Open Access and Humanities and Social Science Monograph Publishing

No abstract. Excerpt: "However, even with new business models that might increase distribution, and thus sales, the problem of the risk of first copy costs remains. The big question is who will carry the cost of, and thereby effectively underwrite the risk of the first copy? Here, we describe an alternative model, based on a radical redistribution of roles and benefits among the current stakeholders. The basic premise is simple, and based on aggregating demand in the form of a consortium and paying publishers for getting to first copy stage—the digital file. In exchange for underwriting this cost, the consortium would agree with the publisher that the content is made available on a Creative Commons Non-Commercial license. This model might be more sustainable because if a significantly larger number of libraries participate than are buying high priced monographs now, then the unit cost per library falls dramatically. Here is how it might work: if, say 1,000 libraries paid into a fund that “bought” the non-commercial open access rights to a book that carried, for the sake of the arithmetic, a “getting to first copy” cost of $10,000, then each library would contribute $10.00. The average monograph today costs approximately $80.00. This would not only get libraries eight times as many titles online, it would be truly contributing to making knowledge accessible globally. If, say 5,000 libraries subscribed to the scheme (although we feel this is unlikely) the cost would be $2.00 a title, representing a 97.5% reduction on the current print or eBook price...."