As research institutions increasingly seek online access to peer-reviewed scholarship, the shift to electronic publishing is transforming the scholarly publishing marketplace. Publishers of all types are exploring a range of new subscription models in response to the opportunities and challenges that have appeared. Common strategies for new models include:
Bundling and the Big Deal
Some publishers, especially large commercial entities, have experimented with bundling print and/or electronic journals into aggregate entities. These arrangements offer libraries comprehensive licensing agreements, often with discounts for the bundled package, but prevent the cancellation of individual electronic journal subscriptions.
Collaboration
Not-for-profit publishers face particular challenges as well as opportunities in this new electronic environment. Scholarly societies and small presses have sought collaborative efforts to create viable publishing options.
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BioOne was launched in 2001 as an online disseminator of peer-reviewed research in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences. It offers an innovative model for collaboration among scientific societies, libraries, academe, and the private sector.
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The ACLS History E-Book Project, a collaboration of learned societies, publishers, and librarians, provides a similar model in the humanities. The History E-Book Project offers an online, fully searchable collection of high-quality books in history.
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In the social sciences, the American Anthropological Association (AAA) has partnered with the University of California Press to develop AnthroSource, an online resource offering low-cost digital access to AAA’s peer-reviewed journals.
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Columbia Earthscape was conceived and developed through a collaboration of Columbia University Press, the Academic Computing and Information Service (AcIS) of Columbia University, the Columbia University Library system, and a board of distinguished scholars and researchers.
- The Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics (SCOAP) Project takes a somewhat different collaborative approach to managing a set of journals serving a single discipline. The initiative aims to convert high-quality HEP journals to open access by replacing publishers’ subscription income from multiple
institutions with income from a single financial partner, SCOAP3, a
global network of funding agencies, research laboratories, and libraries.
Hybrid Models
Many scholarly publishers are experimenting with a mixed or “hybrid” model, combining revenue from publication fees to make individual articles openly accessible with existing subscription revenue. Although a large number of publishers, particularly for-profit publishers, offer authors an option to pay to make their article openly accessible the price, policies on author rights, practices for identifying openly accessible work, and commitment to offsetting revenue from this new source with subscription price reductions vary widely.
