Archive for the ‘Scholarly Publishing’ Category

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Video: The eBook Transition: Collaborations and Innovations Behind Open-Access Monographs

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Now Available Online

Three ambitious initiatives to deliver free online access to scholarly monographs were featured at the next installment of the SPARC-ACRL forum, “The ebook transition: Collaborations and innovations behind open-access monographs.” The market-based business model for scholarly monographs, long under pressure due to decreased library purchasing, must now accommodate a transition to ebooks. Many non-profit publishers, including university presses, are actively exploring new publishing models to support scholarly monographs, including open-access distribution and collaborative initiatives with university libraries.

First Speaker: Maria Bonn, Director of the Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Libraries.

Second Speaker: Michael Jensen, Director of Strategic Web Communications, National Academies Press (NAP)

Third Speaker: Patrick Alexander, Director University Press and co-director of Penn State University Libraries’ Office of Digital Publishing, Penn State

These presentations to place at the SPARC -ACRL Forum, (Boston, January 16th, 2010) will likely be of interest to many of you. The entire program runs 90 minutes. The event took place during the ALA 2010 Conference in Boston this news release includes very brief bio (a sentence or two) about each speaker.

Source: SPARC

Posted in E-books, Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »

Initiative to Provide Free Online Access to Scholarly Monographs Discussed at SPARC-ACRL Sponsored Forum

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Video of the three presentations is online.

Three ambitious initiatives to deliver free online access to scholarly monographs were featured at the next installment of the SPARC-ACRL forum, “The ebook transition: Collaborations and innovations behind open-access monographs.” The market-based business model for scholarly monographs, long under pressure due to decreased library purchasing, must now accommodate a transition to ebooks. Many non-profit publishers, including university presses, are actively exploring new publishing models to support scholarly monographs, including open-access distribution and collaborative initiatives with university libraries.

Forum Speakers

First Speaker: Maria Bonn, Director of the Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Libraries.

Second Speaker: Michael Jensen, Director of Strategic Web Communications, National Academies Press (NAP)

Third Speaker: Patrick Alexander, Director University Press and co-director of Penn State University Libraries’ Office of Digital Publishing, Penn State

These presentations took place at the SPARC-ACRL Forum, (January 16th, 2010). and runs 90 minutes was part of the ALA 2010 Midwinter Conference in Boston. This news release includes very brief bio (a sentence or two) about each presenter.

Source: SPARC-ACRL

Posted in E-books, Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »

PREPRINT (Free Access): “Use of Web Resources in the Journal Literature 2001 and 2007″

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Title: A Cross-Disciplinary Study of Journal Literature, 2001 and 2007

34 Pages; PDF.

Author: Li Zhang (Mississippi State University Libraries

Abstract:

This article examines Web resources in research articles from 30 scholarly journals in disciplines across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. The purpose of the study is to report the degree to which scholars make use of Web-based resources in the journal literature and to identify Web citation characteristics within different subject areas. The study also explores whether any changes emerged between 2001 and 2007. The examination confirms the finding of previous studies that, even though Web resources are not heavily utilized in journal articles, the number of such resources is increasing. Publicly accessible database repositories and open source software prevail over other Web resources in research communication. The implications for academic libraries are discussed. The study suggests that new strategies need to be developed to manage Web-based information resources.

Accepted: March 18, 2010
Anticipated Publication Date: January 2011

Source: C&RL

Posted in Arts and Humanities, Scholarly Publishing, Science | No Comments »

New Items from the Nature Publishing Group: Content, Regional Portals, and 2011 Pricing

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

1) Nature Middle East Launches

The new website from Nature Publishing Group (NPG) showcases scientific and medical research from the Arabic-speaking Middle East region and is continuously updated with articles in English and Arabic. The King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC), at King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences (KSAU-HS), Saudi Arabia, is sponsoring Nature Middle East.

Nature Middle East features news, features, and short ‘Research Highlights’. Written by the Nature Middle East editorial team, ‘Research Highlights’ are summaries of interesting, recently-published papers, authored by researchers based in the Middle East region, from across the scientific and medical literature. Local job listings are provided by NatureJobs, and event listings by Nature Events. A blog, House of Wisdom, and a forum on Nature Network enable the community to connect, network and exchange information and ideas.

2) Introducing Nature.com Regions

Regional pages are now available on nature.com. Nature Publishing Group (NPG) today introduces nature.com regions (www.nature.com/regions). Nature.com regions pages provide a regularly updated portal for researchers, students, entrepreneurs, and investors who are interested in a specific country or region.

