4.6 Sustainability

The 2007 ARL survey concluded that “business model development stands out as one continuing need as programs evolve”. Many library as publisher ventures currently exist on sporadic finding on a publication by publication level with no additional staffing resource. Staffing and funding challenges need to be resolved in order for the library as publisher to be sustainable. In addition, planning is needed at both programme level and publication level in order for the initiative to become a success.

The SPARC report suggested that issues around sustainability can be condensed into policies and processes. The scale and scope of the initiative in an external document, and an internal document which needs to state the strategic objectives, the operating budget, principal audience, editorial parameters, types of services and licences to publish and contracts.

These policies need to consider the following areas of best practice:

  • Audience or client segments – the various audiences, constituents, or markets that derive value from the proposed service, this could include a table to highlight the key stakeholders
  •   Value proposition – this could be at a strategic level for an imprint or services, or at an individual level for each publication, e.g. what is the value to the academic community of the publication
  •  Core activities and resources – this is the set of activities that a library as publisher undertakes to provide a service or to produce a publication, for example, is the core activity to host content, to give advice and expertise or to run a fully-fledged publishing operation. This leads to the identification of the resources needed to support the chosen model, e.g. admin, publishing costs etc., journals set up. Also activities – what do we do – what don’t we do, e.g. types of publishing, marketing, peer review
  •  Distribution channels – a statement to identify the channels the publication or service reaches its audience, e.g. DOAJ, DOAB, CDBaby (for sound recordings). Also the proposed marketing plans, if any. The Repository itself could actually be the main distribution channel of course, in the way that services such as Netflix or Lovefilm sell a service that enables users to watch the films they have licenced. The difference for the library publisher is that it is not ‘selling’ licences to the user, instead the licences are allowing open access content to be freely used within the conditions of Creative Commons licences.
  •  Income streams – these are the mechanisms by which an initiative actually generates income – including, potentially, both earned revenue and subsidies – from the clients to which it delivers value. This could include the following:
  • Traditional print publishing model – based on either journal subscriptions or revenue from monographs. For this model to work it would need to be either cost neutral or revenue generating. However, this model goes against the open access ideals of OAWAL.
    • Print + electronic publishing model –related to journal publishing, where an online element of a journal accompanies the print version – potentially print revenues subsidise the electronic version. In the case of monograph publishing this may be a chapter or preview of a print book. To a certain extent this is a rather dated model, which could probably be best described as a transitional model between print and electronic publishing
    • Open access – this model is self-explanatory, with all content published being published on open access using Creative Commons licensing, however, this then requires either some form of article/monograph processing charge, or a subsidy from the library/university/grant holder in order for the model to be sustainable
    • Electronic publishing with a print-on-demand option – this model effectively turns the above model on its head. E-publishing is assumed to be the primary dissemination method, with an option for print-on-demand. However, this model may not be capable of supporting an entire niche publishing model. However, as a supplementary revenue generating model for monograph publishing, this is an attractive proposition. The highest costs of monograph publishing are the print costs, with a print-on-demand model these costs are reduced as part of the initial outlay. In addition, print-on-demand printing costs tend to be a lot less than traditional printing costs. However, for journals this model is far less attractive. The way open access journals are set up means that it would be very costly to create a print on demand issue, reintroducing many of the costs that would be saved in moving to e-only open access. It is far more likely that readers would only require individual articles which are already available to print in the open access journal. For monographs, this is essentially the OAPEN model where the print on demand option could help to generate some additional revenue or at least be cost neutral and offer both electronic editions and a traditional print copy to those who prefer it.

As noted above, these policies need to be expressed in both internal and external document. Even if a programme has an overarching policy, many of these questions will be answered on a publication level. For example, the University of Huddersfield Press asked potential authors/editors to complete a proposal form.

On the subject of funding models/income streams, neither the open access nor the open access plus print on demand option effectively produce a reliable income stream, thus a more focused funding model as part of a more strategic programme level plan is required in order to make the workflow more efficient and decisions on projects quicker.

The 2007 ARL survey found that very few library publishers were able to ‘…support even 10 journal titles or more than a handful of monographic works’ which means that libraries hesitate in more aggressive marketing of the press due to fears that this could generate more demand than the press could satisfy. This leads on to the question of scalability, if the library as publisher wishes to expand it has to identify the resources it needs in order to expand successfully.

For example, a more successful press means that the library needs to reallocate greater staffing resources from the library or new resources need to be identified. The same staff running the Repository, the journals team, gold open access and the library as publisher model is clearly not sustainable if the work of the press increases.

Therefore an important part of any business plan for the library as publisher is a funding model, ideally this needs to be a mixed model in order to support varied programme of publications and to be scalable, these could include:

  • A contribution from the library, however, this is unsustainable in the long term if the library is going to grow its publications, even if the library was to move certain posts into a newly formed Press as the library teams are already working at capacity. This is effectively where many University Presses are now, and where the ARL libraries were in 2007 – although it could be argued that not much has changed in this respect in the years immediately following the survey, which concluded by saying,

“There is a solid base of support within the library budget, but for real growth to meet existing and emerging demands for publishing services, many institutions see that additional support from campus administration will be necessary.”

  • Contributions from the university, this would include dedicated staff and resources in order to publish an agreed number of publications a year, including start up journals, new monograph series etc. Although this additional funding could still be under the administration of the library, it would effectively move away from the ‘library as publisher’ model. An existing example of this is the Purdue model which aligns itself closely with the strategy of the University
  • Contributions from a fee based model, such as Georgia Tech, whereby Schools are asked to contribute to the initial set up of the landing pages. An open access version of this could have the University or Schools funding this model for ‘internal’ journals, a fee model for ‘external’ journals could still be applied. However, the York Digital Journals initiative felt that the enforcement of hosting fee would be a barrier to many journals, due to the way humanities and social sciences research is funded
  • Contributions from research funders. This would need to be costed at the time of grant application, in which case there needs to be collaboration between the Press and the pre-awards office. There could be issues regarding the way this funding is calculated, as full economic costing for some awards prohibits the allocation of a publishing budget, as this would effectively be double accounting
  • A shared monograph publishing model, this could include a collaborative approach from a number of different libraries, however, this could effectively dilute the Press brand, or a shared publishing model as suggested by the National Monographs Strategy in the UK.

In a 2013 article Mitchell Davis, Founder and Chief Business Officer, BiblioLabs, LLC, “As legacy publishers try to shed the vestiges of a dying industry, libraries can step right into the tools that allow them to be effective 21st-century publishers.”

4.1. The new university presses
4.2 Hosting
4.3 Librarian expertise
4.4 Publishing
4.5 Challenges
4.6 Sustainability

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