Open access monographs

[Paul Ashton <paul AT openhumanitiespress.org>]

David, thanks for this great summary of the discussion so far. I have a
couple of additions and comments below but I guess this neat summary pushes
us toward the question of where we go from here or how we start to shape
these ideas into a platform that can be worked up into specific projects or
grant proposals etc?

Reading this summary of the original posts highlighted four things for me:

1) that there is a wealth of possibilities here and just about any of which
would a good entry point

2) that there seems to be a trend toward the kinds of works that are
excluded, for whatever reason, from the commercial presses. While all of
these ideas are great and should be pursued we should also keep in mind the
standard 'garden variety' scholarly monograph (the sort of thing that any
academic press would typically publish, or at least should publish). I say
this not to undermine what these other publishers are doing, but rather
because authors may want their work to be OA. For example, in the next few
months re.press will be publishing two books that had been offered contracts
from academic publishers but the authors decided not to take them up when
they discovered the OA angle. In terms of making an intervention into
academic publishing possibly we need also to strike at the centre, with new
contemporary theory.

Those with more experience in seeking funding may be better placed to
comment on this, but it may possibly be easier to obtain funds, especially
'grants' and 'partnerships', for more 'mainstream' output.

3) Drawing further on John's doc 'Monograph Funding', I think that it is
worth emphasising point 1, the 'reduction of publishing costs', as really a
very important part of any strategy OHP adopts. The reasons for this are
obvious, however, what is implicit in this notion is streamlining the
process and reducing the 'management' of titles through the production
process. Here the suggestions in previous posts of making links with
networks of people who may be able to contribute to a project is a great
one. However, I have found that communicating with authors and other people
working on a project is perhaps the most onerous part of the publishing
cycle (at least for re.press). I think that this is probably true to for C&H
as well, especially when people do not use ojs as it should be (at least
30-50% of all submissions are by people who just can't manage the system,
and the co-editors have also been a bit lax in their take up). This is why
OMP (which, according to the way I read it so far, is even more flexible
than ojs and more decentred) looks like it has so much potential.

4) finally the combination of replies really prompts one to return to that
much discussed question of what 'publishing' is. The reason that I raise
this old chestnut is because it may help us focus on what it is that ohp can
bring to OA monograph publishing. Only some kind of documents require ohp
association (or any 'publisher') to be considered 'published'. For example,
in one of the documents Sigi has produced she makes the point that in the
humanities the 'official' publication has weight over forms of publication,
that is, I can publish a book on my website, however, according to the field
it is only 'really' 'published' if ohp (or Cambridge or suny etc) say so.
Anyway what texts require 'say so' becomes a question.



On 30/6/08 4:51 PM, "John Willinsky" <john.willinsky AT stanford.edu> wrote:

> To jump in at the end of David's helpful list, and to start building
> some documentation for this press idea, I've tried to work out more of
> the details around the possible economic routes suggested for pursuing
> monograph publishing, as a first step in drawing up a publishing plan
> and perhaps seeking a grant to explore the viability of these various
> routes.
> John
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Jun 28, 2008, at 9:50 AM, David Ottina wrote:
> 
> There have already been a lot of ideas floated so I thought I'd do a bit
> of a quick round-up organized roughly by workflow. I apologise if I
> missed any.
> 
> Mss identification
> -------------------------
> + What
>    - Significant out-of-print titles
>    - Unpublished specialist works (e.g. xeroxed mss)
>    - Novella-length mss
>    - Theses
>    - Rapid interventions
> 
> + Who
>    - Micro-editorial teams
>    - Networks of colleagues
>    - Humanities centers
> 
> Mss development
> -------------------------
> + Certification
>    - Editorial board
>    - External readers
>    - Community interest (online commenting)
> 
> Book production
> -------------------------
> + Pedagogical partnerships
> 
> Distribution
> -------------------------
> + Repositories
> + Humanities Centers
> + OHP Website
> + Print on demand
> + Libraries
> 
> Funding
> ------------------------
> + Project-based grants
> + Library subscriptions
> + POD sales
> + Sponsorship
> 
> Do people have other ideas they would like to add?
> 
> Best,
> David
> 
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