[Air-L] book announcement

Wed Mar 9 08:38:07 PST 2011

The University of Michigan Press and the University of Michigan Library have a joint effort, Digital Culture Books, where books are published in print and online where they are freely available under a CC license. 

http://www.digitalculture.org/about

You can get a publication from a university press and everyone (who can access the internet) can read your ideas (if they accept your proposal, that is).

(Disclaimer: My PhD is from UM.)

I liked Charles' point (which others mentioned as well) about how this is considered a *library* book by the publisher. And I liked Alan's point about those of us who do not have a university affiliation (like myself, although I luckily have the New York Public Library). I can see that a publisher might consider books along the lines of who will buy it and what is the price (such as library books which are expensive), but I thought libraries were always underfunded and this kind of pricing doesn't help libraries. I want to say something like "I doubt it helps publishers either" but that's really beyond my ken.

I like having a personal research library (paper, so old fashioned, I know). One of my grandfathers was a history teacher and there were always books around, shelves of two- or three-inch wide biographies of political figures and historical events. 

Maybe send out another announcement when it's available in paperback?

(I admit I'll probably go spend $59.99 [then plus taxes $60+] for a copy of Dragon Age II... It's for study, of course.)

-Nat.

On Mar 9, 2011, at 9:38 AM, Alex Halavais wrote:

> I agree with Steve that it comes down to individuals to choose to make
> their work available in a more equitable way, but I am also certain
> that there is a role for academic associations and institutions in the
> process.  I fought (successfully) to have open access works valued
> more highly in the tenure process in our department, for example. And
> it is all to easy to forget many academic associations support
> themselves through journal publication--a fee often hidden in library
> expenses. I think AoIR is moving in the right direction with an effort
> to make conference papers openly available, but it seems as though we
> are late to that party. I strongly believe that increasing access to
> scholarly knowledge is a core mission of AoIR, and so finding ways of
> encouraging this is a worthwhile endeavor.
> 
> It's all too easy to blame publishers for making profits through the
> process of exclusionary access, and forget that we are complicit in
> this when we choose to review for and submit to closed journals and
> publishers. Yes, there are sometimes reputational advantages to those
> publishers, and for that reason I couldn't quite go for the
> "full-danah" pledge of only open access (
> http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2008/02/06/openaccess_is_t.html
> ) . I have, however, adhered to a half-danah pledge of making at least
> half of my work openly available. That would have been harder if I had
> remained pre-tenure at an R1, I'll admit, but sometimes doing the
> right thing isn't the same as doing the easy thing.
> 
> I also think it's important for authors to recognize how their work
> will be made available. It's not just an ethical question but a
> strategic one. I published a chapter in the Handbook Jeremy edited,
> and it was--as he notes--even more expensive. Although it has been
> read, I am convinced that the price of that volume has kept it out of
> the hands of most of its intended audience. It's not a matter of the
> work being secret--in fact, I blogged a version of that chapter as I
> was writing it--it's a question of how many barriers we put up around
> our scholarship, and who ends up really paying for those barriers.
> 
> Alex
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 7:56 AM, Steve Jones <sjones at uic.edu> wrote:
>> Since I was mentioned in Charles' email that started this thread....
>> 
>> I think Jeremy sums it up pretty well. I can't speak to Lang's business model, I haven't a clue about it. What I do know is that the books in Digital Formations aren't intended nor marketed to be "handbooks" or "reference books." In general those are perceived as very different from other types of books, textbooks and monographs. They usually have smaller press runs, more pages, are targeted at libraries (and other institutional buyers) and not individual buyers. Some presses publish only reference books, others publish a mix of those and other books. The business model relies on high prices to presumably at least break even with relatively few unit sales.
>> 
>> Sylvie Noel brought up in a subsequent email that there are people who publish e-books at very low cost (and, I would add, there are probably others who provide their work for free). There are alternatives such as these and others, and I have always encouraged AoIR to consider alternatives in general, so perhaps this is something to think about and to do. However, I would (always) add that it is not something we should look to AoIR to instigate, it is something that should come from members and those on air-l, who, if they are interested in pursuing alternatives, should pursue them and seek the support of AoIR (whatever form that support might take).
>> 
>> Similarly, I would very much like to encourage people to consider danah's recommendation in an email not part of the 'book announcement' thread of Ignite talks (and other forms of presentation) at the next AoIR. They need not even be within the structure of the program, but could take place at other points in time during the conference.
>> 
>> Part (perhaps a big part) of what one faces when proposing and engaging in alternatives to traditional scholarly modes of presentation is the seeming recalcitrance of the academy, but in my experience it can't hurt to try, and it just might help a lot.
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> 
>> Steve
>> 
>> On Mar 9, 2011, at 4:45 AM, jeremy hunsinger wrote:
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> //
> // This email is
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> // [ ] assumed to be private, please ask before redistributing.
> //
> // Alexander C. Halavais, ciberflâneur
> // http://alex.halavais.net
> //
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-------------------------------
Nathaniel Poor, Ph.D.
http://natpoor.blogspot.com/