TAA 2010 Conference Sessions
General Session:
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Open Access Electronic Textbooks and Journals
Friday, June 25, 9:45 - 10:45 am, Chippewa
Presenter: Nicole Allen, Textbooks Advocate for the Student Public Interest Research Groups (Student PIRGs), and Heather Joseph, Executive Director, Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)
The world around textbook and academic publishing is changing rapidly, making traditional publishing models increasingly inefficient. Challenges ranging from piracy to online used book trade to declining library budgets call for new models more realistic for a digital world. However, the industry has been slow to innovate, favoring reactionary practices like indefinite price increases and new editions that are often to the disadvantage to authors and consumers. Fortunately, new models are starting to emerge outside of the traditional publishing industry — models that protect the interests of authors and consumers alike. Major developments have already taken place in scholarly publishing, resulting in the creation of thousands of peer reviewed open-access journals worldwide. More recently, the growing success of start-up publisher Flat World Knowledge demonstrates that free online textbooks can generate royalties for authors. This session will bring together experts on scholarly publishing and textbook publishing to discuss alternative models that could suit the needs of authors and readers
About the Presenters:
Nicole Allen is the Textbooks Advocate for the Student Public Interest Research Groups (Student PIRGs). For the last three years, Ms. Allen has been a leader in the national movement to reform textbook publishing practices that are unfair to consumers. Ms. Allen has also conducted research into the viability of alternative textbook publishing models.
Heather Joseph is the Executive Director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic resources Coalition (SPARC), which is an international alliance of academic and research libraries. Since 2005, Ms. Joseph has led SPARC to be a catalyst for change toward correcting imbalances in the scholarly publishing system.
