Scholarly publishing model alternatives and UMD Libraries’ related services
UMD Libraries’ Digital Scholarship Librarian, Terry Owen gave a comprehensive overview of the open access movement: history, OA (Open Access) development trends, alternatives to scholarly publishing (e.g. Libraries as publisher). Discussion points included:
- UMD Libraries provide funds that support faculty members to publish in open access journals. Terry presented data showing how the Libraries OA funds were used. It was observed that OA funding for APCs (Article Processing Charge), in the long run, is not sustainable. Six BTAA (Big Ten Academic Alliance) institutions (including UMD) provide OA funds to support faculty publishing.
- Among the BTAA, UMD is the only one that doesn’t have a publishing house.
Some issues in establishing online journal publication
- It is labor-intensive, though it could provide a good learning experience to students who are interested in publishing
- The provision of infrastructure as well as technical support
- Library-hosting of student publications – while it presents a way to collaborate with student groups, there is no guarantee that the journals produced are continued when the students leave. On a positive note, those students involved in publishing may be future allies in the OA movement.