More library-led academic publishing please
I truly believe the world would be a better place if more libraries published more journals and books. Librarians are the custodians of research, so have a vested interest in publishing the good stuff their faculty and students produce. They also have seen publishing costs rise, and so who better than them to get them back down, whilst maintaining quality? They already have experience of running repositories, and a good understanding of publishing!
Library-led publications have ready-made, credible brands from their associated academic institutions — a beacon of safety in a predatory sea for authors. Such publications serve the community well as they are driven by community need, rather than profit. This can help smaller niches, that are often neglected by commercial publishers, to flourish — and then there are student journals, which give students vital publishing experience. A publishing programme could also build an institution’s overall reputation and the visibility of its research, putting its brand front and centre, not the publisher’s. As attracting students is more competitive than ever, this has become vital.
Most importantly though, it’s in the interest of librarians to cut the costs of open access publishing to maximise value to their researchers and their associated funders.
Sounds good doesn’t it; a new dawn in publishing even. It is beginning to happen, new university presses are on the rise, but why isn’t every library doing it? Well, sustainability has been an issue in the past, with setup fees high and ongoing maintenance that has made such programmes both time and cost heavy.
If only there was some way for librarians to start publishing programmes more easily and cost effectively?
But wait, there is! If you are a librarian looking to start a publishing programme, we at Veruscript have the answer. Our Publishing Services are designed for just for this purpose. We want to get more libraries publishing their own journals. Everything is cloud based, so no messing around with setting up or maintaining systems and servers. Setup is easy and archiving in Portico is part of the deal, so content is preserved forever. We provide the services, you work with your faculty to organise the editorial team, it’s pretty simple really. Journals are owned by you and if you don’t like us, moving is easy. We charge a low fee per article, don’t charge set up costs and even offer a completely free basic service.
So if you’d like to chat about starting your publishing programme, we’d love to hear from you.
Take a look at what we offer and then drop us a line at partnerships@veruscript.com.
