Rethinking how we pay for scholarly monographs

Abstract

Since at least the late 1970s, when stresses in the market for scholarly literature began to show, there have been calls to redistribute how the production and dissemination of scholarly literature are paid for. The motivations are addressing the "free rider problem" of institutions without presses and, more recently, increasing overall access to the literature. In particular, the last few years have seen schemes such as SCOAP3 and Knowledge Unlatched and proposals from K|N Consultants and a joint task force of the Association of Research Libraries and the American Association of Universities. These plans to establish new business models will be summarized, and examples of local efforts to offer low-cost programmes for publishing monographs at the University of Michigan and the University of North Texas will be described. Show more