Publishing Landscape Research Articles

Increasing the volume of Gold Open Access journals in SSHA

Currently, there is an apparent lack of Gold Open Access journals in Social Science, Humanities and Arts (SSHA), as showcased by the open letter the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) sent to the SSHA communities 16 May 2019. DOAJ asserts in the letter that they agree 100% that DOAJ’s coverage of SSHA journals is insufficient. The implications of the lack of available outlets for research articles by SSHA grantholders in the early years of Plan S implementation may include disadvantages for researchers in the fields. A mandatory criterion for Plan S compliant OA journals is that they must be registered in the DOAJ. One consequence of the lack of coverage is when SSHA scholars seek funding from any of the research agencies or funders that are part of cOAlition S, as scholars will encounter difficulties in finding relevant quality Gold OA journals in which they can publish their research. This could impair SSHA scholars’ chances of receiving grants. Because of the ongoing and accelerated changes to the scholarly publication landscape today, there is a need to support SSHA communities with identifying quality journals which qualifies as Gold OA. To achieve ‘true’ Gold OA status a journal needs to be indexed in DOAJ, as Gold OA journals are in practice defined by their inclusion in this directory.
 The European Reference Index for the Humanities and the Social Sciences (ERIH PLUS) provides a curated register of peer reviewed journals in the social sciences, arts and humanities. Today ERIH PLUS includes 7,473 scientific journals, and 2,220 of the journals are also listed by DOAJ. Furthermore, ERIH PLUS covers 1,469,204 scholarly Gold OA publications, according to data from Dimensions. However, less than half of these, 712,135 publications, are today indexed in DOAJ. Dimensions (free version) classifies Gold OA publications in the following way: “Gold – refers to articles in fully accessible open access journals that are available immediately upon publication without a license”. In this project we seek to identify DOAJ inclusion candidates from the group of journals that have published the 757,069 Gold OA publications that are not listed in DOAJ, according to Dimensions data. We will work with editors/editorial staff of journals that we identify as having the potential to be indexed by DOAJ. The goal is to increase the volume of Gold OA journals in SSHA. We will contact, present arguments and provide support to journal editors in order to convince them to apply for inclusion in DOAJ.
 In the poster, we will outline and describe some of the key tasks for the project in order to reach our goal. The project that we will briefly outline will center on:
 
 Describing incentives for obtaining ‘true’ Gold OA status for SSHA journals
 Identifying journals in ERIH PLUS for possible DOAJ inclusion
 Efforts to flip SSHA journals to ‘true’ Gold OA

The ScholarLed Consortium

ScholarLed, a consortium of five not-for-profit, scholar-led OA book publishers, was founded in 2018 in order to develop powerful, practical ways for small-scale, scholar-led Open Access presses to grow and flourish in a publishing landscape that is changing rapidly. We comprise Mattering Press, meson press, Open Book Publishers, Open Humanities Press, and punctum books: five publishers with different business models and publishing practices, but with a shared commitment to making high-quality research available OA without levying Book Processing Charges (BPCs).
 We have approached this task with the philosophy of ‘scaling small’; in other words, rather than seeking to grow our reach by any one of us becoming exponentially larger, we want to create systems that allow a large number of diverse, small-scale scholarly publishing initiatives to operate collaboratively, and so to foster a robust, inclusive and community-managed publishing ecosystem in partnership with all actors in the scholarly publishing ecosystem (including scholars, libraries, and funders). Collectively the ScholarLed presses have now published over 500 books, and expect to publish over 80 new titles in the coming year. What would the publishing landscape look like if, rather than 5 presses, we were 25, 50, or 100 in number?
 Accordingly, in our first year we became key partners in the Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM) project, which we developed along with organisations including Coventry University; Loughborough University Library; University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) Library; Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB); Jisc Collections; and the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC). In June of this year, this project successfully secured funding of £2.2 million from Research England to build the necessary open infrastructure over the next three years to transform open access book publishing, by moving away from a model of competing commercial service operations to a more horizontal and cooperative, knowledge-sharing approach.
 In this presentation, we will discuss the ‘scaling small’ philosophy that underlies ScholarLed, and how this chimes with growing international movements such as the Invest in Open Infrastructure initiative. We will also explore how this impacts the COPIM project and our firm conviction that, in order for open access publishing initiatives to thrive, we have to develop more robust definitions of ‘open’ that go beyond releasing content from behind paywalls. COPIM will pilot a range of interventions, from developing open, transparent, sustainable, and community-governed infrastructures for the curation, dissemination, discovery, and long-term preservation of open content and open data, to helping publishers transition away from a BPC-based business model, to following the best practices for integrating open content into institutional library, digital learning, and repository systems. COPIM prepares the ground for OA publishing to thrive, increasing its strength and heterogeneity within a robust, inclusive and community-managed publishing ecosystem: Scaling Small.
 Keywords: scholar-led; community-driven; open access publishing.

