Open access monographs

[tomcohen13 AT aol.com]

Dear Gary, Hillis, Sigi, et al,

I want to express my appreciation for all for the creative and very 
material work
this horizon involves--and I am still learning of the prospects as I 
absorb the contributions.
At this point, I want only to add a thought endorsing Hillis' 
suggestion.

It seems to me that hidden raison d'etre for this pioneering lies in 
being able to quickly
publish relevant monographs that are new, and in which
the author/s are not focused on remuneration. The work of making the 
archive of past
classics lost to print or current journals is a key labor, but without 
being romantic it does
seem, in the context of the "software" development, this future task 
should emerge as central.

When I imagine what that might look like, it does not turn immediatey 
toward picking up
volumes squeezed by a retiring publishing arena--not alone. I would 
recommend exploring
the prospect of a series of mirco-editorial teams with specific 
conceptual terrain or interests.
These might explore, solicit, or rigorously vet monographs written 
toward 21st century
horizons--in which quick publication would be relevant. If the 
press/site were known for
such a ventures and did it well, it would be turned to by readers. 
Perhaps this is several
seasons premature, but seems worth putting out for discussion.

All best, ongoing,

Tom


-----Original Message-----
From: J H MILLER <jhmiller AT uci.edu>
To: Gary Hall <gary AT garyhall.info>
Cc: ohp AT lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 11:49 pm
Subject: Re: [OA-monographs] Monograph thoughts









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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