The University of California Press has launched a new monograph series in literary studies called FlashPoints. Each book in the series will have an OA edition and a priced/printed edition. From the site:
...Each FlashPoints book will be available in an innovative dual format: as a free digital edition, which will allow the work to reach a broader international audience, and as a reasonably-priced paperback....
"FlashPoints is a wonderful initiative. It puts the University of California Press at the forefront of new humanities publishing projects. The free online version will, I am confident, not only make these books more widely available, but also sell more hard copies too. Double publication of this sort is the way of the future for books in the humanities. I applaud the enterprise of the enterprise of the FlashPoints editorial group." —J. Hillis Miller, Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature, UC Irvine...
"I think this is an excellent solution to the current crisis in humanities publishing. It will also reestablish UC Press's important commitment to scholarship in literature and the humanities." —Michael Davidson, author of Ghostlier Demarcations: Modern Poetry and the Material Word...
PS: This is not UCPress's first sally in dual-edition publishing. Each volume in its GAIA (Global, Area, and International Archive) series is published in OA and TA editions, and about 400 (or 20%) of UC's eScholarship Editions are OA.
BTW, this is exactly the kind of OA monograph publishing the AAUP encouraged university presses to explore in the Statement on Open Access it released last week.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/07/2007 09:14:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
