Communities, Commoning, Open Access and the Humanities: An Interview with Martin Eve

Martin Paul Eve ,Andrew Lockett

doi:10.16997/wpcc.919

Abstract

Leading open access publishing advocate and pioneer Professor Martin Paul Eve considers several topics in an interview with WPCC special issue editor Andrew Lockett. These include the merits of considering publishing in the context of commons theory and communing, digital platforms as creative and homogenous spaces, cosmolocalism, the work of intermediaries or boundary organisations and the differing needs of library communities. Eve is also asked to reflect on research culture, the academic prestige economy, the challenges facing the humanities, digital models in trade literature markets and current influences in terms of work in scholarly communications and recent academic literature. Central concerns that arise in the discussion are the importance of values and value for money in an environment shaped by increasing demands for policies determined by crude data monitoring that are less than fully thought through in terms of their impact and their implications for academics and their careers.

Highlights

Martin Paul Eve is Professor of Literature, Technology and Publishing at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is a leading figure in the world of open-access publishing policy through his work as a Plan S Ambassador and as co-founder of the Open Library of Humanities. He leads the development of Janeway, an open source publishing platform developed at Birkbeck to support the goals of the Open Library of Humanities
Is the wider tradition and philosophy and theory of the commons something you think worth looking to for inspiration in scholarly publishing? I noted in Eve (2014) whilst there was extensive discussion of Creative Commons licences and mentions of Lawrence Lessig the immediate focus of your activities has generally been on practical solutions to scholarly communications dilemmas
On at least a superficial level, to be a useful analogy for what’s going on in the digital space. As figures such as Sam Moore (2019) and Stuart Lawson (2019) have recently pointed out, it’s a somewhat vague and imprecise historical analogy that buries the historical detail in favour of an idealised – and generalised – notion of ‘the commons’

Summary

Introduction

Martin Paul Eve is Professor of Literature, Technology and Publishing at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is a leading figure in the world of open-access publishing policy through his work as a Plan S Ambassador and as co-founder of the Open Library of Humanities.

Results

Conclusion