm titles like 'The History of Colorimetry and Sensitometry' are
> >         > not going to have a commercial life, but as in that case, sean F Johnston's
> >         > book is the making of mine. I suppose my contention is really this
> >         >
> >         > Whiuch monographs most benefit from digital publishing?
> >         > - those which have already exhausted their commercial potential
> >         > - those which have no commercial potential
> >         > - those which are urgently attached to the present - such titles might be
> >         > revised for hardcopy publication, so might be considered pre=press, on the
> >         > scientific model
> >         >
> >         > There may also be a category for which hyperlinking is of value, or the
> >         > cheapness of colour reproduction
> >         >
> >         > My apologies if this is all material you've have talked through already, and
> >         > thanks for inviting me to participate
> >         >
> >         > Sean
> >         >
> >         >
> >         >
> >         > Prof Sean Cubitt
> >         > scubitt AT unimelb.edu.au
> >         > Director
> >         > Media and Communications Program
> >         > Faculty of Arts
> >         > Room 127 John Medley East
> >         > The University of Melbourne
> >         > Parkville VIC 3010
> >         > Australia
> >         >
> >         > Tel: + 61 3 8344 3667
> >         > Fax:+ 61 3 8344 5494
> >         > M: 0448 304 004
> >         > Skype: seancubitt
> >         > http://www.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/media-communications/
> >         > http://homepage.mac.com/waikatoscreen/
> >         > http://seancubitt.blogspot.com/
> >         > http://del.icio.us/seancubitt
> >         >
> >         > Editor-in-Chief Leonardo Book Series
> >         > http://leonardo.info
> >         >
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> >         >
> >         
> >         
> >     
> >         --
> >         Gary Hall
> >         Professor of Media and Performing Arts
> >         School of Art and Design, Coventry University
> >         Co-editor of Culture Machine http://www.culturemachine.net
> >         Director of the Cultural Studies Open Access Archive
> >         http://www.culturemachine.net/csearch
> >         Co-founder of the Open Humanities Press
> >         http://www.openhumanitiespress.org
> >         My website http://www.garyhall.info
> >     
> >         
> >     
> >         
> >         
> >         
> >         
> >         
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> >     
>     
>     
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Jean-Claude Guédon
Université de Montréal