Open source + open access + open standards = open publishing

I've been looking for a term that goes beyond "open access" or "open source" to capture what I think the academic library's role should be in the future of scholarly communication. So what I've come up with is "open publishing." Open publishing encompasses these better known buzzwords, but goes beyond them.

Open publishing suggests that academic libraries should participate in publishing activities. They should do publishing, they should become publishers. Even though most libraries were not publishers in the print age, it is appropriate in the digital age because digital information behaves differently than print information. In the print age, publishers performed many roles that libraries simply couldn't, especially the mass production of millions of physical volumes. Publishers distributed these to vendors to be sold to consumers, including libraries.

In the digital age the mass production of thousands of physical artifacts is completely collapsed. The mass distribution of a digital document can be achieved merely by placing it on a web server. This enables it to be distributed throughout the globe and replicated millions of times over, without having to resort to a printing process. Once cost is sunk into the development of a digital library or publishing system, the marginal cost of producing one more digital resource is significantly lowered. Yes, publishers do perform other functions that are difficult and/or expensive for libraries to perform, such as editing, design, peer-review, and building digital publishing systems.

But even though it is expensive and challenging, and libraries traditionally haven't performed this function, it is more important now than ever for libraries to get involved in publishing.

First of all, in the digital age, the agency that publishes a document is the same agency that archives it for preservation and serves as the gatekeeper for access. Over the past couple of decades, libraries have allowed publishers to move to a licensed model in which libraries do not ever own (or host if you prefer) the digital artifacts that they pay for. Let me be blunt: Academic librarians have failed to maintain our professional values in this regard. We have failed to build our collections and promote access to those collections in the same way we did in the past.

Second, by offering open publishing services, academic libraries can fill a need by providing an alternative to commercial publishing. We can offer open publishing to editors and faculty who would prefer to publish open access documents, using open source systems and open standards. I am not saying everyone should do this or will want to do this, commercial publishing will always fill a need. I'm just saying that this is an option that should be available to those that want it. There are clear, communicable benefits to open access, open source, and open standards, and there are plenty of authors and editors who would be interested in these services from libraries.

Third, the time has come for the professional library community to get with the program and adapt to the digital age. Librarians need to be engaged in the modern culture of scholarly communication. We need to develop the skills to address the tough problems of information in the online world: How do we build high-quality digital collections? What are the best methods for providing access? How do we preserve these collections for the future?

My motivation for addressing this topic is a philosophical one regarding the definition of and purpose for the academic library. What is an academic library? Are they necessary in the digital world? What role should they play? What values are important to us as professionals and how can we promote those values in a wired world?

My answer to these questions is that academic libraries should be first and foremost libraries, with the implication that we need to develop collections of high quality scholarly content. To exist as libraries, we have to build our own digital collections, we can't rely on licensed collections forever. We have to build collections of born-digital resources. We can't rely on digitizing our special collections to sustain us forever. Academic libraries have to learn how to preserve digital information, in much the same way we preserve our physical artifacts. We must learn to preserve items that were born digital in their native format. We shouldn't just print them out as Michael Gorman once suggested. Digital resource behave differently, have different qualities than physical items, and as a species, we are smart enough to figure out a way to do this. As academic librarians, we promote democratic access to collections. Yet commercially developed licensed collections have restrictions on top of restrictions placed on them that are, in a sense, artificial in the online environment. To satisfy the values of our profession, we should pursue open publishing, making new knowledge easily accessible through the use of the web.

Some of us are starting to understand this. One of the best discussions of this need that I've seen is in an editorial that came out today in the Chronicle of Higher Education. It is "A Risky Gamble With Google" by Siva Vaidhayanathan. Unfortunately, the Chronicle requires a subscription, it is not open access, which I find a little ironic.