open access and the humanities at the california digital library and beyond, american historical...
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Open Access and the Humanitiesat the California Digital Library and Beyond
American Historical Association 2015 Annual Meeting
Lisa Schiff, Ph.D.Technical Lead, Access and Publishing
California Digital Library, University of Californiahttp://orcid.org/0000-0002-3572-2981
@lschiff [email protected]
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
@lschiff [email protected] | AHA 2015
Open Access and the Humanities
• Implications of OA for the Humanities
• CDL’s activities in this area
• UC Faculty’s Open Access Resolution
@lschiff [email protected] | AHA 2015
Open Access Supports the Core Values and Goals of Academia
• Building upon the work of others
– The scholarly process requires knowledge of what’s come before
• Sharing knowledge widely
– Scholarly communication is only as rich as our ability to find the work of others in our area(s)
– Academic findings are not just for academics!
@lschiff [email protected] | AHA 2015
Academic Work is a Social Good
• The point of scholarship is to better understand the world, from many different vantage points
• As many people as possible should have access to the results of academic effort
@lschiff [email protected] | AHA 2015
Humanities STEM
• Grant funding levels differ
– NEH FY2015 Request to Congress: $146 Million
– NSF FY2015 Request to Congress: $7.3 Billion
• Monographs vs. articles
– Time and cost of central artefacts diverge
– Decline in library purchases of scholarly monographs
– STEM publishing expanding dramatically (mega-journals, date, etc.)
@lschiff [email protected] | AHA 2015
Shaky Ground for Stakeholders
• Humanities stakeholders vulnerable
– University presses
– Scholarly societies
– Academic libraries
– Faculty, especially junior faculty
@lschiff [email protected] | AHA 2015
A Case Study: ETDs
• 52,000+ US Doctoral Degree recipients in 2013(http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/sed/2013/data/tab1.pdf)
• Hiring of tenure track faculty is declining
– Tenured/tenure track appointments < 25% faculty positions in 2012-2013! (AAUP)
– Order of magnitude greater growth in full-time non-tenure vs tenure track positions in AAUP’s 2013-2014 study (259% vs 23%)
@lschiff [email protected] | AHA 2015
Dissertation Research Highly Sought After!
Genre 11-2014 10-2014 09-2014 08-2014 07-2014 06-2014
PaperSeries
4.59 4.48 3.61 3.02 3.02 3.12
Journal Articles
12.47 13.52 11.28 9.58 9.77 10.25
ETDs 8.47 8.47 7.00 5.96 6.48 6.82
• 10,310 ETDs in eScholarship as of 11/2014• Requests per ETD high compared to other
uniquely available material
@lschiff [email protected] | AHA 2015
Open Access ETDs a Threat to Junior Faculty?
• AHA and OHA fear a potential negative impact on first monograph publishing opportunities
• Both issued 2013 statements encouraging optional embargo periods of up to 6 years
@lschiff [email protected] | AHA 2015
OA Impact on Publishers Unclear
• Ramirez et al report competing tendencies:
– >50% publishers will consider a manuscript based on an openly available ETD
– Anecdotally some libraries no longer automatically purchase university press books if they are revised versions of open dissertations
@lschiff [email protected] | AHA 2015
MOVING HUMANITIES SCHOLARSHIP TO OPEN ACCESS REQUIRES DESIGNING APPROACHES TO DIFFICULT OBSTACLES
@lschiff [email protected] | AHA 2015
Risks of Not Making OA Work for Humanities
• Continued skyrocketing costs, fewer publishing venues & fewer published scholars
• Decreased profile, outside and inside the academy
• Greater vulnerability to budget &“attention” cuts
• Diminished ability to assert importance of Humanities scholarship relative to disciplines with more immediate social/economic/individual benefits
@lschiff [email protected] | AHA 2015
The Problem? It’s the Economy…and…
• Existing business models are insufficient
• Promotion and tenure review systems are slow to change
• Publishing technical/social infrastructure is outmoded
We are in a painfully protracted period of transition!
@lschiff [email protected] | AHA 2015
Creative Solutions are Coming
• Equitably distribute the costs/risks & eliminate free riders
– UC Press’ OA Monograph Program
– AAU-ARL Faculty Book Subsidy Proposal
• Reduce costs via improved, shared publishing platforms
– Example: K|N Whitepaper on HSS stakeholder partnerships to support OA publishing
@lschiff [email protected] | AHA 2015
UC’s California Digital Library, Open Access and the Humanities
@lschiff [email protected] | AHA 2015
Advocacy
• Supporting new modes of Humanities scholarship
• Surfacing interests of Humanist faculty
@lschiff [email protected] | AHA 2015
Lucero
New German Review: A Journal of Germanic Studies
…and more
Berkeley Undergraduate Journal of Classics
@lschiff [email protected] | AHA 2015
…and more
Undergraduate Journal of Gender and Women’s Studies
The Vernal Pool
@lschiff [email protected] | AHA 2015
WHO: Adopted by UC’s Academic Council, for• Tenure-track faculty • All 10 campuses• All disciplines
WHAT: “Scholarly articles”• Author’s final version• Waiver/embargo support
WHEN: Pub agreements post 7/24/2013
WHERE: CDL system(s)• Partners: campus libraries/admin depts• Vendor harvesting solution + eScholarship• 3 Pilot campuses now; 7 more this year
uc-oa.info
@lschiff [email protected] | AHA 2015
Open Access Goals
• Wider access to and use of academic output
• Enrichment of scholarly communication
• Researchers maintaining greater control of their work
• Designing financial models to support scholars and scholarship