The shifting position of the Journal of Transport Geography in ‘transport geography research’: A bibliometric analysis

In its 25 years of existence, the Journal of Transport Geography (JTRG) has emerged as the key outlet for cutting-edge transport geography research. However, in practice the journal is part of a much broader publication landscape of research on the geographical dimensions of transport, travel and mobility. In this paper, we therefore analyse the position of JTRG in the different research agendas at the intersection of the geographical and transport sciences. To this end, we present a bibliometric analysis of relevant research covered in the (Social) Science(s) Citation Index ((S)SCI) bibliographic databases. Our analyses include breakdowns of the major journals; key contributing regions and institutions; and variations in topics as revealed by keyword analysis. Throughout the paper, the main focus is on comparing (evolutions in) the research covered in JTRG with (evolutions in) the research at the intersection of the geographical and transport sciences published in other journals. Results are used to reflect on the position of the journal in the field as well as on relative blind spots in terms of authorship and the nature of the research covered, and can thus inform deliberations about possible directions for the journal.

An Investigation of open access publications’ attractiveness among academic researchers from three European countries

A thriving open access publication (OAP) system represents a sound basis for Open Science development. Unfortunately, it is not yet clear what are the factors determining that academic researchers use OAPs, both as a source of knowledge and relevant references, and as an outlet to present their work to their peers, students and/or the general public. To investigate this topic, we assume an interpretative framework rooted in the institutional theory. Considering the development and evolution of the OAP system as a coherent set of structures, norms and routines, our research aims to (i) identify the factors that determine academic researchers in the business field to become active participants in this system; and (ii) to compare the way in which these factors influence academic researchers’ choices and professional strategies in three different European countries, which are traditionally different in terms of research culture and orientation: France, Romania and the UK.
 We adopt a research methodology based on semi-structured interviews, as our research objectives require a qualitative approach to identify not only the individual reasons for using the OAP system, but also the influence of the professional environment in shaping these decisions in terms of institutional standards, rules and practices. To collect primary data, we interviewed a total of 42 academics, who are active in both teaching and research in higher education institutions located in France, Romania or the UK (14 respondents from each country). The interviews lasted between 30 and 45 minutes, being conducted either face-to-face or through skype. With the permission of respondents – but under strict confidentiality standards, the interviews were transcribed, coded and analysed.
 The findings draw a highly complex picture indicating a set of conflicting factors and forces that determine the official perception and use of the OAP system. Although each of the investigated countries has specific features in terms of higher education quality standards and practices, respondents indicated a strong tendency towards uniformization, determined by the global spread of the North American academic system, which directly connects the professional status and evolution of academic researchers to their capacity to publish in peer-reviewed journals that are highly ranked in national or international publications lists (e.g., ISI, ABS, CNRS, FNEGE, etc.). Presently, there are relatively few open access journals included in national/international journal ranking lists, which prevents a widespread use of the OAP system by business academic researchers.
 Respondents indicated that although they currently use OAPs as a source of knowledge for teaching, they are more reluctant to use them as publication outlets for their research work, or as references in their scholarly publications. This tendency differs between these national education systems, although the general trend indicates a strong convergence of opinions and institutional practices. Overall, the academic publishing landscape can be described as a battlefield between two competing sets of institutions centred around open access and paid access systems, the paid access system still representing the standard for academic quality and professional recognition.

