Creating a Sustainable Scholarly Communication System

Abstract

The current process of scholarly publication is widely regarded as unsustainable. Ensuring that scholarly information remains accessible to the world's scholars will require the work of a consortium of major research universities. A global consortium of research universities would have the power to negotiate a mutually beneficial relationship with cooperating publishers including permitting the open publication of preprints in disciplinary archives. This consortium could be built around a shared global electronic library constructed from components managed by individual cooperating institutions. These components built on Open Archives Initiative (OAI) compliant servers using open software (e.g. DSpace and EPrints) are currently installed at many universities. The shared library could look like an extension to an individual member's library and contain a full range of materials certified in a variety of ways by contributing institutions. In addition to publishing books, articles, course materials, videos and databases, universities could individually or cooperatively host open and subscription-funded journals in digital form. They could support open, discipline focused preprint archives and encourage faculty to publish in journals that permitted this. This system would help integrate and coordinate multiple efforts to promote open publication and enable open and not-for-profit publishers and university libraries to become partners in the scholarly enterprise, each responsible for a certain phase of the process.