Notes/Brainstorming for the CATLA Panel on Open Access
Introduction
What qualifies me to speak on this panel? Not too much!
Digital Information Specialist at North Park University
- Recent seminary graduate
- Served as TA for the “Covenant Quarterly” for two years.
- *Wrote thesis on the History of Covenant Publications
In my thesis, I borrowed language from an early education leader in the Covenant, David Nyvall, who wrote about two somewhat opposing forces in the early Covenant that “together they represented a centripetal and a centrifugal power within the Covenant which was jointly beneficial” and argued that publishing was a centripetal force that institutional leaders used to try and gather the people of the Covenant.
In preparing for this CATLA panel, I thought I would try to use this set of metaphors – drawn from physics – as a metaphorical framework for this discussion.
I’ll first talk about the three images – Centripetal Force, Inertia, and Energy – before moving to a discussion of the Covenant Quarterly’s slow transition to an OA journal.
Centripetal Force – a movement toward the center.
Is theological publishing inherently centripetal – i.e. a force tending toward the center?
Other forms of publishing – including digitizing unique and special collections, publishing student research in institutional repositories, etc. – are also centripetal (if only in the sense of drawing people toward a given institution.
Centrifugal Forces – movements away from the center.
OA is certainly a move away from some of the big vendors and aggregators
I wonder how Smith would respond to this language. I sense in your writing that you perceive the OA movement as a diffusion of power and would perhaps disagree with the notion that publishing, at some least some publishing or some OA attempts, are centripetal.
- Context: NPU is currently looking at Institutional Repository software that would allow us to publish and make available faculty research, student papers, and (perhaps) the Covenant Quarterly.
- Library people – motivated by many of the reasons Smith mentioned
- Greater Access
- Alternative to the “market” economy of articles
- Making available unique and otherwise inaccessible resources
- Administrators – seemingly still motivated by the commodities market.
- Increase the value of the North Park brand.
- Useful recruitment, retention, and development tool.
- Are these goals contradictory? Or, will they eventually come into conflict?
Smith’s blog entry, quoting an article by Rick Anderson that discusses “commodity” and “non-commodity” gives different language to this question.
So libraries should definitely focus on local resources, but those resources include content created on campuses that has previously been considered commodities. The goal of library publishing activities should be to move some of that content — the needs and wishes of the faculty authors should guide us — off of the commodity market entirely and into the “gift economy” along with those other non-commodity documents that Anderson encourages libraries to publish.
Inertia – resistance of any physical object to a change in its motion
Neither a force nor an energy – merely a property
- Keep still – difficult to change publishing and thought models.
- Keep moving – difficult to know when to stop moving.
In writing this, I had a not-so-profound realization that everything else in the theological and/or scholarly publishing system also has inertia (print publishing, old subscription models, etc.) and some of those forces are strongly supported by large corporations.
the inertia of libraries is great too. Without a crisis, how can libraries overcome the inertia that is simply of property of organizational life?
Energy – the capacity for doing work.
Lack of energy in the theological education system.
Lack of energy in theological libraries?
Staffs are stretched thin and overworked.
Are libraries ready to take on challenge and opportunity of OA publishing that Smith proposes?
If libraries refocus their missions for a digital age, they will begin to become publishers not just of unique materials found in “special” collections, but also of the scholarly output of their constituents. This is a service that will grow in importance over the coming years, and one that is enabled by technologies that are being developed and improved every day. Library publishing, with all of the attendant services that really are at the core of our mission, is the ultimate answer to how libraries should address the problem described only partially by the Science “sting” article.
In another article, Smith has hopes for associations and professional organizations to take the role in leadership. How realistic is this – particularly in terms of technology?
Covenant Quarterly
Up until now, the Covenant Quarterly has lacked the Energy to overcome the Inertia of old models (that is as a subscription based print publication) and because of this, the Covenant Quarterly’s Centripetal Force has weakened.
- In many ways, the Covenant Quarterly is a “Best Case” scenario for open access.
- Loss of subscription revenue not a substantial loss.
- Only 71 paid subscriptions – 52 of which are institutions (libraries or churches)
- Sent for free to 2,052 Covenant pastors.
- Financially subsidized by the North Park Theological Seminary, Covenant Denomination, and Covenant Communications.
- A “double pay” model for at least some theological publishing.
- Fear of prestige and concerns about tenure are – I believe – quite minor given the scope of this publication.
- Much to gain (and very little to lose!) in the move toward OA
- National and international reach (old model involved mailing publications to missionaries, etc.)
- Most authors would welcome a wider audience.
Recommendations, Suggestions, Questions
What are your recommendations to us?!
Theological libraries should make this imperative! Right now, I think the move toward OA is viewed as “non-essential” and difficult by those in leadership.
No “White House directive” for theological publishing.
At least treat OA titles the same as paid print or electronic publications.
Can/should libraries take the lead the move toward OA – especially in the area of technology? I think that is the largest area of question and lack.
Connect the broadest goal of the publication – in this case, the Centripetal Force it hopes to exert on the Covenant Church – to the publication model and devout energy to overcoming the inertia keeping it in place.
