What is research and why do we write it?

To be read. To be assessed.

Dissemination: Quality Control, Validation and Space-Time Compression

• Dissemination of work
• Preservation of record
• Footnotes and scholarly genealogy (vs. science?)
• Labour of reading: reading-avoidance techniques

Assessment

The Symbolic Economy Maps onto the Real Economy

A matter of distribution: there are 100 people in a room for a talk

• They have $10 each
• The speaker speaks for free
• The venue needs $50 to cover its staff costs
• There are 40 talks per year

Subscription logic

• Each person pays $0.50 and hears the talk
• No payment, no entry
• Each person can only afford half of the talks
• The general public cannot attend

OA with an Article Processing Charge logic

• The speaker pays the full fee ($50)
• The problem is that the speaker only has $10
• The general public and all others can attend

OA with consortial logic

• 5 people attend each talk and pay $10 each
• They let anyone else attend for free
• Everyone can hear 50% of the talks, including the public

This is how OA looks in a dry funding climate

• Is the "venue" overcharging?
• The distribution of the economics is the most important thing
• APCs do not work well in the humanities and elsewhere

How much does it cost to publish a (digital) book?

• Mellon Ithaka study (2016): $15,140 - $129,909
• (Don't tell the Deans)
• Palgrave: $95 x 200 copies = $19,000
• Palgrave: Book Processing Charge: $17,000
• CUP: Book Processing Charge: $10,000
• Ubiquity Press: Book Processing Charge: £6,020
• [~$7k USD]

Where do these costs go?

Assume fixed costs:

• 3x staff + on and estates costs
• Travel
• CLOCKSS, Crossref, COPE, COUNTER memberships
• Crossref membership
• Around £190k per year

Assume production costs:

• Typesetting: £500
• Copyediting: £500

How many books with 3x staff?

BPCs for monographs scale badly + concentrate costs

• 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

UK REF costs for monographs

"to publish 75% of anticipated monographic submission output for the next REF would require approximately £96m investment over the census period. This is equivalent to £19.2m per year. Academic library budgets as they are currently apportioned would not support this cost."

Eve, M.P. et al., (2017). Cost estimates of an open access mandate for monographs in the UK’s third Research Excellence Framework. Insights. https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.392

Political Will

It is possible to achieve OA monographs. It is a matter of political will. But: that will is not there to put money into the humanities.

Cost to UK would be 1.2% of QR funding, or 19.2% of the AHRC budget.