The digital era has created untold opportunities to broaden and deepen academic communications. It has also brought into stark relief questions of public versus private goods as new pressures are put on both for and not for profit publishing operations to be sustainable. The role of academic publishers is being challenged, as the often publicly funded research ends up being funnelled through the channels of the private sector. At the same time the Internet makes it possible to simply bypass conventional publishers altogether, though some lament the loss of the added value brought by professional publishing.
Within this context it is clear that new business models need to be constructed. Frances Pinter brings her experiences both as an academic publisher and an academic researcher herself to bear on the ways in which academic publishing needs to transform itself to respond to the opportunities and challenges of the digital age.
Pinter is the publisher at Bloomsbury Academic, the new OA imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. Also see our past posts on Bloomsbury Academic.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/16/2009 04:15:00 PM.
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.
