Donald J. Waters, senior program officer, scholarly communications, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

1. SCHOLARLY PUBLISHING
DJW/HC, 6/24/2014; 1

2. ROUNDTABLE OF HUMANITIES’ DEANS:
• How can our institutions better promote the humanities?
– Track employment
– Admit high performing students interested in the
humanities, rather than the sciences
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 2

3. ROUNDTABLE OF HUMANITIES’ DEANS:
• How can we connect to students?
– Many were not “saved” by books
– They are immersed in the interactive Web of multimedia
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 3

4. University presses are the primary source of publication in
many humanities disciplines
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 4

5. Are presses part of the answer to the deans’ questions?
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 5

6. Note that these are not questions about a “crisis” nor about
“open access”
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 6

7. They are about the opportunities to shape knowledge formation
and dissemination to emerging needs and media
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 7

8. In the case of the humanities, they are urgent questions about
the quality and form of long-form publication.
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 8

9. Monographs are important in many fields, mainly in the
humanities but in other key fields, such as mathematics
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 9

10. And it is crucial to remember that most theses and
dissertations are monographic in nature
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 10

11. For the last 20 years, nearly all the conversation about change
in scholarly communication has focused on serials
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 11

12. The serials debates have been dominated by hot Harnadian
rhetoric, the Jesuitical distinctions between the colors of gold
and green, and the command and control postures of issuing
mandates at every level that require complex, costly structures
of compliance monitoring and inevitably engenders guerrilla
wars of evasion.
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 12

13. Aren’t we missing the point of the Deans’ worries that higher
education needs to reach its audiences in the media they are
naturally using?
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 13

14. Is Web-based research publication destined to follow the
journals model of a print-derived, PDF that takes advantage of
few, if any, of the interactive, annotative, and computational
affordances of the Web?
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 14

15. Are funder-paid APCs sustainable for any but the elite
researchers able to secure such funding?
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 15

16. Is it time to broaden our view of scholarly publication to
include other forms of publication, including monographs
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 16

17. Is it time to change the conversation?
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 17

18. MELLON’S OBJECTIVES
Incorporate modern digital practices into the publication
of scholarship in the humanities and ensure its
dissemination to the widest possible audience
Help humanities scholars and their publications to
participate more fully in the interactive Web
Develop paths for alternative business models to
support digital publication
Assist in making digital publication a first-class means
of disseminating scholarship in the humanities
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 18

19. HOW?
The best leverage seems to be in the home institutions of authors, rather
than of the presses
 Universities and colleges have substantial interests in promoting their
faculty and in the fields they represent
 These interests could represent a sustainable source of income that would
address the perennial free-riding problem
 Sponsorship of publication could translate institutional interests into first-
class digital products
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 19

20. OPTIONS?
Provide subsidies to the presses?
 See the recent AAU-ARL Prospectus for an
Institutionally Funded First-Book Subvention
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 20

21. OPTIONS?
Create new centralized agency collect funds
from institutions and disburse them to
authors?
 See recent report by Rebecca Kennison and Lisa
Norberg entitled: A Scalable and Sustainable
Approach to Open Access Publishing and
Archiving for Humanities and Social Sciences
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 21

22. ELEMENTS OF A POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVE
 Mellon would provide “seed funds” to willing
universities and colleges that they would use
to fund their faculty’s publications.
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 22

23. ELEMENTS OF A POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVE
 Willing institutions would select authors to
participate; authors could decline and pursue
traditional forms of publication
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 23

24. ELEMENTS OF A POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVE
 Willing presses would recruit selected authors
and review the quality of their publications
through normal means
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 24

25. ELEMENTS OF A POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVE
 For a negotiated price that the author’s institution
would pay, the press would agree to produce a well
designed digital publication that it would: deposit in
at least one trusted preservation repository with full
metadata, make available online under an agreed-
upon Creative Commons license, market through
social media, and submit for disciplinary prizes and
awards
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 25

26. ELEMENTS OF A POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVE
 Willing presses could also sell derivative works
to other markets (print on demand, or in
Amazon formats) or generate new services for
sale to generate additional income
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 26

27. 100 institutions over 5 years, with a broad mix of public and
private, large and small, with and without presses
8 year grant terms: 100% Mellon support in first year; 75%
in second; 50% in third; 25% in fourth; 0% after
10 books per year per institution = 8,000 books over 13
years (total book output is 3,000 per year or 39,000 over
13 years)
Total expense: $400K per institution or $40M over five
years; plus institutional match of $88M over 13 years.
Total=$128M
HOW MELLON MIGHT ASSIST
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 27

28. SUMMARY
WHAT THE PROPOSED
INITIATIVE WOULD BE:
WHAT IT WOULD NOT BE:
Motivated by practical interest in
having work in the humanities thrive
online
Ideologically-driven by open access
principles
Paying a price for such publication
services as peer review, manuscript
preparation, marketing and
distribution
Providing subventions to presses
Distributing funds on the condition
of peer-reviewed acceptance of
manuscript
Vanity publishing
Institutions would disburse the
funds because they have
substantial interests in the
Author-pays
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 28

29. Can we do this tomorrow?
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 29

30. There are many objections and concerns
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 30

31. Mellon is embracing these objections and concerns to
construct a path forward to achieve the vision
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 31

32. ISSUES
How many monographs are currently being
published and in what fields of the
humanities?
Mellon is sponsoring a systematic survey of
monograph publishing at US university presses
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 32

33. ISSUES
What would the costs of the institutional
sponsorship model be?
Pricing could be cost-based or value-based, but
Mellon has made a grant to Ithaka to plan for a
cost study of digital monograph publishing
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 33

34. ISSUES
What features constitute “high-quality”
in digital monographs?
 Interaction with primary sources and
other online works is a must.
 Interaction with readers though
sophisticated annotation capabilities
 Mellon has funded Hypothes.is to
develop Web-based annotation tools
for scholarly publications
PDF
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 34

35. ISSUES
How would high-quality digital
monographs be evaluated for promotion
and tenure?
 MLA has had guidelines for years
 Mellon is sponsoring the development of
similar guidelines at one of the other two
largest scholarly societies, AHA, and has
invited a proposal from the third, CAA
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 35

36. ISSUES
Are presses ready and willing to
participate?
 Some are more so than others and Mellon has
invited a leadership group to submit proposals
for funding in December to develop capacity
 After consulting with a group of editorial
directors, Mellon has also issued a general
request for proposals to all other US university
presses who are members of AAUP.
Proposals will be selected for funding in March
2015
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 36

37. ISSUES
Are faculty willing and ready to participate?
 Mellon has funded faculty-led digital projects
for more that ten years in a variety of
humanities fields
 Mellon staff have been visiting campuses for
faculty consultations though the winter and
spring and will continue in the Fall.
 Some see no problem with the current system,
others would welcome support, including those
who want emphasis on digital projects, or want
emphasis on publications that can only be
accomplished digitally.
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 37

38. ISSUES
Are institutions willing and ready to
participate?
Some are and Mellon has invited a small,
leadership group to submit proposals for
December grants.
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 38

39. ISSUES
What would be the terms of the
institutional sponsorship contract?
Mellon has invited several institutions to
develop model terms covering preservation
requirements, e-book qualities, marketing
expectations, licensing, and royalties
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 39

40. WE ARE SEEKING FEEDBACK
Other ideas or suggestions?
With written feedback, please email Helen Cullyer: hc@mellon.org
and Don Waters: djw@mellon.org
DJW/HC, 7/11/14; 40