Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Publishing in the social sciences and humanities

Tracey Caldwell, Slumbering giant stirs, Information World Review, May 7, 2008.  This article on journal and book publishing in the SSH fields has only a few bits on OA, but here are those bits:

Traditionally viewed as the quieter cousin of STM (science, technology and medicine), social sciences and humanities publishing has seen many changes in recent months. Journal publishers have had to face concerns about the impact of open access, and balance funding against the escalating cost of electronic and print journals in the STM sector. Meanwhile book publishers have been wrestling with the idea of books as content and coming up with new delivery models for e-books....

Open access is a major concern for some publishers in this sector. Jayne Marks, Sage vice president of global business development, says: “The significant difference between our STM and social sciences and humanities publishing is the response to opening up back archives: where the half-life for STM content is short, for social sciences and humanities the value of archive content is much higher, and there is therefore a concern for publishers of how best to approach this model.”