The changing landscape of publishing in Nepal: Interview with Bidur Dangol

The changing landscape of publishing in Nepal: Interview with Bidur Dangol

Evolution or revolution? Changing the way science is published and communicated.

The Internet is rapidly changing the way the results of academic research are communicated within communities and with the wider public. In a push to accelerate change and make the results of research immediately and freely available online for all to read and use, the European Commission, with support from a group of high-profile funders, has proposed a plan to influence the way academic research is published. Here, we discuss the likely impact of this plan on the publishing landscape, the potential benefits, and some possible unintended consequences.

Creating a Path to Become a Journal Editor

Creating a Path to Become a Journal Editor

Inside and Outside the Literary Marketplace: The Digital Products of Amitav Ghosh, Arundhati Roy, and Salman Rushdie

For Indian authors writing in English, the changing landscape of publishing in the digital age presents both unique challenges and opportunities for claiming their authority as public intellectuals and producing content that exists both within the established literary marketplace and outside of it. This paper examines the digital products and platforms of three such authors, Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, and Arundhati Roy, all of whom can claim substantial influence in the literary marketplace thanks to their traditionally published novels. In addition to their literary fame, they are well-known for their public commentaries using digital platforms like social media and blogs on everything from popular culture to politics. These digital products and platforms function to extend the authors’ literary products past the traditional literary marketplace and into the wider public, with the potential of dismantling certain barriers like income, language, and education levels that often shape the landscape of traditionally published work. For these authors, digital spaces provide largely unmediated avenues for reaching wider audiences, for cultivating their public intellectual personas, and for promoting issues which may or may not have an audience in the traditional literary marketplace.

Borderlands: Scoping the publishing landscape for a regional Australian literary journal

This paper surveys Australian literature regarding the publication of literary journals and the qualitative costs and benefits of their production. The survey was undertaken as part of a research project to develop a literary journal for Australia’s Northern Territory, which has been without a substantial journal of its own since 2000. As part of the project, the researchers also surveyed public attitudes towards a literary journal, interviewed key industry stakeholders, and commenced business planning for a journal, all framed by the overview of literature. While only the literature review is reported on here, the attitude surveys, interviews, and business planning may form the subject of future papers. Called The Borderlands Project, the research was begun as part of a 2018 strategic arts project jointly funded by Arts NT and Charles Darwin University to develop a literary journal of the Northern Territory in three phases. This paper outlines the purpose of the project and describes preliminary results from the literature survey, including comments on funding, journal format, content, how to address the problem of prosumerism, and future directions for the research.

Ending the retraction stigma: Encouraging the reporting of errors in the biomedical record

Retractions are on the rise as a result of a surge in post-publication peer review and an emboldened anonymous whistle-blowing movement. Cognizant that their brand may be damaged as a result of not correcting problematic literature, journals and publishers that are loosely considered to be non-“predatory” are trying to contain the deluge of reports on flawed research that has flooded the biomedical and scientific literature. Within this climate, many studies have started to be retracted and corrected, reinforcing the stigmatization associated with retractions, i.e., having a retraction is considered to be a bad or negative thing. Negative retraction stigmatization has mainly been borne by authors, whereas journals and publishers, except for headline-grabbing reports, have thus far largely avoided this stigma. One of the efforts to destigmatize retractions, at least those for honest errors, has been to try to relabel or rebrand retractions. The terms “self-retraction”, “amendment”, “publisher-caused error”, and others have emerged, but such a diverse lexicon may complicate the publishing landscape more than it resolves the stigma. Seeking euphemistic terms to represent a truth within a toxic context of negative stigmatization only politicizes the issue, and does not resolve it. We suggest that a change is needed in the culture within the biomedical community, to acceptance of critique, and that the culture of shaming needs to be halted in order to achieve this. Only then can academics assume greater responsibility, without the risk of being shamed, of retracting their faulty literature, “honestly”, when they feel that this is needed.

