TRENDS IN E-PUBLISHING Frederick J. Friend Director Scholarly Communication University College London f.friend@ucl.ac.uk www.ucl.ac.uk/scholarly-communication/

Change is happening in both journal and book publishing! All major publishers now make content available electronically, although print format still commonplace Print likely to persist longer for books than for journals (unless move to break up books into chapters accelerates) Peer review and copyright still perceived to be important in electronic environment Availability of electronic format leading to changes in business relationships between authors and publishers, between publishers and agents/aggregators, between publishers and librarians and between publishers and readers Parallel changes in relationships between other stakeholders in scholarly communication - e.g. between authors and employers and between librarians and users

New initiatives reflecting changes in relationships Author-driven initiatives Commercially-driven initiatives Librarian-driven initiatives Collaborative initiatives

Author-driven initiatives E-print services : Los Alamos, PubMedCentral, etc. (aim to supplement conventional publication and increase access) Self-archiving : e-prints.org software (Steven Harnad), Free Online Scholarship Movement (Peter Suber) (aim to open access to journal literature by freeing authors from publishers’ monopoly) Influencing commercial publishers: Public Library of Science (aim to use author-power to make commercial publications freely available)

Commercially-driven initiatives BioMed Central (“immediate free access to peer-reviewed biomedical research” using new model to cover publication costs) CrossRef and publisher-linking services (aim to give better value from commercial publication by linking to related content) New aggregation services (aim to provide access to wide range of content using “one-stop shop” principle) New e-book companies (aim to change business models and access routes to monograph literature)

Librarian-driven initiatives Consortia (aim to bring about change in business models - e.g. ICOLC “preferred practices”) Projects - e.g. digitisation (aim to create new content in electronic format) Lobbying on copyright (aims to raise awareness amongst authors and to protect fair use)

Collaborative projects SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) programmes involve authors, publishers and librarians www.arl.org/sparc/ Open Archives Initiative also involves various stakeholders www.openarchives.org

SPARC programmes SPARC Alternatives programme: Supports lower-cost, directly competitive alternatives to high-priced scientific, technical, or medical journals in important fields (e.g. Organic letters) SPARC Leading Edge programme: Supports ventures that obtain competitive advantage through technology use or innovative business models, and/or address the information needs of an emerging or fast-growing STM field (e.g. New journal of physics) SPARC Scientific Communities programme: Supports development of non-profit portals that serve the needs of a discrete scientific community by aggregating peer-reviewed research and other content (e.g. BioOne)

SPARC Europe Before SPARC Europe was formed, SPARC staff had already formed good working relationships with European librarians and publishers European activities became so important that they needed a separate focus Financial support for SPARC coming mainly from US while benefits world-wide JISC, SCONUL and CURL arranged meeting to gauge support for SPARC Europe office LIBER became umbrella organization for SPARC Europe, with funding provided by organizations across Europe Managed by SPARC Europe Steering Committee SPARC Europe Director to be appointed shortly

SPARC achievements Reduction in price of journals when a SPARC alternative is established (shows benefit of competition) Savings for libraries even when library subscribes to both original journal and SPARC alternative No sacrifice of academic quality: Organic Letters has exceeded Tetrahedron Letters, the main commercial competitor, in impact factor according to the 2000 ISI Journal Citation Reports “Create Change” and “Declaring Independence” have raised awareness of scholarly communication issues in many universities Several editorial boards have left high-cost publishers

Open Archives Initiative Mission statement : “The Open Archives Initiative develops and promotes interoperability standards that aim to facilitate the efficient dissemination of content. The Open Archives Initiative has its roots in an effort to enhance access to e-print archives as a means of increasing the availability of scholarly communication... The fundamental technological framework and standards that are developing to support this work are, however, independent of the both the type of content offered and the economic mechanisms surrounding that content, and promise to have much broader relevance in opening up access to a range of digital materials.” People involved in OAI come from a wide variety of information backgrounds

Conclusions Technological changes in publishing and in access to information are leading to changes in relationships and business models Many different forms of new relationships and new business models are being explored by all stakeholders in the information world Some will succeed and others will fail Those working in a collaborative way, or at least taking into account the interests of a variety of stakeholders, are most likely to succeed