Nature.com regions launches with pages for: Europe, France, Germany, Iran, Israel and Italy. Additional nature.com regions pages are planned, and may range from a single city to a multinational area.

Each page brings together relevant high-quality research, news, opinion, and business content from the Nature family of journals, Scientific American, and other NPG resources. Local job listings from NatureJobs, event listings by Nature Events, and local service provider information are all available. Site visitors may also find content in French, German, and Italian provided by local Scientific American partners in respective countries.

3) Nature Publishing Group Details 2011 Open Access Pricing Policy

Source: NPG
Plenty of the details and numbers.

Posted in Information Industry, Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »

Two Forthcoming Papers on Crowdsourcing, Open Access, Wikisource, Legal & Humanities Research

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

Note: The full text of each paper is free to download via SSRN (Social Studies Research Network)

1. Crowdsourcing and Open Access: Collaborative Techniques for Disseminating Legal Materials and Scholarship

by Timothy K. Armstrong
University of Cincinnati College of Law
Santa Clara Computer and High Technology Law Journal, Forthcoming
University of Cincinnati Public Law Research Paper No. 10-07

Partial Abstract:

This short essay surveys the state of open access to primary legal source materials (statutes, judicial opinions and the like) and legal scholarship. The ongoing digitization phenomenon (illustrated, although by no means typified, by massive scanning endeavors such as the Google Books project and the Library of Congress’s efforts to digitize United States historical documents) has made a wealth of information, including legal information, freely available online, and a number of open-access collections of legal source materials have been created. Many of these collections, however, suffer from similar flaws: they devote too much effort to collecting case law rather than other authorities, they overemphasize recent works (especially those originally created in digital form), they do not adequately hyperlink between related documents in the collection, their citator functions are haphazard and rudimentary, and they do not enable easy user authentication against official reference sources.

The essay explores whether some of these problems might be alleviated by enlarging the pool of contributors who are working to bring paper records into the digital era. The same “peer production” process that has allowed far-flung communities of volunteers to build large-scale informational goods like the Wikipedia encyclopedia or the Linux operating system might be harnessed to build a digital library.

2. Rich Texts: Wikisource as an Open Access Repository for Law and the Humanities

by Timothy K. Armstrong
University of Cincinnati College of Law
U of Cincinnati Public Law Research Paper No. 10-09

Abstract

Open access to research and scholarship, although well established in the sciences, remains an emerging phenomenon in the legal academy. In recent years, a number of open access repositories have been created to permit self-archiving of legal scholarship (either within or across institutional boundaries), and faculties at some leading research institutions have adopted policies supporting open access to their work. Although existing repositories for legal scholarship represent a clear improvement over proprietary, subscription-based repositories in some ways, their architecture, and the narrowly defined missions they have elected to pursue, limit their ability to illuminate the ongoing dialogue among texts that is a defining characteristic of scholarly discourse in law and the humanities. One of the wiki-based projects operated by the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation–the Wikisource digital library – improves upon the shortcomings of existing open access repositories by bringing source texts and commentary together in a single place, with additional contextual materials hosted on other Wikimedia Foundation sites just a click away. These features of Wikisource, if more widely adopted, may improve academic discourse by highlighting conceptual interconnections among works, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, and reducing the competitive advantages of proprietary, closed-access legal information services.

Source: SSRN
Hat Tip: Peter Suber & Open Access Tagging Project

Posted in Arts and Humanities, Legal, Scholarly Publishing, Social Media | No Comments »

Lists & Rankings: The Hottest Researchers of 2009

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

The rankings included in the article come from ISI’s Hot Papers Database and ISI’s Web of Knowledge. ISI is part of Thomson Reuters.

Once again Science Watch takes its annual look back at the hottest of recent research. Table 1 (in the article) are the researchers who, according to citations recorded during 2009, posted the highest numbers of Hot Papers published over the preceding two years. Table 2 (also in the article) lists the papers published in 2009 that were most cited by year’s end.

The list of researchers is striking for the number of authors who’ve returned from last year’s compilation—or who’ve reappeared following brief absences—as well as for particular topics that remain highly active and highly cited.

[Snip]

Among 2009’s most-cited papers, the physical sciences make a strong showing, notably in reports from the five-year release of data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, accounting for three of the top ten papers. Cosmic rays and dark matter also figure among the year’s hottest reports.

And by now it’s customary to remark on the strong showing of the New England Journal of Medicine: 11 of the 44 featured papers.

