Thursday, January 05, 2006

New OA Journal / Library as Publisher

One of the new journals added to the Directory of Open Access Journals this month: Utrecht Law Review. One interesting point about this brand new, high quality peer reviewed open access journal (Vol. 1, issue 2 just published in December) is its publisher.

Igitur: Utrecht Publishing & Archiving Services is part of the Utrecht University Library. While Utrecht is only one of a number of university libraries to embark on this new role of publisher. Utrecht University Library began this initiative a few years ago, starting with development of their own journal publishing software. About a dozen or so journals are now produced by the library. Decisions about the business model are decided by the editorial board, of course, although open access is encouraged. One feature of the library involvement in this project that is of particular interest is that the role of the library, in some cases, goes beyond hosting and support; if desired by the journal, the library is involved in hiring editorial staff as well.

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

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