Most academics today expect to find Open Access research in scholarly journals, yet there are a growing number of OA books published each year, too. Is Open Access the answer to the question, “What is the future of long-form scholarly publishing?”
A recent survey from Publishers Communication Group (PCG) found academic spending on Open Access materials tilted 3-to-1 in favor of journals, though the gap is expected to close. Just like OA articles, OA monographs are published through fees paid by the authors. The PCG survey found where the money comes from, and how libraries are managing the shift to OA.
According to Melissanne Scheld, Managing Director of PCG, “Where open access monographs differ from open access journals is in some of the new collaborative, innovative ways that funders are coming together to help out publishers or to support publishers.”
As she tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally, “This has a lot to do with the fact that journals publishing is predominantly STM, and monograph publishing is traditionally dominated by humanities and social sciences. Humanities and social science research is not funded the same way that is STM funded. The scarcity of funds is forcing more creative collaborations and partnerships among funders, among publishers, which makes open access monograph publishing a really interesting, dynamic circumstance at the moment. There’s a lot of creativity out there. There’s a lot of nontraditional partners getting together.”
In her role as Managing Director, Melissanne Scheld leads the PCG team in building strong publisher relationships through global sales representation, content marketing, market research, and strategic consulting. Before joining PCG, she worked in the New York offices of Cambridge University Press as well as at New York University Press and Columbia University Press. A division of Publishing Technology, PCG provides a range of Sales and Marketing services designed to support and drive publishers’ sales strategies, particularly in the scholarly marketplace. PCG employees are based in the U.S., Europe, India, Brazil and China.