If any of the warez crews (reading this) can hack the book advertised for yesterday, we can do without this back and forth discussion now!.. /Sari On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 8:33 PM, Rhiannon Bury <rcbury@rogers.com> wrote:
The one issue I haven't seen raised in this interesting discussion is library budgets. With cutbacks to postsecondary funding happening in many countries, why would we think that university libraries can afford these high prices for a single hardcover book? If they are purchasing at this price, that means that other books will not be purchased, ie maybe yours or mine. This business model of publishers is in danger of self destructing sooner rather than later.
In terms of open access, AU Press at our university is a leader. I haven't explored this option myself (Peter Lang gets first right of refusal on my next book as per my contract for Cyberspaces of Their Own) but here is the link to their website:
best
Rhiannon
Rhiannon Bury, PhD Associate Professor, Women's and Gender Studies Athabasca University Canada's Open University
________________________________ From: "Jonathan Sterne, Dr." <jonathan.sterne@mcgill.ca> To: "air-l@listserv.aoir.org" <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Sent: Wed, March 9, 2011 11:57:12 AM Subject: Re: [Air-L] book prices
Hi Everyone,
I've been reading this discussion with interest. The future of publishing is an ongoing discussion in many fields. Lots of people are coming up with new models and alternative publishing arrangements. AoIR ought to consider at least officially endorsing some of the better electronic journals related to Internet Studies so that assistant profs can use that endorsement in their tenure dossiers. But ultimately, it will be organized people who change things. Publishers add value through paying for labor, and the main problem with open access for now is precisely that. Someone has to copyedit, lay out and proof materials as well as maintain the site. Once people figure out robust and sustainable funding models, this will be even more viable than it already is.
Of course, for nonprofit university presses, income from journal publishing subsidizes book publishing, which in most cases is a big financial loss for the press. So those of you in book fields should be a little circumspect about celebrating the death of the journal.
But Wiley and Blackwell are for-profit publishers. Their handbooks (and Oxford's) follow a business model. Publishers approach authors whom they believe to be leaders in a field (or who want to be and are up and coming) to edit the handbook. The editors are told that the handbook will be a way to bring a field forward, collect the latest and greatest scholarship and help define the field. Then, the editors generate lots of value for the press by bringing in friends and colleagues with the opportunity to be part of a field-defining conversation (or in some cases calling in favors). The collection is made, published, authors are paid a nominal fee and asked to sign away their rights with an incredibly restrictive author's agreement, and then the book is published. These publishers hope to sell to libraries first and then piece them out in electronic form for a period of years, which is probably one of the reasons for the ridiculous agreements contributors are asked to sig n. This all works great for the publisher, but as of yet, the "field defining" part hasn't happened in a lot of places. the books need to be read to have their effect, and the fact that they are only available in DRMed online versions or in libraries means even in bookish fields, they appear to be having less impact than was promised.
How do I know? I've been asked by publishers more than once to edit a collection like this (I declined) and have contributed to a few so I've seen both sides of it. Now, I'm not innocent here -- this discussion led me to go looking and I see Amazon is listing the hardback version of my forthcoming Sound Studies Reader at $125, but at least the softcover will be cheaper. And I'm actively working to change how I deal with this in new ventures (I wasn't as attentive to these things when Routledge and I negotiated several years ago--and I will raise the issue with them).
I've written a lot about authors' rights on my blog -- see http://superbon.net/?p=1681 for example (and read Ted's article that I've linked to!) and would encourage people who care about these things to educate themselves, and make things like the contributor's contract a political issue -- which it already is. Obviously, those of us with tenure have to be the ones to do some of the heavy lifting.
Best, --Jonathan
-- http://sterneworks.org http://mcgill.ca/ahcs http://media.mcgill.ca
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: PGP Desktop 9.5.0 (Build 1202) mQCNBEgtLgoBBACqQYBgYCY40SblWGbTcrvwCngPrjx2CNtcfR/ATvZ4mbF/xHgy SzV6+XRs76hgAv0K2AG+i4UjDwRRJfb8HPe8DVtsyOQNPFtZO9Gk700aD7MndwlF m7HrGwc5uBfnH6iUws1o/Z1J7i+5fUfk3mew/b3532WxLvDi+QUSxlsKdQARAQAB tCRTYXJpIEhhaiBIdXNzZWluIDxhbmd5am9vQHlhaG9vLmNvbT6JAPIEEAECAFwF AkgtL4UwFIAAAAAAIAAHcHJlZmVycmVkLWVtYWlsLWVuY29kaW5nQHBncC5jb21w Z3BtaW1lCAsJBwgDAgEKAhkBBRsDAAAABBYDAgEFHgEAAAAHFQgCCgkDAQAKCRCy i48IPBmZbZoNA/0ckC3rWxoe/Jf66+YauicNtH8zZmr9Y7dypV+yZm/vrkAtffcY 1VKMhj9YMpqwzylP/nomuG211bWoGhMzAb7CAho1tS3KXtUNZzLj1U5hvRtWfrWc dipwY3YJbnaFdkzIi9xj3HMZ4BKHQZtBKjwru6HafQF2smokS8yjxTKELA== =9/vk -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----