Publishing Solutions for Contemporary Scholars: The Library as Innovator and Partner

Sarah E. ThomasUniversity LibrarianCornell UniversityIthaca, NY USA

The Library as Publisher

•Some history•Some examples•Some lessons

Redefining the Mission of the Library?

• The mission of the University of Delaware Library is to gather, organize, preserve, and provide access to the information resources necessary for the University of Delaware to achieve its educational, research, and service goals.

• .

• The mission of the MIT libraries is to create and sustain an intuitive, trusted information environment that enables learning and the advancement of knowledge at MIT. We are committed to developing strategies and systems that promote discovery and facilitate worldwide scholarly communication.

The Library as Publisher-- Not a Recent Concept…

• First University Librarian, 1868

• First Director, Cornell University Press, 1868

D. Willard Fiske, 1831- 1904

•arXiv•DSpace•Project Euclid•DPubS•DCAPS

The World’s Most Successful Open Access Disciplinary Repository:

arXiv

• > 4000 submissions monthly

• 355,000 e-prints• $200,000 annual operating subsidy provided by Cornell University Library

• 300 million searches annually on arXiv server at Cornell Growth 1991-2005

44 Math and Statistics Journals

Functionality Developed for Euclid

• Full-text format neutral• Full-text indexing• Flexible access control options for publishers

– Open Access– Society members – E-Commerce (pay-per-view)

• OAI 2.0 compliance• Usage statistics for subscribers/publishers• Reference linking• DOI registration• Referral Service

Project Euclid Noteworthy Numbers

• Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Contribution to Start-up:

ca. $1,250,000 (1999-2006)• Annual cost to operate: $400,000 (in the black!)• Total number of articles: 35,000 (February 2006)• 2/3 Open Access• 300+% increase in titles in 3 years• ~ 600,000 download requests (2005)• 16% growth in articles in 2005• 100% growth in subscribers in between 2005 and

2006

The top-impact journal in math appears first in Project Euclid

DPubS Development and Partners

• Generalize and enhance the Euclid software and release as Open Source (Summer 2006)

• DPubS Corporate Sponsor: Sun Microsystems

• Cornell University Library

• Pennsylvania State Libraries

• Penn State Press• Australian National University

• Universität Bielefeld• University of Kansas• University of Utah• University of Wisconsin

DPubs Features• Focused distribution & controlled access

• Subscription control• Support for multiple pricing models• Reference linking capabilities• Forward and backward linking• DOI registration at Cross Ref• Distinctive presentation styles and branding

Interoperate with repository systems

•Identified IRs: DSpace, Fedora

•DPubS becomes an application layer on top of IR

How Will DPubS Be Used?Grey Literature

How Will DPubS Be Used?Conference Proceedings

How Will DPubS Be Used?Journal Publication

How Will DPubS Be Used?Online Books

Who Will Use DPubS?University Presses

Who Will Use DPubS?Universities and Libraries

Who Will Use DPubS?Institutional Repositories

Who Will Use DPubS?Scholarly Societies

Who will use DPubS?Libraries as Service Providers

Are Publishing Endeavors a Core Mission of the Library?

– Trend for directors of libraries to oversee university presses

– Rising importance of scholarly communication in library activities

– Library as change agent

What Does the Library Bring to the Table?

• Knowledge of systems (imaging, metadata, copyright)

• Experience with end users of scholarly information

• Deep infrastructure• 24/7/365 service orientation• Subject specialists• Ability to link authors and readers• Incentive to contain or reduce costs of scholarly publishing

• Commitment to preservation of scholarly record• Willingness to take risks

What Publishing Core Competencies Are New to Libraries?• Content acquisition via authors and editors• Contract negotiation• Editorial management and peer review• Printing• Marketing• Distribution and Fulfillment• Business modeling

– Cost analysis– Time to market ( urgency)– Competition

What are the Opportunities?

• Collaborate with authors, scholarly societies, technologists, and other stakeholders to create a 21st century process for communicating and using scholarly research and information.

• Develop a closer partnership with scholars in the act of knowledge creation.

• Create economical tools and services that improve distribution and use.

• Reduce the costs to the academy and society of sharing scholarly information and data.

• Lower the barriers to access to scholarly information and data

Libraries are Important Partners in the Scholarly Communications Process

• Center for Innovative Publishing

– http://cip.cornell.edu

DPubS http://dpubs.org