Publishing from the Library: New Roles for Libraries in Scholarly Communications David Ruddy Cornell University Library September, 2004

Why consider publishing? Escalating costs of scholarly communications, esp. in the sciences “serials crisis” Increasing concentration and control of scholarly literature in commercial hands A sense that the traditional publishing paradigm for scholarly literature is no longer working

Conventional publishing Strengths Developing content Marketing content Generating revenues/profits Protecting intellectual property

Conventional publishers in the e-publishing environment? Advantages Disadvantages

Advantages Understand the need for cost recovery and financial sustainability Can exploit existing content production processes and workflows Could add significant value to online content

Disadvantages Understand readers as consumers rather than users Have not historically addressed issues of archiving and preservation Exercise monopolistic control over the availability of content

The case for libraries as e-publishers

Libraries… Are central to the “information space” of a university Understand the culture of scholarship Focus on service models to support content usage Have curatorial expertise to manage and control large, diverse collections Have an established concern and mandate to provide lifecycle stewardship

Is it really a new role? The Library has long served a distribution and archiving function for current reports, news, and data in electronic format USDA Economics and Statistics System Geospatial Information Repository (CUGIR) Legal Information Institute Almost exclusively public-domain or otherwise freely available information

Recent e-publishing at Cornell Project Euclid Proprietary serial literature arXiv.org Open access, scientific pre-print server

Euclid—History Mathematics and statistics serial literature online Cornell’s response to the serials crisis Grant awarded by the Mellon Foundation in 2000 for initial development Launched in 2003 as a fee-based service Will take approximately 3-4 years to reach a “cost neutral” position

Euclid—Mission Promote affordable scholarly communication by providing a not-for- profit alternative to commercial publishers Support independent and society publishers as they transition from paper to electronic Build a service designed by librarians to meet the needs of end users

Euclid—Profile 37 journal titles available as of October 2004 A publisher-driven business model User-centered functionality, with features designed to add value to math literature Global sales through a network of agents

arXiv.org An author-submitted pre-print server now containing 288K articles 2 million visitors per week; 65% non-US Developed with government support at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1991 Now supported by Cornell University Library Operates outside of traditional publishing procedures Vitally important to global scholarly communications in several scientific disciplines

Challenges that libraries must address as publishers Infrastructure Collaboration Sustainability Credibility

Developing infrastructure Publishing requires work in areas that libraries have little institutional experience Content development and design Peer-review Marketing and promotion Order fulfillment May require user support services in highly specialized or technical areas

Strategic collaboration Success will likely depend on the development of strategic alliances with scholarly societies, university presses, and other university groups that have a contributing role to play in e-publishing

Sustainability Financial Can we cover our costs? Can we create and maintain cost-effective processes and workflows? Technological Scalable technologies Sustainable developmental strategies Digital archiving and preservation

Credibility Can libraries demonstrate positive benefits from their active role in e ‑ publishing? Can libraries compete with commercial publishers, and with each other? Can libraries build infrastructure, collaborative relationships, and sustainable programs in e-publishing?