Digital University Publishing

The debate we have had on the “University Publishing in a Digital Age” inspired me to blog about this report released by Ithaka (“an independent not-for-profit organization”). Since I work in an academic publishing field and I am aware of the importance of digital publishing, I will try to take my precaution and just try to participate in the conversation about this report and about an aggregated published university content online.

There are interesting points in this report. At some institutions, the role of university presses is in question. Some are looking to libraries to assume digital publishing. Others are re-evaluating the governance of their presses and are considering moving their presses into different reporting lines. Perhaps, they would adapt better to the digital world if they would be part of the Information Technology entity, for instance.

Meanwhile, the university presses should work collaboratively with the libraries, information technologies departments, provost offices, graduate schools, and other offices to be able to make the transition to electronic publishing.

In the nearest future, professors will get more aggressively their previously published work as well as current content on line, so we will need to operate print and electronic programs at the same time. Scholars will seek to work in electronic research and publishing environment, which will provide them with the tools for conducting research, collaborating with peers, sharing working papers, and manipulating data. Scholarship published on line, will include graphics, audio, and video materials.

As non-profit organizations, the universities should make a publishing decision that balance the priorities of mission and profit. Because of serving the academic mission, they aim to publish quality scholarship in markets with little profit, but great research or educational impact. The solution would be to invest capital strategically. The transition from print to digital, publishing requires investment capital in order to develop new infrastructure. New sources of funding will be necessary. For example, in raising money for digital programs, university presses should work with development officers, to focus on foundations, government agencies, and other sources of funding.

Evan Schnittman mentioned in his blog after returning from the Frankfurt Book Fair: “it occurred to me that the publishing industry today is in a position rarely if ever experienced before”. In Longtail Wars, he says that there are three wars that are changing the nature of publishing: the discoverability wars, the print on demand wars, and the repository wars. He offers an enthusiastic take on digital publishing strategies (http://blog.oup.com/2007/10/longtail/).

It is concluded that universities should become more actively involved and committed to publishing online. The digital publishing would enable universities to fully realize the potential global impact of their academic programs and will help scholars to distribute their work more efficiently.