From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2011 11:43:21 -0600

I agree with this assessment. The Office of Digital Scholarly
Publishing at Penn State, when it was launched in 2005 as a joint
operation of the Press and Libraries, had in mind providing a platform
for faculty-initiated journals, among other services, and i believe it
is a service that libraries can reasonably (and cheaply) provide if
the journals are published OA. In the case of the ODSP, the Press's
editorial review of the journal proposal at the outset could provide
some degree of assurance regarding the quality of the publication, and
periodic reviews thereafter could be a check on maintaining quality.
In fact, it would be a good idea if more journals received
post-publication periodic reviews for quality, instead of just relying
on citation counts and like quantitative measures of impact.  Such
periodic review is often done for monograph series, so why not
journals?

Sandy Thatcher



At 11:06 PM -0500 12/7/11, LIBLICENSE wrote:
>
> From: Irene Perciali <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2011 20:06:49 -0800
>
>
> To reply to Joe:
>
>>  I don't think there is a place for libraries here, at least not over
>>  the long term.
>
>
> Libraries are discovering quite a significant place for themselves,
> and one that shows signs of sustained growth. I'm referring to
> libraries that offer journal publishing services. According to the
> IMLS-funded "Library Publishing Services: Strategies for Success"
> report, 55% of libraries already offer or want to offer publishing
> services (http://wp.sparc.arl.org/lps). Looking at Digital Commons
> sites alone, there are over 400 library-published journals, and we
> typically see about 10-20 new ones per month. The vast majority of
> these journals are open access journals; some have (extremely
> low-cost) subscriptions. Often they are published on behalf of small
> societies, turning a low-circulation subscription print journal into
> an open access online one.
>
> It's early days still, but we're starting to see evidence that this
> model is starting to make inroads in the commercial market, publishing
> journals that would otherwise end up behind a toll wall or with a
> publisher that charges commercial-level author fees. Even short of
> that, I think it's already clear that library publishing services
> provide a welcome home for journals that simply could not exist
> otherwise: for example, those in fields that lack grant money for
> author fees, or those in emerging fields where commercial publishers
> can't afford to take a risk.
>
> And, in reply to this:
>
>>  Of course, they may choose not to compete; they may choose to get the
>>  faculty senate to mandate that authors at their institution use the
>>  library's service first.  This would be an enforced monopoly.  The
>>  service level would be comparable to what you get at the Division of
>>  Motor Vehicles.
>
>
> No mandates, but the service level of library publishing has been
> extraordinary. Ask any editor who felt frustrated with slow turnaround
> time and high costs, was turned away by a commercial publisher because
> the journal could not prove that it could earn $50,000/year in
> subscriptions or author fees (and that's on the low side), and was
> able to walk to their library, get help, develop a journal site and
> online peer review workflow, begin publishing, and see their
> readership increase many times over, at no cost. Libraries have gotten
> tremendous appreciation from their campuses -- faculty and
> administration -- for offering publishing services, and word is
> spreading fast.
>
> Irene Perciali, Ph.D.
> Director of Strategic Initiatives
> Berkeley Electronic Press
> [log in to unmask]
>