From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]> Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 17:26:23 -0500 > An interesting side > question is whether an OA monograph requires marketing. I'd argue it > does--more cost--but perhaps others disagree. I can tell you this much, Alex: in discussing this very question among members of the search committee for the new director of the OA Amherst College Press we reached a firm consensus that marketing is needed for monographs published OA, but it will probably take different forms--involving social media more, for example--than in the print environment. Sandy Thatcher > From: Alex Holzman <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 18:28:13 -0400 > > Wouldn't an appropriately funded OA model (perhaps partly via > something like the way Knowledge Unlatched will raise funds, partly > through the author's institution, occasionally via grant support) > solve this problem? All libraries and scholars would have access to a > digital form of the undoubtedly more useful book rather than the raw > dissertation and university presses would have their costs covered. > I've always seen one benefit of open access being its potential as a > way to eliminate the free-rider problem in scholarly monograph > publishing and this might be a way to start down that road and benefit > students, faculty, libraries, and presses alike. (Universities > providing financial support to their presses currently bear a cost > that universities without presses avoid--an unfairness not often > mentioned.) Of course, to work this would mean the OA support covered > all university press costs including overheads. An interesting side > question is whether an OA monograph requires marketing. I'd argue it > does--more cost--but perhaps others disagree. > > BTW, my own press definitely considers revised dissertations, but the > final decision to publish or not can include the forecast sales. And > while the decline in library sales for already-available electronic > dissertations may seem marginal to YBP, university presses these days > often have zero wiggle room. That's part of a whole different problem > for discussion another time. > > Alex Holzman > Temple Univ. Press