Source: Thomson Reuters

Posted in Citation Reports, Lists and Rankings, Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »

Winter 2010 Issue of Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship Now Available

Monday, March 15th, 2010

Access the Table of Contents

Articles Include:

+ [Board Accepted] Evaluation of an Audience Response System in Library Orientations for Engineering Students
by Denise A. Brush, Rowan University

+ [Board Accepted] Open Access Citation Advantage: An Annotated Bibliography
by A. Ben Wagner, University at Buffalo

+ [Refereed] Information Portals: A New Tool for Teaching Information Literacy Skills
by Debra Kolah, Rice University and Michael Fosmire, Purdue University

+ [Refereed] Are Article Influence Scores Comparable across Scientific Fields?
by Julie Arendt, Southern Illinois University Carbondale

+ [Refereed] Using Course Syllabi to Assess Research Expectations of Biology Majors: Implications for Further Development of Information Literacy Skills in the Curriculum
by Andrea L. Dinkelman, Iowa State University

+ [Refereed] Developing the Oregon Explorer– a Natural Resources Digital Library
by Janine Salwasser and Bonnie Avery, Oregon State University

Book Reviews

+ Virtual Research Environments: From Portals to Science Gateways
by Phoebe Ayers, University of California, Davis

+ Historical Dictionary of Environmentalism
by Melissa L. Gold, Millersville University

+ Science and Technology Resources on the Internet
Michael Fosmire, Editor

Internet Resources

+ End-User Patent Searching Using Open Access Sources
by Pat LaCourse, Alfred University

+ Selected Internet Resources on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)
by Erin O’Toole, University of North Texas

Expert Tools

Five Minute Screencasts — The Super Tool for Science and Engineering Librarians
by Olivia Bautista Sparks, Arizona State University

Viewpoints

The Future of arXiv
by Robert Michaelson, Northwestern University

Letters

Posted in Info Management and Retrieval, Information Literacy, Scholarly Publishing, Technology and Internet | No Comments »

The March, 2010 Issue of First Monday is Now Available, Articles About Wikipedia and Open Access Included in this Issue

Monday, March 15th, 2010

Direct to Table of Contents (15.3)

Articles Include:

+ Individual focus and knowledge contribution
by Lada A. Adamic, Xiao Wei, Jiang Yang, Sean Gerrish, Kevin K Nam, Gavin S. Clarkson

+ How today’s college students use Wikipedia for course-related research
by Alison J. Head, Michael B. Eisenberg

+ Peer governance and Wikipedia: Identifying and understanding the problems of Wikipedia’s governance
by Vasilis Kostakis

+ The role of advertising in financing open access journals
by Jan Erik Frantsvåg

+ Vanguard, laggard or relic? The possible futures of higher education after the Epistemic Revolution
by Dion Dennis, Jabbar Al-Obaidi

Posted in Information Policy, Scholarly Publishing, Social Media | No Comments »

Ohio State University: Campus Research Preserved on Library Database, It’s the Knowledge Bank

Friday, March 12th, 2010

A very interesting institutional repository. The Knowledge Bank uses dSpace technology. As mentioned in the article having all of the material in one location can make can help making it easier to access and preserve over the long haul.

Larry Allen, spokesman for OSU Libraries, said the bank accepts all kinds of materials and finds ways to preserve them “so that 20 years from now it’s not saved in a format that’s not accessible, like 8-track tapes,” he said.

Note: You do not have to be affiliated with Ohio St. University to search, access, and access the content in Knowledge Bank. Simply head to the web site and begin browsing or searching.

From the Article:

The Knowledge Bank, a project of Ohio State’s libraries and the top technology office, gives OSU researchers an easy way to publish and preserve their work on the Web. But it’s not just a place for scholarly research. Video clips, full-length books and even FBI reports call this digital space home.

The Knowledge Bank is an endeavor of OSU Libraries and the Office of the Chief Information Officer which began in 2004 [that's a very long time ago in Internet terms] and has more than 42,000 materials on the site.

The digital content is collected into various communities, based on a common topic or source.

[Snip]

“We always start with ‘who has the rights to the materials,’” Connell said. “That is sort of the flow in all cases.”

If submitters are uncertain if they own the rights, Connell said the Knowledge Bank will work with them to find out.

“We try to provide a set of services for people who have content,” she said. In addition to dealing with copyrights, they also set up the individual and community pages and provide hardware and software updates.

The material is kept under a creative commons license which allows those who own the content to customize the copyright. The library has the right to distribute the material online through the Knowledge Bank.