Open Access Escape Room: the key to OA engagement?

Open access (OA) has had, and will continue to have, a significant effect on the scholarly publishing landscape in academia, yet many academic staff publish OA in order to comply with policies, rather than engaging with the value of open scholarship and in debates that ultimately affect them. Training sessions and workshops are often arranged to increase knowledge and awareness in the academic community, but engagement is often low. On the other hand, some academic staff, who already do engage, will happily attend sessions and workshops to increase their knowledge even further. The struggle to increase OA engagement overall could be due to the training not being appealing enough, and academics not being aware of benefits until after they have attended workshops. At the University of Essex, we took a bold, brave and curious approach to increasing engagement during Open Access Week 2018, and created an OA-themed escape room. This resulted in great engagement from students, academic staff and professional services staff, some of whom reported that they never knew how relevant OA was for them. The Open Access Escape Room was a success, and provided a positive environment for conversations around OA.

Editorial

Dear Readers, Dear Authors, Dear Reviewers, It is the time of the year again where we reflect upon the highlights that impacted us most last year and to find out where we go from here. Thinking about last year, there are many things that come to mind that have enraged us, excited us, or even inspired us. Most of them are not even closely related to our journal and the work we do here. But some events are suggesting major changes in the way we do business. One such example is Open Access. Over the last few decades voices have been becoming increasingly louder, requesting free access to all research articles and related information. Without further complications such as blocking paywalls or not accessible subscriptions, scientists (or other interested people for that matter) are able to read available studies in their field and beyond, inform themselves about what is going on elsewhere, and maybe even grab some ideas to further their own research. It also supports researchers with a lower budget that do not have access to wide-spread subscriptions, thereby reducing the inherent advantage posed by higher funding. Open Access comes in many variants: Gold Open Access is the publication in fully Open Access Journals. They generally follow the same standardized peer review process as conventional journals. Green Open Access, on the other hand, means the simultaneous self-archival on private servers, institutional repositories, or other archives. In contrast to the preprints, only the post-prints have actually been reviewed by experts in the field. And then there is the hybrid way, meaning publication in journals that follow the subscription model, but also allow Open Access publication of articles. However, as often in life, nothing is for free. Although Open Access does not cost the reader, someone has to cover the expenses incurring until then. Open Access articles are also reviewed, corrected and polished by editors, journals have to be compiled, and typesetting has to be performed. All this adds a further value to the article that cannot be provided by self-archival or preprints. Currently, the Open Access landscape is very heterogeneous, and each publisher/journal handles it differently. However, since the movement is growing and Open Access is becoming a major player, different initiatives have assembled. In Europe, for example, there is the Coalition S, a consortium of major European research agencies from twelve European countries. In September 2018, they published Plan S, which requires Open Access publication for all research funded by the participating organizations by 2020. And in January 2019, Wiley and the DEAL consortium, representing over 700 research organizations in Germany, struck a deal. This new partnership will enable wider dissemination of scientific information by allowing the participating researchers to publish their work Open Access. And all this research is then also available to the rest of the scientific community, here in Germany as well as elsewhere. Open Access deals are also in place with Austrian and Dutch organizations. In light of these pioneering deals, other publishers and probably also research organizations around the world will rethink their publishing models. It is a major step towards a currently unknown future that will change the publishing landscape as we know it but will at the same time be beneficial for all participants. If you want to be part of this new landscape and wish to make your research publicly available, then we are happy to offer you Open Access publication in ChemBioEng Reviews as well. Please check our website for detailed information (ChemBioEngRev.com). With that, we would like to loop back to the current issue and hope you enjoy the read. All the Best for a successful year 2019! Yours sincerely, Cordula Buse (Deputy Editor) and Barbara Boeck (Editor-in-Chief) Cordula Buse Barbara Boeck

Publishing trends in Journal of Paediatric Surgery, Pediatric Surgery International and European Journal of Pediatric Surgery over the past three decades.

