[Reading-hall-of-fame] Re: This is a memo from our Provost about the rising cost of electronic journals.

Fri Feb 9 00:27:55 GMT 2018

I'm smiling Brian. I was just reading David and Colin's emails. Thank you for mentioning Garn.

Garn Press, like many small presses, is always on the edge of a precipice. We are not profitable -- I sold my house and car to start the publishing company. What's important is that we have gained a voice in a much larger arena. We publish books by public school teachers as well as by renowned scholars, and many of the books we've published have received prestigious awards.

At Garn we are mission driven. We support teachers and scientists who are writers of conscience in two divisions: 1. People and the Planet; & 2. People and Social Policy. We also have a third division: 3.  Imagination and the Human Spirit, through which we support novelists and poets.

On the Garn website we curate news on the most critical issues of our day. We feature major bloggers in the sciences and in education who have given us permission to republish on the GP website any the pieces that they post on their own blogs.

Added to this we curate videos in each of the divisions -- especially as they relate to Garn authors and the science and educational blogger whose writings we curate.

I could write a substantial amount about academic publishers and university libraries, but perhaps in another email.

The relevant point here is that the publishing industry is going through or actually has gone through a 500 year transformation (history will tell). It's a step-change that will undoubtedly be followed by further jolts that we cannot even imagine at this time. (You might find Allan Dafoe's talk on “Governance of Artificial Intelligence" of useful read.)

There are many casualties and some awful stories -- both with regard to publishers and authors -- but the transformations taking place have also created many opportunities for scholars and for scientists to reach the public in ways that did not exist just a few years ago.

At Garn we have taken advantage of the opportunity and I consider it absolutely critical that members of the academy enter the public arena as quickly as possible. Knowledge is being lost, voices are not being heard. Regrettably, except for a few scholars, such as George Lakoff (who Garn has published in United We Stand), the academy has largely been silent on the grave events taking place both in the US and globally.

Parenthetically, I am also keeping my own transdisciplinary research going. My portal is always language and literacy, but my focus is on anthropogenic change and the impact of catastrophic events and armed conflict on families and children.

I fear for the next generation and the ones that follow. Most of the young people I know understand the existential risks that they have inherited from their parents and grandparents. It's the reason I  am totally committed to supporting the teachers and scientists who have stepped up -- its what we do at Garn.

I hope this is of use and provides another perspective on academic publishing. You can visit the Garn Press website and get a much better idea of the work we are doing here:

http://garnpress.com/2018/conversation-jitu-brown-power-history-wechoose/
[http://garnpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/1080x580-jitu-brown.jpg]<http://garnpress.com/2018/conversation-jitu-brown-power-history-wechoose/>

A Conversation with Jitu Brown - The Power & History of #WeChoose - Garn Press<http://garnpress.com/2018/conversation-jitu-brown-power-history-wechoose/>
garnpress.com
Jitu Brown is, first and foremost,  a public school parent from the South Side of Chicago.  He has also been a community organizer for over 25 years. Jitu explains the #WeChoose Coalition as a coalition that “understands that there are more of us in this country that wants a just society.”

Once again, I hope this is helpful.

Kindest Regards,

Denny

________________________________
From: reading-hall-of-fame-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk <reading-hall-of-fame-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk> on behalf of Brian Cambourne <bcambrn at uow.edu.au>
Sent: Thursday, February 8, 2018 8:34 PM
To: P Pearson
Cc: reading-hall-of-fame at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
Subject: [Reading-hall-of-fame] Re: This is a memo from our Provost about the rising cost of electronic journals.

Thanks for sharing this information David.
I think the problem you’ve identified is what motivated Denny Taylor to start her Garn publishing enterprise.

Her aim is to provide a platform for academics to get their work published and disseminated as quickly and cheaply as possible, both in book and/or electronic formats.
 She might be worth contacting.
 Brian Cambourne.