Much More in the Complete Article

You do not have to be affiliated with Ohio St. University to search, access, and access the content in Knowledge Bank. Simply head to the web site and begin browsing or searching.

Source: The Lantern (School Paper at Ohio St.)

Posted in Digital Preservation, Digital Repositories, Digitization Projects, Info Management and Retrieval, Intellectual Property, Libraries and Librarianship, Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »

The Open Access Citation Advantage: Studies and Results to Date

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Open Access Citation Advantage: Studies and Results to Date
by Alma Swan
Technical Report (2010), School of Electronics & Computer Science, University of Southampton

From the Abstract:

This paper presents a summary of reported studies on the Open Access citation advantage. There is a brief introduction to the main issues involved in carrying out such studies, both methodological and interpretive. The study listing provides some details of the coverage, methodological approach and main conclusions of each study.

Access the Complete Paper (17 pages; PDF)
Note: This paper is a draft. Their is also a lengthy list annotated studies.

See Also: Philip Davis from The Scholarly Kitchen has some major concerns with the Swan report. You can read them in the blog post, “Rewriting the History of the Open Access Debate.”

Sources: University of Southampton, The Scholarly Kitchen

Hat Tip: Peter Suber

Posted in Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »

A New Journal from Elsevier; Two New Journals via PubMed Central; Nature’s New Asia-Pacific Publishing Index

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

New from Elsevier: Journal of Family Business Strategy

Elsevier today announced the launch of a new quarterly journal, Journal of Family Business Strategy (JFBS). The journal aims to be a primary publication outlet for academics and scholars in the field of family business strategic issues and the first issue is now available on ScienceDirect.

New on PubMed Central

Silence
ISSN: 1758-907X (electronic)
Archive includes 1(2010) to the present
Note: There is no embargo delay for this journal
Via BioMed Central

Mobile DNA
ISSN: 1759-8753 (electronic)
Archive includes 1(2010) to the present
via BioMed Central

New: Japan, China and Australia Shine in Nature Asia-Pacific Publishing Index

Japan, China, and Australia are the top ranking nations in the Nature Asia-Pacific Publishing Index, a website which measures the annual output of research articles in Nature-branded journals from countries and institutions in the Asia-Pacific region. The online service from NPG Nature Asia-Pacific, the Asia-Pacific wing of Nature Publishing Group (NPG), launches today at:
www.natureasia.com/en/publishing-index/

The Publishing Index tracks research published from the Asia-Pacific region during the past 12 months in NPG’s portfolio of over 30 highly cited Nature-branded journals, and will be updated weekly by downloading a 12-month window of data from nature.com, the online platform for Nature journals.

Sources: Elsevier, PMC, Nature

Posted in Information Industry, Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »

Global Research Report: Australia and New Zealand

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

From the Thomson Reuters Announcement:

A study from Thomson Reuters released today shows broadening international collaboration in the research of Australia and, to a lesser degree, New Zealand, over the past 10 years. The United States continues to be the biggest contributor to Australian and New Zealand publications, but of special interest is a sizable increase of Australia’s collaboration with China.

The study, Global Research Report: Australia and New Zealand, found that collaboration within the Asia Pacific region is notably changing. Though collaboration with Australia among some Asia Pacific nations (such as New Zealand, India, and Singapore) increased, and collaboration with China doubled (rising from 2.3 percent to 4.4 percent of all Australian outputs), collaboration with Japan remained unchanged. Likewise, Japan’s rank as a contributor of co-authored papers with New Zealand fell from sixth to eighth.

[Snip]

Other Key findings Include:

+ Australia’s share of world research publication output has grown steadily from 2.85 percent in 1999 to 3.18 percent in 2008.

+ In the same period, the volume of Australian publications has risen annually by an average of 5 percent — a growth rate higher than that of world publication averages.

+ Computer science, materials science, environment/ecology, and clinical medicine are subject areas where Australia has increased its outputs, consistent with its national research priorities.

+ Subject areas that have grown in the volume of outputs in New Zealand are computer sciences, biology and biochemistry, immunology, and neurosciences and behavior, consistent with the country’s government research, science and technology agenda.

Access the Complete Report
The report is free but you will need to register. You can opt-out so no additional material is sent to you.

Review Other Research Reports

Source: Thomson Reuters

Posted in Citation Reports, Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »

Academic Publishers Seeing Strong Growth From e-Book Sales

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

From the Article:

Nearly 90% of commmercial academic publishers have seen growth in e-book sales over the past two years, according to a cross-sector survey released today (10th March) by the Association of Learned Professional and Scholarly Publishers. Growth in some cases was more than 1,000%, with e-book sales now almost 10% of total book sales of the publishers surveyed.

