Sustaining Scholarly Publishing: New Business Models for University Presses

From the abstract: ...The expertise residing within university presses can help the scholarly enterprise prosper in both influence and impact as it moves ever more fully digital. However, the simple product-sales models of the twentieth century, devised when information was scarce and expensive, are clearly inappropriate for the twenty-first-century scholarly ecosystem. This report (a) identifies elements of the current scholarly publishing systems that are worth protecting and retaining throughout this and future periods of transition; (b) explores business models of existing projects that hold promise; (c) outlines the characteristics of effective business models; (d) addresses the challenges of the transitional period we are entering; and (e) arrives at recommendations that might allow us to sustain high-quality scholarship at a time when the fundamental expectations of publishing are changing.