Open Access News

Anne-Marie Badolato has interviewed Jean Kempf, in French and English, for the INIST-CNRS News site, September 17, 2008.  From the English edition:

Jean Kempf, director of Lyon University Press (Presses Universitaires de Lyon - PUL), presents the European Open Access Publishing in European Network (OAPEN) project. Seven scholarly publishers from six European countries have committed to the OAPEN scheme including France’s Lyon University Presses. Five other University presses and two technological and research universities are involved, representing Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Italy and the Netherlands....

Question : The Open Access Publishing in European Networks (OAPEN) was launched with a meeting in early September [2008]. Could you give us a brief overview of the ideas behind this project which is financed by the European Commission and of the shared values of the project’s partners?

Jean Kempf : OAPEN is essentially a project involving medium-sized scholarly publishers and is centred on the publication of human and social sciences monographs....The OAPEN project will receive funding for three years within the framework of the eContentplus programme, one of the conditions of which is the adoption of the Open Access model for the electronic version to be made available on the project’s platform....

Q. : There are important implications for Open Access in this project. What type(s) of economic model(s) are you considering to facilitate long-term success for such a service ?

J.K. : Within this project, publishers will be doing their traditional job but based on new economic models. This is an ideal framework for studying the viability of the different modes of financing which are already in use by other Open Access initiatives and how these might be combined. One idea is that the author pays which already occurs when authors have a particular source of financing. Another possibility would be for university libraries to invest on an overall basis, becoming a kind of sponsor whose role would evolve accordingly. At the same time, paper copies would still be sold and indirect revenue might also come from the provision of publishing services.

Q. : In general, author copyright is often viewed as an obstacle to the development of Open Access. What are your views on this point ?

J.K. : Royalties are low anyway on research material and OA does not change the authors’ moral rights. An author’s return on investment is not actually financial ; it tends to be more about achieving recognition. Tools such as the Creative Commons licences can be seen as a formalisation of what already exists in practice. The OAPEN project will conduct a study in this field and make recommendations....

Update.  Anne-Marie Badolato conducted the interview with Thérèse Hameau, and the French original was translated into English by Richard Dickinson.