The Future of the Scholarly Monograph

["Colin Steele" <Colin.Steele@anu.edu.au>]

Some of this ground has been covered before on the List, but 
recent university library budget cuts, eg as foreshadowed in UK 
and US, will surely put more strain, if current acquisition 
budgets remain in the same proportions, on libraries purchasing 
monographs from the majority of university presses. We are not 
talking here about the publishing gorilla in the room, ie OUP. 
See the article 'The largest university press in the world..'in 
the April issue of OXFORD BLUEPRINT

http://www.ox.ac.uk/staff/blueprint/back_issues/

Two recent developments highlight a  growing trend towards Open 
Access monographs. The first is another Australian 
example,joining ANU, Sydney, etc. in placing the press within a 
Library/Institutional Support system. Dr John Emerson, the 
Director of the newly established University of Adelaide Press, 
has emailed:

"Dear Colleagues,

The University of Adelaide Press website 
<http://www.adelaide.edu.au/press> is now live and the first few 
titles are available for immediate download and for ordering 
paperback copies.

The downloadable copies are in PDF format and are identical in 
design to the book.  While we are waiting for new titles, we are 
still keen to re-publish any high quality books of enduring 
interest by staff that are a) out of print and b) available in 
electronic form for easy re-working.

I have placed a great deal of care in ensuring the design of the 
covers and the website itself signals the high standard sought 
for the content of these publications and future ones.  I am 
hoping to have online purchasing facilities in place in a month 
or two. Because titles are externally refereed, book published 
with the University of Adelaide Press will qualify for the HERDC 
(formally DEST)."

>From their webpage " The internet has become an ever increasing 
option for university publishing, and if books are made available 
freely online, they can attract tens of thousands of readers. 
With the option of its free electronic editions, the University 
of Adelaide Press aims to attract the maximum level of 
dissemination and exposure for the academic writings of our 
academics, staff and alumni."

Secondly, further details have emerged from Bloomsbury Academic 
as to their commercial Open Access model. The UK Guardian 
reported on 12 May:

"New Bloomsbury science series to be available free online 
Science, Ethics and Innovation titles pitched at 'proverbial 
Guardian reader' will be free of charge on internet, with revenue 
sought from hard copies

Sir John Sulston, Nobel prize winner and one of the architects of 
the Human Genome Project, has teamed up with Bloomsbury to edit a 
new series of books that will look at topics including the ethics 
of genetics and the cyber enhancement of humans.

The series will be the first from Bloomsbury's new venture, 
Bloomsbury Academic, launched late last year as part of the 
publisher's post-Harry Potter reinvention. Using Creative Commons 
licences, the intention is for titles in the imprint to be 
available for free online for non-commercial use, with revenue to 
be generated from the hard copies that will be printed via 
print-on-demand and short-run printing technologies.

Publisher Frances Pinter is talking to "very high-level 
academics" across the disciplines to build up the list, which she 
hopes to reach 200-odd titles a year by 2014, but Sulston and his 
colleague John Harris, professor of bioethics at Manchester 
University, are the first editors of a series she's signed up. 
The books she hopes to publish are intended to appeal to the 
"educated layman" as well as to academic circles and should "help 
the academic world speak to people who should be listening to 
what they have to say," she said today.

Sulston and Harris's series, Science, Ethics and Innovation, will 
be aimed "at a very wide market", covering subjects from "the 
interplay between science and society, to new technological and 
scientific discoveries and how they impact on our understanding 
of ourselves and our place in society", and the responsibility of 
science to the wider world. Authors they will be looking to 
commission will range from academics to policymakers, opinion 
formers, those working in commercial scientific roles, "and maybe 
even politicians". "They'll be non-technical books which will 
appeal to any intelligent person," said Harris. "The proverbial 
Guardian reader."

Sulston and Harris's own current research into topics including 
genetic ethics and human enhancement is also likely to "find its 
way" into the series, said Sulston. "Bloomsbury's is a new 
business model and chimes absolutely with something I've been 
involved with for years - open access to scientific data," he 
said. "We immediately hit common ground with Frances Pinter and 
felt if Bloomsbury was keen to go ahead, we were keen to be part 
of it."...

The first and only book Bloomsbury Academic has published so far, 
Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig's Remix: Making Art and 
Commerce thrive in the Hybrid Economy, has been downloaded for 
free in 105 countries, said Pinter, but has also been selling 
well. "Not everyone has enough money to buy a physical book so 
we're delighted we can get Lawrence's message to people who can't 
afford the book," she said. "And we're delighted we can sell 
books too."

Pinter estimates that Bloomsbury would have to sell around 200 
copies of a highly technical monograph, priced at around 50 
pounds, to make a profit, but a more commercial title with a 
wider appeal and a lower price point would need to sell around 
2,000 copies to be worthwhile. "We believe there are enough 
people who are willing to purchase a hard copy that we will sell 
enough physical books to meet our needs, to cover our costs and 
make a modest profit," she said. "But we won't be able to judge 
whether [the model is] financially viable for the next two 
years." And with academics more and more frequently looking to 
publish their work themselves online, Pinter is adamant that "if 
publishers are not willing to experiment with models, academics 
will bypass publishers".

Sulston, who jointly won a 2002 Nobel prize for discoveries 
concerning genetic regulation of organ development and programmed 
cell death, is the perfect launch editor for the series, she 
believes. "I've followed what John has been doing and I just 
think the world of him," she said. "He's very forward looking in 
terms of what we can do with science - cyber enhancement, genetic 
manipulation - and all of these things need very sophisticated 
public debate."

Bloomsbury Academic website is at: 
http://www.bloomsburyacademic.com/

Best
Colin

Colin Steele
Emeritus Fellow
The Australian National University