[okfn-discuss] Hearing more about humanities research and open access

Thu Oct 4 10:31:54 UTC 2012

Dear Peter

In answer to your question, I worked in subscription publishing and became
so infuriated with its iniquities that I set out to provide an alternative,
as outlined below.

On September 24th, the first issue of Social Sciences Directory
<http://socialsciencesdirectory.com/index.php/socscidir/index>  was
published and it will be followed shortly by Humanities Directory
<http://humanitiesdirectory.com/index.php/humanitiesdirectory/index> . These
are new multi-disciplinary publications, which aim to revolutionise
scholarly publishing by providing quality, affordable content without the
barrier of subscription paywalls. Our approach is modern and progressive,
whilst adhering to recognised publishing standards. I am writing to ask if
you will help us to disseminate information by passing on details to your
members, and by doing so benefiting the faculty, researchers, students and
librarians of your membership’s institutions by increasing the reach and
speed of their research output. We would also be delighted to talk to your
association or society directly about possible publishing partnerships. 

We aim to

·         capture the best of international research across the disciplines
of social sciences and arts & humanities

·         conduct peer-review and publish papers in online formats

·         facilitate discussion and information sharing through discussion
platforms

·         augment research content with valuable additional reading
materials such as dissertations, reviews, presentations and reports

Our first issue contains papers on 

·         Successful transition to retirement in Australia
<http://socialsciencesdirectory.com/index.php/socscidir/article/view/19> 

·         Knowledge, attitude and belief of pregnant women towards safe
motherhood in a rural Indian setting
<http://socialsciencesdirectory.com/index.php/socscidir/article/view/23> 

·         Gender equality in the workplace: the perceptive reality
<http://socialsciencesdirectory.com/index.php/socscidir/article/view/24> 

Our philosophy is that research in one field can also have applications in
areas of research beyond that intended and the inter-disciplinary nature of
a large collection of work – spanning the boundaries of subject and state -
will help to cross-fertilise ideas. Open access publishing provides
significant benefits for authors and readers alike in speeding up the time
to publication and dissemination, author copyright retention and providing
value-for-money for taxpayers. We aim to publish a regular schedule of
research going forwards.

We recognise the difficulty in moving from traditional journal publishing to
new forms. You want to be able to trust that the publication maintains
quality standards and maximises dissemination of your department’s work. We
also firmly believe that Social Sciences Directory addresses many of the
flaws within the scholarly publishing industry and can provide better levels
of service. Submissions have been received from the UK, Australia, France,
Brazil, Ethiopia, India and Kenya, whilst editors and reviewers from all
over the world have offered their services, demonstrating an appetite and
widespread support for the initiative. We hope that you will support our
cause, will encourage your members to consider us when choosing where to
publish and, if possible, mention Social Sciences Directory and Humanities
Directory on your website.    

Yours sincerely

Dan Scott MA, BA (Hons)

Director

Social Sciences Directory Limited

T: +44 (0)1423 326 257

M: +44 (0)770 381 2042

www.socialsciencesdirectory.com 

 <http://www.humanitiesdirectory.com> www.humanitiesdirectory.com

READ IT. WRITE IT. CITE IT.

Social Sciences Directory is an affiliate member of the Open Access
Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) <http://oaspa.org/> .

Dan Scott will be a speaker at the Munin open access conference
<http://www.ub.uit.no/baser/ocs/index.php/Munin/MC7/schedConf/program>  at
the University of Tromsø, Norway (21-23 November 2012).

 <http://socialsciencesdirectory.com/index.php/socscidir/article/view/33>
Call for papers.

Press release
<http://socialsciencesblog.co.uk/index.php/2012/09/23/press-release-poacher-
turns-gamekeeper-issue-gold-open-access-publisher-social-sciences-directory-
launched/> .

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From: okfn-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org
[mailto:okfn-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Emanuil Tolev
Sent: 04 October 2012 11:11
To: Open Knowledge Foundation discussion list
Cc: Ross Mounce; Mike Taylor
Subject: Re: [okfn-discuss] [Open-access] Ross Mounce (Panton Fellow) on BBC
about Open Access

On 3 October 2012 08:27, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:

I'd be interested in hearing more about humanities research and open access
if anyone on these lists is involved in these areas. I got the impression
from talking with some of those concerned afterwards that humanities
academics are very drawn to *paper* copies of journals, and this thus
increases the cost of publishing for them.

Yes - if you want to contunue with the ways of the past it costs more money.

Paper journals are irrelevant to me and my research - they are 20th century
reminders of how research used to be distributed. All I need is research
distributed via the internet to be read on computers, tablets, phones, and
other devices and hence I feel the cost of publishing research need only be
very small. I suspect the difference of opinion encountered was based around
this.

And the disconnection of cost from value. This is something that perhaps we
should try to identify and formalize. Thus eveyrone can *read* physics in
the archive. It then "has to be" published in paper. Why? (a) to provide a
formal record - but a national library could do that for a fraction of the
costs and (b) to give a formal label/score of approval. That's the main
problem.

I wonder if there aren't any further .. emotional (or sentimental, if you
will) reasons for this attitude we ascribe to Humanities researchers. What
if they just like reading from a paper and feel that their research has a
special connection to that medium?

PS Since I didn't get to mention it on air: it's Open Access Week soon!
22-28 October: http://www.openaccessweek.org/    Help celebrate & raise
awareness of OA! 

Yes - but what actually is it? what are we meant to do? Last time I tried to
contribute and got essentially zero feedback. Is it just a PR exercise for
the mainstream OA community. 

I do not get a feeling of Openness in the same way as I do for other Open
events.  

Looks like Document Freedom Day or similar things. As in, it's not an
*event*, it's whatever the community makes it. (And "the community" =
whoever knows about this week and has the knowledge and inclination to
create an event in their environment.) 

Greetings,

Emanuil

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