Gideon Burton's Blog

The Coming Change in Humanities Publishing (4): Defining Electronic Publishing

One of the effects of the digital age is that it is causing us to rethink things we have lived by for centuries. Take shopping. It would seem adequate to define shopping as "browsing and selecting items for sale." But after doing a great deal of online shopping--even while enjoying its efficiencies--we can feel that we haven't really "gone shopping." It turns out this phenomenon has social or physical elements you just don't get without joining your friends and trotting around the mall. It works the other way, too. After motoring around to several retail outlets to find that SLR camera you wanted for Christmas, this old-school comparison shopping seems ridiculous compared an online experience. Okay, then. We learn that shopping has both meant something more than we thought, and we are finding that (due to the online world) we view and do "shopping" differently.

Publishing compares. As with shopping, the online world is redefining "publishing," taking us back to our assumptions about what this activity is, revealing just how tied this concept has been to printing and paper, and leading us to rethink basic categories such as "book" "periodical" and "issue."

The Coming Change in Humanities Publishing (3): Opportunities with Electronic Publishing

In the previous post I discussed the problems with conventional publishing in the Humanities and referred to The Modern Language Association’s 2002 statement on the future of scholarly publishing. That report eyed the digital realm and asked the question, "Is Electronic Publication the Solution?"

Its answer was tentative and appropriately qualified--after all, electronic publishing is still in its swaddling clothes and raises as many problems, perhaps, as it may appear to solve (I'll get into all of that soon enough!). Importantly, however, the report presented the electronic realm not simply as a field of potential opportunity for publishing, but as a field already serving the interests of humanities research: "Online journals are already being used by many scholars in our fields, and this use is likely to increase." Citing a Columbia University report, it stated that "scholars in the humanities have become regular users of electronic resources such as bibliographies, encyclopedias, concordances, and databases available through university libraries."No kidding!

The Coming Change in Humanities Publishing (2): Problems with Conventional Publishing in the Humanities

Change in Humanities publishing is being driven in part by what has become known as the "crisis in scholarly communication." This refers to a short-circuit in the publication and research cycle upon which scholarship depends. Published scholarship isn't reaching its destined readers who rely upon it for their own work, and scholarship meriting publication is not getting published. Both problems are due to economic woes: Journal subscription costs have escalated astronomically, causing libraries to cancel them, and academic presses "are being forced to reject high quality scholarship submitted for publication, because they can no longer afford to publish such work" (Cornell, citing MLA).

The Coming Change in Humanities Publishing (1): Introducing the Issues

I offer a series of posts in which I will lay out my understanding of the radical changes that academic publishing is undergoing in general and within the Humanities in particular. This both continues and expands my prior posts and presentations on the Open Access movement. I'll take up each of the following in separate posts--inviting comments from any interested:

1. Introducing the Issues
2. Problems with Conventional Publishing in the Humanities
3. Opportunities with Electronic Publishing
4. Defining Electronic Publishing
5. Type 1: Electronic Publication of Conventional Scholarship
6. Type 2: Open Access Publishing
7. Type 3: The Online Archive
8. Type 4: "Born Digital" Publications
9. Evaluation of Electronic Publications: Peer Review
10. Evaluation of Electronic Publications: Promotion and Tenure

Open Access on the map at Brigham Young University

The presentation on Open Access that Jeff Belliston and I had previously prepared was well received yesterday by the assembled deans, the Academic Vice President, and the President of BYU. I was impressed by our Academic Vice President's keen interest in the issues. And while this institution is still a long ways off from something like the Harvard Open Access mandate for our faculty, there is clearly interest and awareness at the top.