Open-access textbooks: will Flat World Knowledge show the way?
Gavin Baker, the assistant editor over at Peter Suber's Open Access blog, just posted an entry announcing that Flat World Knowledge, a publisher of free online and low-priced textbooks in other formats (print, audio, etc.), has gone public. His enthusiasm seems to stem from his belief that Flat World Knowledge has a sustainable model for the creation and dissemination of open-access textbooks. It also seems to come from the fact that Flat World Knowledge is not a bare-bones operation and will have materials written by "world-class authors" and books that will, like traditional publishers, have "beautiful looking printed books" if one opts to purchase one in that format. For an additional (and one assumes, low) fee, the textbooks will have available many of the options that traditional publishers offer alongside their textbooks, such as study guides and solutions manuals, but these will NOT be forced upon the students by being bundled together, as is common practice.
This sounds really wonderful, but the sustainability issue remains a thorny one and it remains to be seen how Flat World will make it work. One of the main problems of open access (outside of copyright clearance issues) is the conundrum of offering items for free that cost money to research, compile, produce, and disseminate. Or if not for free, at prices so low that they do not fully recoup the cost of producing them. Perhaps all those who contribute to the finished products (authors, editors, production workers, etc.) can be compensated at some other point along the path before it gets to Flat World, so that their costs will be extremely minimal? Or perhaps Flat World's model could be adopted to such an extent that it will become normal for colleges and universities to charge students a fee (along with all the other fees) to be able to access all the textbooks they need for the term. The operation could become sustainable this way in terms of having a bulk number of garuanteed purchasers who pay a small amount instead of trying to make as much money as possible off of every individual sale. In this way, universities would subsidize the open access publication of textbooks and related materials. (Is it just me, or are others faced with students who find it incomprehensible that the university library does not as a rule purchase copies of all standard textbooks in use on campus?) I wish Flat World much luck, as they are going to need it and higher education really needs a solution to the escalating costs of textbooks.
-Andrea Odom
Posted by colldev at 10:26 PM in Collection Development Class
SERU vs licenses: a real alternative for the acquisition of electronic resources?
In the December 2008 issue of College & Research Libaries News, there is a fascinating article on a document called SERU (Shared Electronic Resource Understanding) which was adopted by NISO (National Information Standards Organization) in early 2008 as an alternative framework for both publishers and libraries to use during the subscription process for e-resources. SERU assumes that since the early days of subscribing to e-resources, both publishers and libraries have attained a level of knowledge about these transactions and the realities of usage so that they should be able to agree on certain practices without explicitly addressing these issues in every purchasing situation. SERU references copyright law and regulations and certainly does not supercede any copyright law, but takes the approach that the two parties do not need to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, when the time rolls around to purchase a new subcription by spelling out exactly what is allowed or disallowed.
SERU is statement of shared understandings that both parties must agree to use in place of time-consumming licensing negotiations, but it is strictly voluntary. If either party does not feel SERU serves their needs, they may turn back to more standard licensing negotiations. In reading the support documents for SERU at www.niso.org/workrooms/seru, it appears that SERU may be adopted by both parties in instances that both feel are suitable, but neither party can change any aspect of SERU because some aspect of it does not fit their needs. In that case, NISO recommends that SERU be set aside in favor of the traditional negotiations. The shifting landscape of e-resources could certainly use the solid ground provided by SERU, but only if both parties can move beyond the mistrust and fear of litigation and misuse that lurks in the background during licensing negotiations. SERU recognizes that the market for purchase of e-resources has matured and offers both parties the option of skipping a lot of the usual preliminaries and saving a great deal of time and effort.
-Andrea Odom
Posted by colldev at 08:46 PM in Collection Development Class, Scholarly Publishing