The aim of this study was an analysis of the changing publication trends over the last three decades in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery (JPS), Pediatric Surgery International (PSI) and European Journal of Pediatric Surgery (EJPS) by studying the bibliometric variables, authorship, collaboration, and citation trends. A previously applied methodology using intermittent years was applied to review the archives of JPS, PSI and EJPS over the last 30years. Citation data were collected from the Web of Science database. Statistical analysis was performed using SAS 9.4 software. A total of 1917 articles originating from 63 countries met the inclusion criteria. The number of articles published every year increased significantly in the last three decades from 336 in 1987 to 626 in 2017 (P < 0.0001). Multinational papers made up 5% of the total, of which 58% involved more than one continent. A majority of papers (75%) were single institution papers, there was strong evidence of an increase in multi-institution publications over time. There was a statistically significant increase in the number of female first and corresponding author. The publishing landscape of paediatric surgery has evolved to be more inclusive with increased collaboration, female authors and mentors and more publications from developing nations.

“Plan S” falls short for society publishers—and for the researchers they serve

Over the course of my long scientific career, I have had experience with academic publishing from several perspectives: as an author, as an associate editor of both academic and for-profit journals, as chair of a society’s journals board, as editor-in-chief of a major society journal ( Science ), and now as the chief executive of a membership organization (the National Academy of Sciences) that publishes a highly regarded society journal (PNAS). While for-profit publishers do bring value to the overall enterprise, ultimately I decided to direct my own research output (whenever it was my choice to make), time, and talent to nonprofit scientific society publishing. I see merit in redirecting publishing profits to enhance the welfare of the research community through the variety of society programs that support students, underrepresented minorities, community engagement, and other worthy causes—rather than having those monies benefit for-profit shareholders. The proposal known as Plan S has the admirable aim of achieving full OA across a wide swath of journal publications. But the path currently suggested has serious drawbacks that could jeopardize nonprofit science societies. Image credit: Dave Cutler (artist). In recent decades, society publishers have responded to a number of changes in the publishing landscape. In all cases, these responses have been guided by the wisdom of leading researchers serving on oversight boards charged with ensuring the overall health of the research enterprise. This charge is, of course, broader than simply the broadest dissemination of the research or necessarily the lowest-cost publication model. I continue to monitor that landscape, knowing that further changes are inevitable and part of scholarly publishing’s evolution as it aspires to serve science and society. Hence, I, like many in scientific society leadership and publishing, have been following with great interest the ambitious plan (“Plan S”) put forward in September by a group … [↵][1]1Email: MMcNutt{at}nas.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Bibliographic Data Science and the History of the Book (c. 1500–1800)

National bibliographies have been identified as a crucial resource for historical research on the publishing landscape, but using them requires addressing challenges of data quality, completeness, and interpretation. We call this approach bibliographic data science. In this article, we briefly assess the development of book formats and the vernacularization process in early modern Europe. The work undertaken paves the way for more extensive integration of library catalogs to map the history of the book.

Credit and Priority in Scientific Discovery: A Scientist's Perspective.

Credit for scientific discovery plays a central role in the reward structure of science. As the "currency of the realm," it powerfully influences the norms and institutional practices of the research ecosystem. Though most scientists enter the field for reasons other than desiring credit, once in the field they desire credit for their work. In addition to being a source of pleasure, credit and recognition are necessary for successful careers. The consensus among sociologists, philosophers, and economists is that pursuit of credit increases the efficiency of the scientific enterprise. Publishing results in a scholarly journal is the core approach to obtaining credit and priority, and the publishing landscape is undergoing dramatic change. As research groups get larger and more interdisciplinary, and scholarly journals proliferate, allocating credit has become more difficult. Awards and prizes further contribute to credit by recognizing prior attributions and articulating new credit attributions through their decisions. Patents can have a complex relationship to credit, and disputes over authorship and credit are common and difficult to adjudicate. Pathologic pursuit of credit adversely affects the scientific enterprise. Academic institutions assess credit in appointment and promotion decisions, and are best positioned to assume responsibility for addressing problems with the credit ecosystem. Several possible remedies are presented.

