Research Fortnight: The human side of open-access publishing | Lincoln Research Blog

From 1 April, Research Councils UK’s open-access policy will come into effect. Papers resulting from research council funding must be published in open-access journals or placed in open repositories, and RCUK will begin to provide block grants for the payment of article processing charges. For humanities researchers, this hardline approach is to be both welcomed and feared. Welcomed because the principles of open access are sound; feared because, unlike the natural sciences, the humanities lack the number and diversity of open-access journals needed to sustain the field, and the proposed high charges of those there are may deter many researchers. Another problem is that, with some exceptions (it’s easy to sound patronising if one isn’t careful), humanities scholars are undereducated and misinformed about open access—and ignorance, according to some experts, is the single biggest barrier to uptake. But seeking the perfect form and timing for open access will mire us in perpetual talk. What’s important at this stage is action. To that end, my colleague Caroline Edwards and I are leading the project to launch, within a year, the Open Library of Humanities, to address the issues that deter humanities researchers from publishing in open-access journals. Our inspiration is the Public Library of Science, particularly its journal PLOS ONE ... This success has made the open-access ‘megajournal’ look integral to the future of academic publishing. Several commercial publishers have followed suit, including Sage, which in 2011 launched Sage Open, billed as the first open-access journal spanning the social sciences and humanities. However, Sage Open’s currently discounted publication fee of $99 (£65) suggests that the journal is struggling to gain traction.  Some aspects of the PLOS model might be applicable to the humanities. There seems scope and some enthusiasm for a megajournal. Conversely, the use of peer-review lite—the approach pioneered by PLOS ONE, whereby reviewers are instructed to judge work solely by its correctness, not its novelty or importance—has met resistance even in the sciences. Rather than trying to import PLOS’s model wholesale, we will work on a case-by-case basis with our committees ... The Open Library of Humanities has had support from researchers worldwide, including at Harvard and Stanford universities and the Modern Language Association, the leading US learned association of humanities researchers.  Almost 100 academics, some extremely senior, have signed a pledge to publish with us, and we may have to launch the journal in stages to avoid being overwhelmed by demand from authors.  We intend the Open Library of Humanities to be a force for egalitarianism in academia. Author charges will be very low and waived on grounds of affordability, or automatically for all pledgers. Ultimately, we hope author charges will be eliminated and that the journal will be funded through broadly distributed, and therefore low, institutional subsidy.  This might sound like a site licence, or even a return to institutional subscriptions, but the actual model is one of enlightened self-interest using the non-rivalrous nature of internet distribution to share and reduce costs. The initial response from librarians has been positive ..."