Another aspect of open access and scholarly communication discourse is the redefining of what constitutes scholarly communication. The traditional print monograph and journal are being supplemented by new forms of scholarly communciation, created by and for scholars. The Association of Research Libraries identified eight principal types of born-digital scholarly resources: e-only journals; reviews; preprints and working papers; encyclopedias, dictionaries, and annotated content; data; blogs; discussion forums; professional and scholarly hubs. Another characteristic of these new types of scholarly communicatuion is that they incorporate vaious types of dynamic data and new media.
Below are some examples of different initiatives under way. Not all are fully open access, but they do represent emerging forms of scholarly communication being discussed with regard to whether they are suitable for promotion and tenure. They're also an example of scholars taking scholarly communications out of commercial hands.
ACLS Humanities E-Book. A digital collection of 2,200 full-text titles offered by the American Council of Learned Societies in collaboration with nineteen learned societies, nearly 100 contributing publishers, and librarians at the University of Michigan’s Scholarly Publishing Office. The result is an online, fully searchable collection of the best of humanities scholarship, recommended and reviewed by scholars, featuring unlimited multi-user access and free, downloadable MARC records. All from a not-for-profit platform.
Archaeology of the Americas Digital Monograph Initiative. A collaboration of six university presses seeking to explore the creation and dissemination of enhanced digital monographs in New World archaeology. As such, it represents an important effort to sketch out the future of the scholarly e-book and business models capable of supporting it. Funded by Mellon in March 2009, the project will intially focus on the work of junior scholars.
digitalculturebooks is a press dedicated to publishing new-model scholarly works media studies and the digital humanities. It is a joint imprint of the University of Michigan Press and the Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan Library. The books are available free online or for purchase.
Gutenberg-e. These award winning monographs, coordinated with the American Historical Association, afford emerging scholars new possibilities for online publications, weaving traditional narrative with digitized primary sources, including maps, photographs, and oral histories. The American Council of Learned Societies also carry Gutenberg-e titles on their Humanities E-Book platform.
NINES: Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship (Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship). An online collecting and authoring space that acts as a peer reviewer and support service for scholars developing digital research materials. Several UCSB resources, licensed from Alexander Street Press, are included in the NINES collection: The American Civil War: Letter and Diaries; Irish Women Poets of the Romantic Period; and Scottish Women Poets of the Romantic Period.
Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. An open access peer reviewed monographic series, with Creative Commons licensing. Their Mission is to build a library of quality open access texts for the writing classroom as an alternative to costly textbooks.
Women in and Beyond the Global. An open access feminist forum established in 2009 by the George Washington University Women's Studies Program. The forum includes an open access encyclopedia under development, a peer reviewed journal, and a materials and resources platform for researchers, activists, and students.
