Re: Seven ARL Libraries Face Major Budget Cuts

["\"FrederickFriend\"" <ucylfjf@ucl.ac.uk>]

These are serious issues, so please do not take my reply as 
trivialising them, but from my viewpoint the changes taking place 
do not necessarily lead to the collapse of a 'high-quality, 
traditional scholarly publishing regime'. The content presently 
available through scholarly monographs will still need to be 
peer-reviewed and published. Publishing it in a different way 
does not necessarily mean that there will be any loss in quality, 
nor any diminution in the role of university presses.

It may well be that the model will be based around individual 
chapters linked to related periodical articles, because this is a 
model which can meet readers' needs, but this model is not 
incompatible with the branding of the collected content. This 
branding could be on the basis of both subject - as in a 
monograph bringing together work by several authors - or branding 
by publisher, perhaps a collaboration between a university press 
and a journal publisher or a university press and a university 
repository. Quality could be ensured either by peer review in the 
traditional way or through community peer review after 
publication, or a combination of both models. Could the business 
model could be built around the packaging and the branding, 
covering first copy costs through a low payment for an electronic 
copy and asking for a higher payment for print-on-demand? I do 
feel that relieving pressure on library budgets through changes 
in the way journals are purchased could release funds for 
research monograph content under this model.

This model may not be 'traditional' in the sense that it moves 
away from the way monograph content has been disseminated for 
quite a few years, but it retains the essential elements the 
research community has always believed to be important, while 
adapting to the new environment. Change need not lead to 
collapse.

Fred Friend
JISC Scholarly Communication Consultant
Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL

----- Original Message -----
From: <richards1000@comcast.net>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 1:13 AM
Subject: Re: Seven ARL Libraries Face Major Planned or Potential 
Budget Cuts

[Hide Quoted Text]
> Sandy:
>
> Thanks for the great questions.  Here are some thoughts:
>
> *The revenues from monograph sales will likely get even worse, if
> the preliminary evidence from the trade market is any indication:
> see NYT: http://bit.ly/A1mV2 ; Idealog: http://bit.ly/XmcMc ; PW:
> http://bit.ly/YxhLP .  That suggests that the scholarly monograph
> won't survive, because it can't garner the volume that will
> likely enable some trade monographs to eke it out at $9.99 or
> less.
>
> *I think that the scholarly-monograph-in-the-form-of-an-article
> collection is going be disaggregated and sold as individual
> digital articles, in conjunction with periodical articles, on
> demand, and in whatever configuration replaces The Deal;
>
> *I think that the genuine, full-length scholarly monograph,
> respecting which each chapter constitutes part of an organic
> whole, will die for the most part, with the exception of
> OA-author-pays titles, respecting which the author's department
> or grant funds 100% of the production cost.  Mellon and other
> foundations may decide to continue to fund genuine scholarly
> monographs, but these will likely be very few in number.
>
> It's over.  Our beloved, high-quality, traditional scholarly
> publishing regime is completely collapsing.
>
> Robert Richards
> richards1000@comcast.net