[Snip]

In total 68.6% of publishers have seen an increase in e-book revenue over the last two years. For those publishers with e-book programmes growth had been extraordinary, with one publisher recording e-book growth of 44,000%. Even without this figure included, publishers recorded growth in e-book sales of more than 200%, with commercial publishers seeing a rise of 345% and non-profit publishers growth of 108%.

While e-book sales still account for a relatively small amount of total book sales, the survey found that for commercial academic publishers they now represented almost 8% of business, while for non-profit publishers it was more than 10%. For ‘very small’ publishers it was above 17%, while for ‘large’ publishers it was close to 13% of book sales. Overall digital accounted for 9.4% of total book revenue, a three-fold increase on previous estimates.

Access the Complete Article

Source: The Bookseller

See Also: E-Books Make Gains (2006-2009) (eMarketer via Adweek)

These numbers come from the Association of American Publishers. The post includes a graph.

Posted in E-books, Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »

Just Published: Peer Review: A Guide for Researchers

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Note: This document was published by the Research Information Network in the UK.

From the Announcement:

The growth in the size of the research community and of the volumes of research being undertaken in the UK and across the world means that the amount of time and effort put into the peer review system is growing too, and that it is coming under increasing scrutiny. The guide looks at how effective peer review is in selecting the best research proposals, as well as in detecting misconduct and malpractice.

It also looks at how fair the system is, and at the different levels of transparency involved in the process: from completely closed systems, where the identities of reviewers and those whose work is being reviewed are kept hidden from each other, and reports are not revealed, to completely transparent systems where identities and reports are openly revealed.

The burdens on researchers as submitters and reviewers are by far the biggest costs in the peer review system, and the guide outlines some of the measures that are being taken to reduce those burdens, or at least to keep them in check.

Access the Full Text Guide (16 pages; PDF)

Source: RIN (Research Information Network)

Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »

News from JSTOR: Current Scholarship Program Reaches 100 Journals

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

From the Announcement:

… seven new publishers have recently joined the Current Scholarship Program. While work continues to sign additional publishers and titles to the Program, with these new partners, libraries will be able to license and provide their users with access to the current issues of at least 100 journals on the JSTOR platform beginning in 2011.

[The Current Scholarship Program was first announced on August 13, 2009.]

The publishers that recently joined the Program include:

Association for the Study of African American Life and History

Michigan Historical Review, Central Michigan University

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Massachusetts Historical Society

Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture

University of Nebraska Press

Western Historical Quarterly, Utah State University

These publishers bring a wealth of ground-breaking scholarship to the Program. Titles include The William & Mary Quarterly and The Journal of African American History, as well as other core publications in African American Studies, Feminist Studies, and History.

A final list of publishers and titles that will be available in the Current Scholarship Program for the 2011 subscription year will be coming soon, and pricing for the current issues of these journals will be available in early summer. In the meantime, as you begin your collection development planning for next year, a presentation from ALA Midwinter about the Program benefits for libraries and details about how your institution will be able to license titles in the Program is available online.

E-Mail Contact

From the “Current Scholarship “About” Page:

Starting in 2011, publishers who participate in the Current Scholarship Program will have both current and historical content from their published journals available on a redesigned JSTOR platform. Current issue prices will be set by participating publishers and will include all content ahead of the moving wall. Back issues of journals not included in JSTOR today will be added to the archive.

Libraries worldwide will be able to license the current journals, individually and as part of new current issue collections, simply by checking a box to add them to their existing JSTOR license agreement. These libraries will then pay one consolidated JSTOR invoice for all licensed content, including existing back issue collections.

Source: JSTOR / ITHAKA

Posted in Information Industry, Libraries and Librarianship, Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »

UKSG: E-Resources Management Handbook, Eight New/Updated Chapters

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Direct to E-Resources Management Handbook

This announcement has complete details and one sentence summaries.

