New open access book project receives huge funding amidst flurry of reports
Research England has awarded £2.2m of funding to a project aiming to improve and increase open access book publishing. The recipient, Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM) brings together a range of academic institutions led by Coventry University; the ScholarLed consortium of open access presses; several academic libraries; infrastructure providers the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) and JISC; and international membership organisation The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC). It intends to transform open access book publishing by innovating on infrastructure, increasing collaboration between libraries, publishers, and researchers, and developing toolkits to improve skills. The aim is to move from a model of competing commercial operations to a more co-operative approach based on knowledge-sharing.
The current situation of open access monographs has also been surveyed in a flurry of recent reports and white papers. Digital Science considered The State of Open Monographs, exploring questions of integration and funding; JISC looked Towards a Roadmap for Open Access Monographs, asking whether open access might be countering the ‘death of the book’ in the humanities and social sciences, while SpringerNature’s white paper explored The future of OA books, analysing researcher motivations and identifying obstacles to OA publication.
Stanford future still uncertain
The future of Stanford University Press remains uncertain, following its parent university’s Faculty Senate Meeting earlier this month The university’s decision in April to reject the press’s application for five years of funding at $1.7m a year met with widespread condemnation – more than 4,000 people are reported to have signed petitions – and was only partly reversed five days later when it was announced that $1.7m in ’one-off funds’ would be made available this financial year.
The Senate decided to set up a second ad hoc committee to make recommendations regarding the faculty’s governance and oversight of the press, in addition to that appointed by the provost who had originally rejected the funding request. A motion requesting that both committees report before any decision be made on the press’s future was passed by the senate.
Routledge partners with Knowledge Unlatched on African and Gender Studies
Routledge is partnering with Knowledge Unlatched to make 150 of the publisher’s new African Studies titles and 45 new Gender Studies titles available through open access between 2020 and 2022. Publication will be funded according to the familiar KU crowdfunding model, by which libraries pledge financial support to make titles available to all.
SAGE launches new terminology service
SAGE has launched its new Terminology Service, a tool designed to aid researchers to understand and explore key concepts. Available on a creative commons licence, it initially comprises the SAGE Social Science Thesaurus, a multidisciplinary vocabulary of the most important concepts in the social sciences created via semantic text mining of the company’s reference publishing in the area.
Manchester UP signs Americas deal with Ingram
Manchester University Press has announced a new agreement with Ingram Academic Services which will see the company provide distribution, sales and academic marketing services for the publisher in the United States, Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
HSS journals in brief
Bristol University Press has launched a new journal, Emotions and Society, on behalf of the European Sociological Association’s (ESA) Research Network on the Sociology of Emotions (RN11). The journal will publish articles based on original research into the social aspects of emotions and emotional life; its first issue was published this month.
Edinburgh University Press has announced that it will be welcoming three new journals this year, with a further two following in 2020. Ancient Philosophy Today: Dialogoi, Gothic Studies – the official journal of the International Gothic Association – and Scottish Church History (published for the Scottish Church History Society) will appear this year, with Global Energy Law and Sustainability and Crime Fiction Studies launching next year.
Alastair Horne is a PhD student at the British Library and Bath Spa University.