Transitions

by Mark Bauerlein, from the Chronicle of Higher Education, July 20, 2009.

Excerpts from his opinion article:

It was sometime in the 1980s, I think, that a basic transformation of the aims of literary criticism was complete. Not the spread of political themes and identity preoccupations, which struck outsiders and off-campus critics like William Bennett, a former secretary of education turned radio host, as the obvious change, but a deeper adjustment in the basic conception of what criticism does. It was, namely, the shift from criticism-as-explanation to criticism-as-performance. Instead of thinking of scholarship as the explication of the object—what a poem means or a painting represents—humanists cast criticism as an interpretative act, an analytical eye in process.

…In a working paper I wrote recently for the American Enterprise Institute, “Professors on the Production Line, Students on Their Own,” I reported that over the past five decades, the “productivity” of scholars in the fields of languages and literature had increased hugely: from approximately 13,000 publications to 72,000 a year. Consider the output in literary studies. From 1950 to 1985, 2,195 items of criticism and scholarship devoted to William Wordsworth appeared. Virginia Woolf garnered 1,307, Walt Whitman 1,986, Faulkner 3,487, Milton 4,274, and Shakespeare at the top, with 16,771. Type any major author into the MLA International Bibliography database and more daunting tallies pop up. In each pile lies everything from plot summaries to existentialist reflections. But for all practical purposes, such as teaching an undergraduate class, they impart the meanings and representations to the full.

The accomplishment of the enterprise, however, was a curse for young aspirants, the graduate student in search of a dissertation (like I was in 1985) and the assistant professor in need of a book. They had to write something new and different. Theories and valuations that displaced the meaning of the work and prized the unique angle of the interpreter didn’t just flatter the field. They empowered novices to carry on. The long shadow of precursors dissipated in the light of creative, personal critique. The authors studied might remain, but there were new theories to rehearse upon them and topics to expound through them, controversies in which to “situate” oneself, and readerly dexterities to display.

…Foundations, university humanities research centers, and other organizations that subsidize humanities research also should recognize the audience decline. When they financed research in 1960 on, say, American literature, they helped scholars fill gaps and fissures in literary history and understanding. But in 2009, after the publication of 225,749 more items of scholarship and criticism on American literature, the same support means … what?

Unless institutions adjust criteria, the incentives will continue, and so will labor-intensive but audience-indifferent publishing in saturated areas.

Two policy changes would go a long way to remedying the problem.

One, departments should limit the materials they examine at promotion time. If aspirants may submit only 100 pages to reviewers, they will publish less and ensure that those 100 pages are superb.

Two, subsidizers should shift their support away from saturated areas and toward unsaturated areas, in particular toward research into teaching and even more toward classroom and curricular initiatives.

…Read the article in its entirety at: http://chronicle.com/article/Diminishing-Returns-in/47107/

The article is generating quite a few comments from readers as well, so check those out as well.

Sigi A. Jottkandt, No-fee OA Journals in the Humanities, Three Case Studies: A Presentation by Open Humanities Press, a presentation at Berlin 5 Open Access: From Practice to Impact: Consequences of Knowledge Dissemination, (Padua, Italy, 19-21 September, 2008).

Abstract:   Open Humanities Press (OHP) is the first open access publisher devoted to contemporary critical theory. OHP was created as a grassroots movement of academics, librarians, journal editors and technology specialists to address the growing inequality of readers’ access to critical materials necessary for our research. In this presentation, I offer case studies of journals edited by the founders of the new OA academic journal consortium, Open Humanities Press, as a starting point for a discussion of how professional open access publishing may be achieved without author-side fees (a ‘business model’ that for both practical and cultural reasons is inappropriate in the context of humanities publishing). While reputable open access publishing in the humanities confronts significant challenges, the problem of how to finance it – the problem that is frequently raised as the Gold path’s chief obstacle in the sciences – appears far and away the least pressing.

Lisa Spiro, Director of the Digital Media Center at Rice University’s Fondren Library, overviews digital humanities developments in 2008 in two postings:

• Digital Humanities in 2008, Part I
• Digital Humanities in 2008, II: Scholarly Communication & Open Access

Part 1 discusses the emergence of Digital Humanities, and Part 2 looks broadly at the scholarly communication landscape, discussing open access to educational materials, new publication models, the Google Books settlement, and cultural obstacles to digital publication.

