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Publishing from the Library: New Roles for Libraries in Scholarly Communications

Explore the transition of libraries into e-publishing roles, challenges faced, and strategic partnerships needed for sustainability and credibility in the digital era.

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Publishing from the Library: New Roles for Libraries in Scholarly Communications

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  1. Publishing from the Library:New Roles for Libraries inScholarly Communications David Ruddy Cornell University Library September, 2004

  2. Why consider publishing? • Escalating costs of scholarly communications, esp. in the sciences • “serials crisis” • Increasing concentration and control of scholarly literature in commercial hands • A sense that the traditional publishing paradigm for scholarly literature is no longer working

  3. Conventional publishing • Strengths • Developing content • Marketing content • Generating revenues/profits • Protecting intellectual property

  4. Conventional publishers in the e-publishing environment? • Advantages • Disadvantages

  5. Advantages • Understand the need for cost recovery and financial sustainability • Can exploit existing content production processes and workflows • Could add significant value to online content

  6. Disadvantages • Understand readers as consumers rather than users • Have not historically addressed issues of archiving and preservation • Exercise monopolistic control over the availability of content

  7. The case for libraries ase-publishers

  8. Libraries… • Are central to the “information space” of a university • Understand the culture of scholarship • Focus on service models to support content usage • Have curatorial expertise to manage and control large, diverse collections • Have an established concern and mandate to provide lifecycle stewardship

  9. Is it really a new role? • The Library has long served a distribution and archiving function for current reports, news, and data in electronic format • USDA Economics and Statistics System • Geospatial Information Repository (CUGIR) • Legal Information Institute • Almost exclusively public-domain or otherwise freely available information

  10. Recent e-publishing at Cornell • Project Euclid • Proprietary serial literature • arXiv.org • Open access, scientific pre-print server

  11. Euclid—History • Mathematics and statistics serial literature online • Cornell’s response to the serials crisis • Grant awarded by the Mellon Foundation in 2000 for initial development • Launched in 2003 as a fee-based service • Will take approximately 3-4 years to reach a “cost neutral” position http://ProjectEuclid.org

  12. Euclid—Mission • Promote affordable scholarly communication by providing a not-for-profit alternative to commercial publishers • Support independent and society publishers as they transition from paper to electronic • Build a service designed by librarians to meet the needs of end users http://ProjectEuclid.org

  13. Euclid—Profile • 37 journal titles available as of October 2004 • A publisher-driven business model • User-centered functionality, with features designed to add value to math literature • Global sales through a network of agents http://ProjectEuclid.org

  14. arXiv.org • An author-submitted pre-print server now containing 288K articles • 2 million visitors per week; 65% non-US • Developed with government support at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1991 • Now supported by Cornell University Library • Operates outside of traditional publishing procedures • Vitally important to global scholarly communications in several scientific disciplines

  15. Challenges that libraries must address as publishers • Infrastructure • Collaboration • Sustainability • Credibility

  16. Developing infrastructure • Publishing requires work in areas that libraries have little institutional experience • Content development and design • Peer-review • Marketing and promotion • Order fulfillment • May require user support services in highly specialized or technical areas

  17. Strategic collaboration • Success will likely depend on the development of strategic alliances with scholarly societies, university presses, and other university groups that have a contributing role to play in e-publishing

  18. Sustainability • Financial • Can we cover our costs? • Can we create and maintain cost-effective processes and workflows? • Technological • Scalable technologies • Sustainable developmental strategies • Digital archiving and preservation

  19. Credibility • Can libraries demonstrate positive benefits from their active role in e‑publishing? • Can libraries compete with commercial publishers, and with each other? • Can libraries build infrastructure, collaborative relationships, and sustainable programs in e-publishing?

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