The Open Access Academic Library Press

The Chronicle of Higher Education ran an article this week that highlighted new initiatives at academic libraries in terms of scholarly publishing. Over the last five years, library-based publishing has changed rapidly, shifting from a focus on digitization initiatives to something less well defined and more contingent on individual universities.

At Amherst College, librarian Bryn Geffert has been instrumental in launching Amherst College Press, a new publishing venue committed to open access, which will produce a small number edited, peer-reviewed books in digital formats in order to support research and scholarship, especially in overlooked subject areas.

Other university libraries are also mapping the scholarly publishing landscape; 54 libraries, including Penn State, University of Michigan, and Purdue are part of the Library Publishing Coalition, an organization that brings such library publishing operations together in an effort to define the endeavor and find ways to support it.

An interesting point of conflict lies between this new library-centric publishing initiative and the Association of American University Presses.  In recent months, the AAUP objected to the Federal Research Public Access Act and supported the publishers who sued Georgia State University over e-reserves copyright infringement, stances which many librarians did not agree with.

Check out the full article here: For New Ideas in Scholarly Publishing, Look to the Library.