NFP publishing and OA

[Monica McCormick <monica_mccormick@ncsu.edu>]

On the topic of how OA hurts non-profit publishing, today's
"Inside Higher Ed." has, perhaps not analysis, but an example.
The article describes how the new NEH guidelines for Scholarly
Editions Grants will give preference to those that make the
results OA:

"...The NEH has issued new guidelines - just as scholars were
finishing grant applications - granting preference to those
projects that make all of their documents freely available
online. While the scholars who work on these projects support
digitization (and generally do put their work online), they say
that the humanities endowment's plan could make it impossible for
university presses to afford to publish their work."

For the full article, see http://www.insidehighered.com/news/
2006/09/18/documents

These guidelines (coming two weeks before applications are due)
highlight one problem--that non-profit publishers cannot rapidly
change their business models. In the case of scholarly editions,
the publication process generally takes years, if not decades.
Cost recovery has assumed a certain level of income from sales of
print editions or licensing of online content. The publishers
(nearly always university presses, without ready access to
capital) cannot easily forego that income mid-way through the
series.

This example also underlines the important distinction (made
earlier in this thread)  between OA in the sciences, largely
concerned with journal publishing, and in the humanities, where
this kind of project -- large sets of documents, carefully
edited, very cost- and labor- intensive -- is common. The article
cited above points out that "These projects rely on federal
grants that are relatively small ($100,000 for a year is
considered a good grant) compared to science research, but that
play a key role in keeping these projects going."

Calls for open access to federally-funded research should
recognize these distinctions. Those of us who want to support
effective scholarly communication can also work to find ways to
collaborate with and support non-profit publishers who share our
goals. A good first step is recognizing that we can't simply do
away with their business models overnight.

Monica McCormick
Director of Digital Publishing
NCSU Libraries
monica_mccormick@ncsu.edu