On 9 Feb 2018, at 5:13 AM, P Pearson <ppearson at berkeley.edu<mailto:ppearson at berkeley.edu>> wrote:

I think that this development within the publishing industry--and we see it with Sage, Elvesier, Taylor and Francis in our own field--will eventually drive academia into some sort of low cost electronic publishing enterprise of its own. After all, we do the research, write the manuscripts, edit the journals, and assign the readings.  And the publishers are capitalizing on a lot of free labor only to charge us, the producers, exorbitant rates that far exceed production costs.

Note that the more journals we start (in order to accommodate more publications by ourselves) the more we contribute to the problem. It is little wonder then that many faculty and students try to beat the system with bootleg distribution of articles.  But then again, that just motivates publishers to jack up the prices even more.

Whoever said that academics were not naive?
****************
>From our UCB provost:

Colleagues,

The University Library is undertaking a $1 million reduction in expenditures to purchase or license scholarly resources.  We would like to explain why, and then seek your participation in the process.

For many years, market power in the scholarly publishing industry has been increasing.  As a consequence, the price of scholarly resources has been increasing faster than general inflation: in recent years, journal and monograph prices at a rate of 3-5% per year.  In addition, journal publishers are proliferating the number of journals published, many of inferior quality.  The combined effect is a persistent and rapid increase in the cost of scholarly resources.  We cannot spend an ever increasing share of campus funds on journals and books unless we are willing to spend less in other areas (such as faculty compensation).  Harvard University described this as an “untenable situation” and “fiscally unsustainable” in 2012.  Berkeley is in no better position.  Thus, we continuously review, and necessarily reduce our licensing of journals and acquisition of books.

To complicate matters, in the past year, like all units across campus, the Library faced a sizable cut in campus funds.

The $1 million reduction in licensing and acquisitions is a necessary response to the combination of the ongoing exploitation by publishers, and the current year’s permanent reduction in campus funding.

A call for comment, issued by the University Library, encourages all interested parties to carefully review a list of proposed serial cancellations and to share comments and recommendations. (For more information see the Library’s guide<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fguides.lib.berkeley.edu%2Fc.php%3Fg%3D706910%26p%3D5020003&data=02%7C01%7Cdenny.taylor%40hofstra.edu%7C4d202a23ef2c4083082208d56f3354cc%7C16e1af4c107541b9806313c4c5b85d6c%7C0%7C0%7C636537188614090011&sdata=jMybTloGSArIxPKX%2B2r5MgNplrkN3gL8CAgBQvwRnkI%3D&reserved=0> and savings proposal<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fguides.lib.berkeley.edu%2Fscholarly-resources%2Fproposed-savings&data=02%7C01%7Cdenny.taylor%40hofstra.edu%7C4d202a23ef2c4083082208d56f3354cc%7C16e1af4c107541b9806313c4c5b85d6c%7C0%7C0%7C636537188614090011&sdata=uu8thIrvBw5i2IDkb4s4Kj8gBtwlqVDp72XeJrXv91U%3D&reserved=0>.) The proposed cancellations were identified after careful evidence-based balancing of needs and costs. The comment per iod is open through Friday, April 6. We invite you to submit comments via email to scholarly-resources at lists.berkeley.edu<mailto:scholarly-resources at lists.berkeley.edu> or directly with your subject librarian<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lib.berkeley.edu%2Fhelp%2Fsubject-specialists&data=02%7C01%7Cdenny.taylor%40hofstra.edu%7C4d202a23ef2c4083082208d56f3354cc%7C16e1af4c107541b9806313c4c5b85d6c%7C0%7C0%7C636537188614090011&sdata=Kz1pvcI9y%2FLKlDBkiGxCwodXISr6i0ixxbdrtfwZgdU%3D&reserved=0>.

The Library regrets that it must implement this reduction. Providing access to scholarly resources is one of the Library’s core services, but the sequence of recent budget cuts and cost increases have necessitated reductions in all of its core services. The Library will continue to serve campus as a public good that benefits the entire Berkeley community — connecting researchers with an impressive breadth and depth of materials.

--
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
P. David Pearson
Evelyn Lois Corey Emeritus Professor of Instructional Science
and Professor of the Graduate School
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