Navigation

Navigation Sara K. Day Late in 2018, FORESHADOW: A Serial YA Anthology, Published Digitally released its first issue of young adult short stories. Each month since, three new stories by established and emerging voices in the field have been published online, making work by authors such as Dhonielle Clayton, Malinda Lo, and S. K. Ali available to readers and highlighting the breadth and power of young adult literature with the specific objective of "contribut[ing] to the changing landscape of young adult publishing to become more inclusive and diverse" ("About"). Edited by Emily X. R. Pan and Nova Ren Suma, FORESHADOW's literature and mission are beautiful, compelling, and inspiring, and I am excited to continue reading along with each new issue. A recent story by Mayra Cuevas particularly caught my attention with its timely representation of a young woman navigating a life very unlike the one that she had planned. In "Resilient," Puerto Rican protagonist Marisol ruminates on what she lost when Hurricane María swept across her island home. She had been accepted for a college degree in Latin American studies, but first, she says, "I was saving to pay for my dream trip through Latin America, with a teen tour company that follows the route Ché Guevara took in his Diarios de Motocicleta. According to the description on the website, it would be a time of awakening, of leaving my mark on the world and allowing it to leave its mark on me." Instead, when Puerto Rico remains dark months after María, Marisol finds herself on a very different journey, traveling to South Dakota to work in a turkey processing plant. Although her cousin Rosita tells her that it's "an adventure," she struggles to adapt to the chilly climate and the seeming hopelessness of her situation. It is only when Marisol calls on the memory of the palmeras that bent in the hurricane winds but refused to break that she begins to see how she can make her way in this new, uncertain future. Like Marisol, the characters discussed in this issue's four articles represent the theme of navigation as they literally or figuratively work to determine where they are going and how they should get there. In turn, their journeys pose challenges for readers to navigate, from confronting the historical and ongoing consequences of colonialism and the Jewish Holocaust to interrogating [End Page 247] the ways in which contemporary Western culture defines and limits our expectations regarding gender. Jocelyn van Tuyl's "What Goes Up Must Come Down: The Twenty-One Balloons and the Politics of Lighter-Than-Air Fantasy" reconsiders William Péne du Bois's 1947 novel with a particular eye to the ways in which the novel actively obscures the goals and effects of colonialism. The article puts Péne du Bois's work in conversation with other "empty island" stories in order to consider how it functions as part of a larger effort in US children's literature to privilege settler narratives that ignore or erase indigenous, enslaved, and oppressed peoples. Roni Sarig likewise looks to the past in "Under Empty Skies: The Absence of God and Parental Replacement in Israeli Children's Literature on the Jewish Holocaust," examining the ways in which late twentieth-century texts for young readers answer the question "Where was God during the Holocaust?" Focusing on a picture book and two short stories for young people written by Holocaust survivors, Sarig investigates how these texts position fathers and mothers as replacing a seemingly absent God during the atrocities. The second half of the issue turns to more recent young adult literature with a particular interest in the challenges of navigating contemporary Western cultural constructs of femininity. Wendy J. Glenn and Danielle King-Watson's "Being an Athlete or Being a Girl: Selective Identities among Fictional Female Athletes Who Play with the Boys" considers a number of recent works that portray young women struggling with the question of identity as they pursue athletic success in sports that have usually been limited to men. Noting the persistent, insistent binary constructions that define femininity in opposition to rather than inclusive of athleticism, Glenn and King-Watson particularly...