Excerpt from Part 2:

… This year saw some positive developments in open access and scholarly communications, such as the implementation of the NIH mandate, Harvard’s Faculty of Arts & Science’s decision to go open access (followed by Harvard Law), and the launch of the Open Humanities Press. But there were also some worrisome developments (the Conyers Bill’s attempt to rescind the NIH mandate, EndNote’s lawsuit against Zotero) and some confusing ones (the Google Books settlement). In the second part of my summary on the year in digital humanities, I’ll look broadly at the scholarly communication landscape, discussing open access to educational materials, new publication models, the Google Books settlement, and cultural obstacles to digital publication. …

 

The MacArthur Foundation adopted a research access policy, which took effect on September 18, 2008.  (Thanks to Open Access News). Excerpt:

…The Foundation’s policy is to ensure that the Grant Work Product furthers charitable purposes and benefits the public. To that end, the Foundation seeks prompt and broad dissemination of the Grant Work Product at minimal cost or, when justified, at a reasonable cost.

The Foundation encourages openness in research and freedom of access to underlying data by persons with a serious interest in the research. Grantees are also encouraged to explore opportunities to use existing and emerging internet distribution models and, when appropriate, open access journals, Creative Commons license or similar mechanisms that result in broad access for the interested field and public.

The Foundation recognizes there may be circumstances where limited or delayed dissemination of Grant Work Product or limited access to data may be appropriate to protect legitimate interests of the grantee, other funders, principal investigators or participants in research studies. Such circumstances will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Intellectual property rights (including copyright and patent rights) should not be used to limit or deny access to the Grant Work Product, to result in exclusive use of such Grant Work Product, or to create revenue that is not used for charitable purposes. While copyright to the Grant Work Product will ordinarily remain with the grantee, the Foundation will require that it be granted a no-cost assignable license to use or publish the Grant Work Product. The Foundation will exercise the license only if the grantee does not or cannot provide for broad and prompt dissemination consistent with this Policy. The Foundation may forego a license if the Foundation is reasonably satisfied that other appropriate arrangements will be implemented that will assure prompt public dissemination of the Grant Work Product.

View MacArthur’s entry in the SHERPA Juliet site, which outlines their publication policies regarding archiving.

Jennifer Howard, University Presses Adopt a Variety of Strategies to Survive the Economic Downturn, Chronicle of Higher Education, Jan. 30, 2009

Excerpts:

Low sales, high numbers of books returned, operating subsidies threatened by state and university budget cuts: As the economy slumps, those are just some of the problems that confront academic publishers. Overall sales for July 1 through December 31 were down nearly 10 percent compared with the same period in 2007, according to a recent survey by the Association of American University Presses. …

Talk to individual press directors and sales managers, however, and it becomes clear that the crisis does not look and feel the same for everyone. Some presses have felt a hard pinch. Several directors use euphemisms like “disappointing” to describe sales figures that are worse than they will acknowledge in public. But others are having decent, even good years, as tightly focused or broadly appealing lists keep them in the black. The best news for authors: So far no press has announced plans to cut back on the number of books it publishes.

At the University of Iowa Press, the director, Holly Carver, said she is still waiting for the first shoe to drop. “The tone is not doom and gloom,” Ms. Carver told TheChronicle. “We have a strong spring list, and we’re on budget, so we’re optimistic, even in flood-devastated Iowa.” (The state, including the university’s campus, was hit hard by floods last year.)

Ms. Carver believes that being “little and agile” — Iowa publishes 40 books a year with a staff of 7.5 — has helped. “We’re not overextended. We can work quicker and alter our budget or our print runs and projections more easily than a larger press can,” she said.

… A bit of luck (or good editorial judgment) doesn’t hurt, either. The Iowa press hit a home run in 2008 withSunday Afternoon on the Porch, a book of photos of a small Iowa town taken in the 1930s and early 1940s. The New York Times did a big spread, and Iowa public television has a show in the works.

“One or two decent-selling books for a university press our size can really made a world of difference, because we really do tend to sustain ourselves on backlist,” said Jim McCoy, the press’s director of marketing and sales.

He is “cautiously optimistic” that sales will remain good, at least in the short term, but “I’m seeing disturbing trends when I dig into the numbers,” he said. He worries about the future of bricks-and-mortar bookselling, for instance, whether at independent bookstores or at chains like Barnes & Noble — a fear shared by many of his counterparts, even though they see the benefits of reaching readers through online sales outlets such as Amazon.com.

Mr. McCoy sees looming vulnerabilities in the library market, too, and he expects to see a drop-off there in the next six months to a year. “When state budgets finally catch up with the rest of the world,” he said, “then you’ll see academic libraries’ budgets starting to get cut, and that will affect everyone.”