Abstract
Open access (OA) book publishing in the humanities and social sciences is becoming technically more feasible and financially more desirable. After securing funding for the development of a business model based on a pilot book series, the University of Heidelberg is joining this development and building an infrastructure to publish OA books on campus. The challenges facing such new publishing outlets are considerable. This article argues that the best strategy to build the prestige, affordability and competitiveness necessary to succeed is collaboration. Accomplishing this within the OA community will prove less difficult than extending collaboration beyond it because many agencies and individuals still lack information about, and are often unconvinced of, the merits of open access. The key lies in offering excellence in manuscript development to revitalize the most important collaboration of all: that between publisher and author.
Highlights
On 19 December 2013, the German Research Council (DFG) announced that it would fund a pilot project by the University of Heidelberg’s Cluster of Excellence, ‘Asia and Europe in a Global Context’[1] and the University Library to produce open access (OA) books for a new humanities and social sciences series.[2]
The project is intended as a first step towards establishing an OA book publishing service, Managing Editor Cluster of Excellence ‘Asia and Europe in a Global Context’
The project aims to augment and customize the capabilities of Open Monograph Press (OMP) and create a digital infrastructure which allows for an uninterrupted workflow from manuscript submission to billing
Summary
On 19 December 2013, the German Research Council (DFG) announced that it would fund a pilot project by the University of Heidelberg’s Cluster of Excellence, ‘Asia and Europe in a Global Context’[1] and the University Library to produce open access (OA) books for a new humanities and social sciences series.[2] This means that over the course of the two years, the Cluster and the Library can develop a business model and an infrastructure that will serve as a basis for the University’s further OA gold publishing. Housed in the Library and running on the Open Monograph Press (OMP) software platform University of provided by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP). All workflows for this pilot series will. Based on the experience of Heidelberg’s fledgling OA book publishing venture, this article argues that collaboration is the strongest strategy to build the prestige, affordability and competitiveness necessary to compete with established traditional publishers
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