UKSG eNews

Use the link to access the complete blog post which provides a thorough overview of the conference. The post opens as follows: “Just as it said in the marketing material, the event delivered an excellent introduction to Open Access (OA)... James Pawley from Sage started the day by explaining the traditional commercial models for accessing electronic content (although he was keen to point out that Sage publish 36 OA titles through SageOpen). Going back in time, he explained how the formation of the Royal Society and its journal helped address the issues of accreditation, primacy and the dissemination of scientific research; and how the traditional publishing roles of registration, peer review, production, printing, distribution, marketing, customer service and abstract services had followed. In more recent times, the move to electronic publishing has introduced new tasks such as hosting content, discoverability, ERM systems, usage metrics, contracts, metadata, and dark archiving and given publishers a more direct relationship with readers. As far as business costs are concerned, James explained the basic tasks and costs between author, editor and publisher haven’t really changed apart from electronic transmission of documents between them. The editor, and editorial board, still ensure the scope and quality of the journal and that it continues to meet the needs of its intended readership. The other major cost, dissemination, has increased with the move to electronic and the view that electronic publishing is cheaper is false. Publishers have been required to invest heavily in platforms and discoverability tools. Increasingly single title publishers and society publishers are moving to publish with partners such as Sage due to the costs. James concluded by considering the subscription model, where the reader (individual, library or institution) pays. The move to electronic has brought added complications as electronic subscriptions are not bound by copyright law in the same way. This means that legal personnel need to be involved in defining the terms of use. In recent years there have been several innovations in pricing models, such as pay per view, package subscriptions, big deals – all of which have been designed to cut the cost per use... Charlie Rapple from TBI Communication then introduced open access and explained how it differed. She explained that as the OA model is still quite new, hence there isn't enough longitudinal data to give a clear view of the benefits or otherwise of the model and antagonists with opposing views often use the data that supports their own particular view. There are multiple definitions of OA. Charlie pointed us towards the one provided by the Open Society Foundations...”