On Monday, March 8, we heard a very interesting talk on new models of academic publishing by Catherine Mitchell, Director of the California Digital Library's Publishing Group. Mitchell spoke about the University of California's relatively new open source publishing project, eScholarship. Formerly called the eScholarship Repository, the innovative new platform for academic publishing offers individual scholars, departments, and publishing programs, "direct control over the creation and dissemination of the full range of their scholarship."
Mitchell's presentation focused on how this approach to academic publishing is more sustainable financially than models offered by commercial presses. Using the tools on the eScholarship platform, academics can publish materials ranging from working papers to journals to books. The site also offers a peer-review management system to streamline the review process.
Mitchell's talk touched on the conversation from one of our fall forums, when we heard from Nathan MacBrien about his work directing GAIA (Global, Area, and International Archive)--one of eRepository's first and most successful publishing programs. By partnering with the UC Press in order to offer print-on-demand copies of all titles also available digitally, GAIA has provided a model for other projects at eScholarship, and undoubtably for many future academic publishing projects at other universities.
An issue that both Mitchell and O'Brien touched on, however, was the need for these new models of academic publishing to be recognized as both legitimate and more sustainable than the current system. Click here to learn more about publishing with eScholarship.