Can a group of libraries help to pioneer a new path in academic publishing? That’s the hope of library directors from the Oberlin Group, an organization comprising 80 top liberal arts colleges, which is actively exploring ways to encourage the publishing of short-form, open-access scholarly monographs, including possibly launching an open-access publishing house for the humanities and social sciences later this year.

In March, the group’s Lever Initiative, led by a seven-member task force of librarians and London-based TCI Communications, published a report on the first phase of its plan, essentially an environmental scan of scholarly monograph publishing. The scan incorporated surveys of Oberlin College faculty, as well as workshops with 50 library directors, and interviews with provosts and research staff.

“The report was intended to help us set a direction for our effort, to help us understand what our options might be, and to validate our intuition that there is a role for the Oberlin Group of Libraries to play in the emerging world of open access publishing,” said Mike Roy, the dean of library and information services and the chief information officer at Middlebury College. “It has done all three of these things for us.”

According to the report, librarians consider the current model of scholarly publishing, particularly for monographs, inherently flawed, if not altogether broken. The lifeblood of academic publishing for decades, monographs are too inaccessible, too costly, and too focused on tenure and promotion, the librarians say. In addition, the report touches on what’s been called the monograph crisis—evidence that the growth of large consortia deals for electronic journals and resources has diverted library funds away from research monographs. This has led to a vicious circle in which publishers’ prices for monographs must rise since they sell fewer copies, further complicating collection development at libraries.

The Lever Initiative says it wants to produce “what the current model of academic publishing is unable to produce: good academic literature—literature that people want to read—made freely available to all. And to do so efficiently, sustainably, and making full use of technology and new media.”

But one of the main challenges to realizing that goal is fundamental: convincing faculty members of the need for change. While 83% of the 626 Oberlin faculty respondents surveyed for the report said they would at least consider publishing with such a venture, most said they are satisfied with the current system of scholarly publishing. For humanities and social science faculty, the prestige of the publisher remains the most important factor when authors decide where to publish. Without the essential support of faculty, “a new initiative would likely fail,” according to the report.

Satisfaction

In fact, the Lever report reveals some discontent with the current scholarly publishing system, primarily with editorial quality, distribution, remuneration, and the price of books. “But this isn’t extreme,” the report suggests, and, overall, faculty attitudes are relatively conservative, with no evidence of a strong drive to publish under an open access model or introduce innovative formats—most likely because of the strong tie between traditional monograph publishing, and tenure and promotion.

The findings challenge some of the assumptions of the Lever Initiative. “We were a little surprised at the results of the faculty survey,” said Patricia A. Tully, a member of the task force and the Caleb T. Winchester University Librarian at Wesleyan University. “They seem more satisfied with the current state of monograph publishing than we thought they’d be. We will certainly consider their responses in evaluating with the rest of the Oberlin Group how to proceed in phase two of the initiative.”

Roy said there was no reason that faculty should have thought deeply about the system-wide implications of open access publishing—after all, it’s not their main responsibility. “One lesson I draw from this finding is that whatever system of open access publishing we go with, it had better carry with it the same sort of prestige and quality that is perceived from the current system of publication,” he said.

Barbara Fister, another task force member and an academic librarian at Gustavus Adolphus College, said the findings will be useful, noting that librarians tend to be more intrigued by technology than scholars in book-reliant disciplines. “Knowing what authors want is valuable,” Fister said. “On the other hand, what scholarly authors say they want more of—attentive and knowledgeable editorial attention, for example—is far more expensive than technology, and difficult to fund in an era of austerity coupled with a naïve belief in the alchemical powers of technology.”

Eager to be freed from “old assumptions and old technology centered around the production of print publications,” the Oberlin Group had originally ruled out collaborating on a potential publishing effort with an existing press, because “such an alliance would prevent our ability to be innovative and nimble.” In light of the report, this is now being reconsidered.

“I believe that the report does a good job of summarizing the findings of the task force, and gives us a basis for discussions with the rest of the Oberlin Group about how to proceed,” Tully said. “In this first phase we have not ruled out anything, including the possibility of partnering with an existing press. Each option has its pros and cons.”

In addition to valuing highly traditional book publishing features, such as editorial and distribution services, peer review, and a publisher’s reputation, most faculty (almost three-quarters) said they also valued the filter, or gatekeeper, role played by publishers and the library: faculty respondents said they were largely satisfied with the access to books through their library and were suspicious of the quality of free online books not provided by the library.

The respondents also suggested that ready-made publishing partners may already exist—respondents cited efforts such as Forerunners from the University of Minnesota Press, the Signale series from Cornell University Press and Cornell University Library, and Palgrave’s Pivot imprint as promising developments from established publishers.

Officials at the Association of American University Presses say their members would be receptive to the Oberlin Group’s venture. “The Association of American University Presses stands ready to help,” says Barbara Kline Pope, president-elect of the AAUP and executive director for communications at the National Academies Press. “Launching a series within a university press seems to me a responsible way to advance the Oberlin Group’s agenda and greatly expand and enhance the experimenting with new models,” she adds. “Building an open access series for the liberal arts within an existing university press, with all that comes with it—its infrastructure, its market know-how, and, yes, most especially its top editors—may prove to all of us whether faculty will embrace this new model. So, I say, let’s get working together to give authors and readers the best of both worlds.”

Privileges

Over the summer, the Lever Initiative will examine four not mutually exclusive options recommended in the report: (1) establishing an open-access press; (2) collaborating with an existing house to publish a new open-access series; (3) supporting various “unlocking” initiatives that have a shared cost approach to OA, such as Unglue.it or Knowledge Unlatched; (4) and/or a primary focus on advocacy. A final plan is expected for the Oberlin Group’s fall meeting.

Fister acknowledges that the willingness to entertain open-access alternatives despite apparent satisfaction with the traditional methods might seem contradictory. But it also reflects that while faculty enjoy and value the access to resources and library privileges they have, they also realize that not everyone has the same access or the same privileges.

“Faculty, all employed and with library privileges, can get what they want—interlibrary loan came up a lot in comments as the key to access,” Fister says. “But not all scholars have library privileges, and who knows how long interlibrary loan will work as we migrate to e-book collections?” In addition, many faculty worry that their students can’t afford scholarly books, which no doubt ties to their willingness to consider open alternatives.

“I think [the survey results] speak well of the work academic publishing does,” Fister says. “Books aren’t broken. But connecting books to readers," she says, especially expensive monographs which can easily cost over $100 per title, "is problematic.”

Such considerations make the Oberlin Group’s work all the more valuable, suggests Charles Watkinson, director of Purdue Libraries’ Scholarly Publishing Services and a member of the board of directors of the Association of American University Presses. “I do think that any exploration into the future of open access monographs is worthwhile at the moment,” he says, “and, that multiple business models are the sign of a healthy ecosystem."