Abstract
BACKGROUND This article sets out the economic problems faced by the humanities disciplines in the transition to gold open access and outlines the bases for investigations of collective funding models. Beginning with a series of four problems, it then details the key players in this field and their various approaches to collective “procurement” mechanisms. DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT The Open Library of Humanities seeks to instigate a collective funding model for an open access megajournal and multijournal system that should enable for a phased transition to a gold open access model that does not require author-facing article processing charges. Libraries who participate then have a governance stake in the platform. NEXT STEPS The project is currently working towards sustainability and launch. Authors’ pledged papers are being called in and libraries are signing up to the model.
Highlights
At some point mid-2013, a tipping point was reached for open access
The UK government implemented strong national mandates; the EU’s “Horizon 2020” major funding cycle did likewise; and there were steps forward in the US and Australia, among other places. As positive as this might sound, the humanities still trail behind the sciences in open publishing, and there has been extremely vocal opposition to implementations of open access. While some of this antagonism can be attributed to an elitist approach, and other parts can be seen as a scramble for revenue protection by publishers and learned societies, a third group is convinced of the need for open access but raises important questions of funding for such efforts
This article sets out the economic problems faced by the humanities disciplines in the transition to gold open access and outlines the bases for investigations of collective, or collaborative, funding models
Summary
At some point mid-2013, a tipping point was reached for open access. The UK government implemented strong national mandates; the EU’s “Horizon 2020” major funding cycle did likewise; and there were steps forward in the US and Australia, among other places. For Taylor and Francis, at the time of writing, the price of publishing an article in one of these venues is $2,950 The sensible approach to technological production costs is to work with open source solutions and to pool labour into communal providers One such operation, used as a case study here, is the London-based Ubiquity Press. A variety of new models exist that could work to achieve this aim
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