Go West

Go West Ari Kelman When Tom Slaughter asked me if I would consider replacing him, I said yes without hesitating. I understand that the job will often be difficult, that some colleagues will feel aggrieved if they receive a negative review, that others will be outraged if their work is not reviewed at all. I'm mindful that various crises, whether manufactured or organic, threaten this and many others: a crisis in the humanities, as streams of funding are redirected or run dry; a crisis in our discipline, as students migrate to fields dangling higher-paying jobs; and a crisis in publishing, as the internet lures more readers away from print. I realize, too, that many scholars, often for good reason, are increasingly eager to monetize their labor rather than to give it away for free. Still, I believe that the profession thrives when historians produce thoughtful and engaged criticism. I also know that there are few things I admire so much as novel reflections on important works: reviews that place scholarship in fresh and appropriate contexts, bathing events or arguments in new light, opening up or framing historiography. And so, I said yes to Tom because I want to be part of an institution that four towering figures have built over nearly half a century. Tom, a pioneering scholar and brilliant critic, served as editor of Reviews in American History for a full decade. The journal flourished under his leadership, maintaining the highest standards while at the same time expanding the number of books reviewed and experimenting with different kinds of essays. Before Tom became editor, Lou Masur, a gifted prose stylist who is as intellectually generous a historian as you'll find working anywhere in the profession, played that role. Like Tom, Lou occupied the editor's chair for ten successful years after taking over the journal from two legends: Stanley Kutler, who founded RAH in 1973; and Stanley Katz, who, with Kutler, co-edited the journal for twenty-five years. Now I'm replacing Tom. As just the fifth person to helm RAH, I begin my tenure deeply grateful to my predecessors and keenly aware of just how high they have set the bar through the years. Turning from the past to the future, I'm stepping into an enviable situation. RAH is in good health. My job is to ensure that the journal maintains its lofty standing while building upon its strengths. I hope to foster the longstanding relationships upon which RAH has rested while also recruiting a new stable of contributors. I may engage with topics of special significance, looking both [End Page 1] to political context and to chronological milestones—Reconstruction's sesquicentennial, for example—to determine some of the journal's contents. The field will be grappling with these issues; RAH should reflect and help guide that work, in the process shaping wider conversation about critical aspects of the nation's history. On that note, I hope to expand RAH's reach, increasing the number of people who read the journal and also the influence of our field's best scholarship. Finally, I may focus occasionally on scholarly process: on how historians publish, on what opportunities new media represent for our discipline, on how we talk to one another and to the wider world. I cannot do this work alone. I have asked a diverse collective of scholars, gifted historians whose research interests transcend any single subfield, to join RAH's editorial board. I will lean on them, on Lou, and on Tom for guidance when I find myself entering uncharted waters. Most of all, though, I need RAH's audience to help me plot our course. This is the first time in its history that RAH will be housed west of the Appalachians. As we make this move, I am confident that there is still space in the publishing landscape for a journal of ideas comprised of essays written by historians. But I need you to make me aware of voices that should be featured. I need you to contribute reviews. And I need you to subscribe to the journal and provide me with feedback. I promise that I will take seriously...

The Discourse and Value of Being an Independent Publisher

Publishing did not haveindependentsenter self-discourse until the 1960s when media conglomeration created a need to distinguish other publishers from this network of corporate giants. But rather than decimating the independent publishing landscape, the corporate conglomeration of book publishing has opened a space for independent publishers to thrive (Simon and McCarthy, 2009; Schiffrin, 2001; Hawthorne, 2014, 2016; Kogan 2007, 2010), in part because of the social currency that positioning themselves as independent in discourse affords. In order to analyze the use, purpose, and meaning ofindependentin publisher discourse, this article conducts a content analysis on mission statements of 39 US-based independent publishers. Through content analysis of mission statements, this article illuminates the way that certain publishers construct a particular social function and marketing appeal by the use ofindependentin twenty-first century book publishing discourse in the US.

Altruism or Self-Interest? Exploring the Motivations of Open Access Authors

More than 250 authors at Utah State University published an Open Access (OA) article in 2016. Analysis of survey results and publication data from Scopus suggests that the following factors led authors to choose OA venues: ability to pay publishing charges, disciplinary colleagues’ positive attitudes toward OA, and personal feelings such as altruism and desire to reach a wide audience. Tenure status was not an apparent factor. This article adds to the body of literature on author motivations and can inform library outreach and marketing efforts, the creation of new publishing models, and the conversation about the larger scholarly publishing landscape.