New

+ Peer Review by Fytton Rowland of Loughborough University

+ A Beginner’s Guide to Working with Vendors by Joseph Thomas of East Carolina University

+ E-resource Management and the Semantic Web by George Macgregor of Liverpool John Moores University

+ How to Survive a New Serialist by Glenda Griffin of Sam Houston State University

+ COUNTER by Peter Shepherd of COUNTER

+ Cancellation Workflow by Trina Holloway of Georgia State University

Updated

+ New Resource Discovery Methods by consultant Jenny Walker

+ Usage Statistics and Online Behaviour by Angela Conyers of Birmingham City University

Source: UKSG (UK Serials Group)
Hat Tip: Knowledgespeak

Posted in Libraries and Librarianship, Resources, Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »

Scientists Save Even More Time Keeping Up-To-Date with the New MaterialsViews.com

Friday, March 5th, 2010

From the Announcement:

MaterialsViews.com, the news service covering the latest developments in materials science, chemistry, and physics, has been updated with new features that help materials scientists keep up with the latest research.

MaterialsViews.com’s professional scientific editors scan the materials science, chemistry, and physics literature, looking for the most interesting, exciting, and relevant breakthroughs in all of materials science as soon as they are published. They then distill the best papers into concise summaries that can be quickly scanned so busy scientists can identify the papers they want to spend more time reading.

Finding articles is faster on the new MaterialsViews.com, with improved navigation and layout. New individual channels for hot subject areas–including nanotechnology, polymers, energy, electronics, photonics, surfaces, and more–let scientists focus on the stories most relevant to their research.

[Snip]

It’s also easier to find upcoming events and conferences, and the new MaterialsViews.com jobs page can help locate the perfect career opportunity anywhere in the world.

MaterialsViews.com is a free resource.

Source: Wiley (via KnowledgeSpeak.com)

Posted in Scholarly Publishing, Science, Source File | No Comments »

University Library, Universtity Press, and Faculty Partner to Publish New Book Series

Friday, March 5th, 2010

A partnership between the Cornell University Library and others has just been announced.

From the Announcement:

Humanist scholars continue to live by the “publish or perish” rule, which defines the monograph as the gold standard for tenure. Those working on languages and literatures other than English face a double jeopardy, as the market for their books shrinks and many presses cut back on publishing specialized titles.

Now, authors writing on German topics are getting a fresh channel for their scholarship through a new publishing venture at Cornell University that aspires to provide a more stable and sustainable forum for their work. A $50,000 three-year grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will help fund the endeavor.

Signale: Modern German Letters, Cultures, and Thought — a new English-language book series covering the literature, culture, criticism and intellectual history of the German-speaking world — will be published in electronic format and in short print runs backed up by trade-quality bound books produced on a print-on-demand basis. The innovative cross-campus model involves extensive collaboration between Cornell University Library, Cornell University Press and Cornell faculty in the Departments of German Studies, Comparative Literature, History, Music and Philosophy. The full text of many of the Signale books will be available online for free.

More Info in the Full Announcement

Access the Signale Web Site

Source: Cornell University Library

Posted in Libraries and Librarianship, Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »

New Guide from SPARC: Campus-Based Open-Access Publishing Funds

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

From the Announcement:

SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) has released a new guide and supporting Web resource exploring campus-based open-access publishing funds. Authored by SPARC Consultant Greg Tananbaum, these timely new resources survey the current North American landscape of open-access funds and explore key emerging questions on how such funds are considered and developed on college and university campuses.

Open-access funds are resources created to address article-processing fees (APCs) that may be associated with publishing in an open-access journal. These fees are a source of revenue for many open-access publishers (including the Public Library of Science, Hindawi, and the Optical Society of America), as well as for subscription-based publishers experimenting with “open choice” or “hybrid” options, where individual articles are made freely available with the upon payment of an APC.

The new guide, “Open-access publishing funds: A practical guide to design and implementation,” and Web resource contain a wealth of background information to inform libraries, authors, administrators and interested others on the practical considerations surrounding open-access funds.

Access the Guide

Source: SPARC

Posted in Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »

Kansas University Working to Increase Public Access to Published Research

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

From the Article:

Kansas University [Gary's alma mater, Go Jayhawks!] is trying to make the research done at the school available to a wider audience.

A new policy asks KU researchers to retain some of the copyright on their work if they wish to, allowing journal articles, e-books and other scholarly work to be posted online on a KU Web site for all to see.

The repository is at http:// kuscholarworks.ku.edu.

[Snip]

Ada Emmett, scholarly communications librarian, has been working with a KU task force to implement the policy. She said she hoped to have 25 percent of the total research KU does posted online over the next two years, though the output of research done at KU is difficult to quantify.

Not all journals agree to give up the copyrights — and when that happens, the policy does not interfere with professors publishing their work as usual.

Access the Complete Article

Source: Lawrence Journal-World

Posted in Libraries and Librarianship, Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »

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