Flipping Humanities Journals with the OLH

Amsterdam. 23rd November 2015.

A book

Dr. Martin Paul Eve, Birkbeck, University of London. @martin_eve.

APCs are problematic for the humanities

APC graph

Monographs

  • Monographs acknowledged as different
    • e.g. HEFCE mandate
  • Higher barriers to entry for new publishers
  • Open source platform development in infancy
  • Production toolchain likewise
  • Different discoverability and value-conferral sites

BPCs for monographs scale badly

  • 5,023 monographs in UK in 2013 by largest 4 publishers (source: Crossick)
  • At a £5,050 BPC (UP price): £25,366,150
  • At a £6,500 BPC (CUP price): £32,649,500
  • At an £11,000 BPC (Palgrave price): £55,253,000
  • UK spend on all books 2010/2011: ~£60,000,000 (source: SCONUL)

BPCs for monographs scale badly

BPC graph

Our Solution

Open Library of Humanities Megajournal / Multijournal / Not-for-profit / Collectively Funded

Planning since 2013

Press and Committees

Support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Mellon
  • $90,000 planning grant
    • University of Lincoln, UK, 2014-2015
  • $741,000 sustainability grant
    • Birkbeck, University of London, UK, 2015-2018

The Subscription Model as it Exists

The current system: many libraries all paying relatively large amounts

The OLH Library Partnership Subsidy Model

Many libraries all paying smaller amounts

125 Libraries Financially Supporting the OLH in First Ten Months

No author fees

Some of the libraries supporting OLH: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cambridge

7 Journals on the Platform at Launch (150 articles in first year)

Journals on the OLH platform Cost per institution per article: between $3 to $6. Target of 300+ libraries by end of year three.

Ongoing Project to "Flip" Subscription Journals

LingOA

Building Open-Source Publishing Technology

  • meTypeset: a JATS XML typesetter
  • CaSSius: a CSS regions PDF generator
  • Translation Layer

The End

Thank you!

Presentation licensed under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license. All institutional images excluded from CC license. Available to view online at http://meve.io/Amsterdam2015.