APA Newsletters

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2

Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers

Philosophers' Imprint

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David Velleman
University of Michigan

velleman@umich.edu

The Eastern Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association featured the debut of an Internet publication that demonstrates a new business model for academic publishing. Philosophers' Imprint is a refereed series of original papers in philosophy, edited by a distinguished board of academic philosophers and published on the World Wide Web by the University of Michigan Library http://www.philosophersimprint.org. The Imprint's mission is to promote a future in which funds currently spent by academic libraries on journal subscriptions are redirected to the dissemination of scholarship for free, via the Internet.

   Librarians and academics have documented a crisis in scholarly communication, as the sharply rising cost of journal subscriptions has required libraries to cut back their acquisitions. Since 1986, the unit cost of serials purchased by academic libraries has risen 207%, while the number of monographs purchased has fallen 26% (source: The Association of Research Libraries, www.arl.org/create/change.html. These disturbing trends will continue so long as academic institutions donate their research product to publishers, lend their faculty to serve as unpaid referees, and then buy back the results in the form of journals that are indispensable for further research.

   The American Association of Universities has addressed this crisis with a set of "Principles for Emerging Systems of Scholarly Publishing"
         http://www.aau.edu/principles5.10.00.html.
   Those principles declare, "The current system of scholarly publishing has become too costly for the academic community to sustain." They recommend containing costs "through the effective use of technology to streamline publishing functions, while increasing access and value."
   Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that access and value will actually be increased by the increasing use of technology. The current trend toward licensing access to electronic versions of journals is counterproductive, since it reproduces the unnecessary economy of subscriptions and permissions, in which intellectual property produced at universities is transferred to those who can collect fees for its dissemination. Now that academic institutions have access to the Internet, they have no reason to pay subscription or subvention fees to anyone for disseminating the results of academic research. That's why Philosophers' Imprint is being underwritten by the University of Michigan Library and provided without subscription or licensing fee to all users of the Internet. The result will be that academic libraries, faculty, and students will not have to pay for a source of philosophical scholarship-a cost reduction that is minuscule in this one instance, of course, but that would revolutionize scholarly communication if replicated across the range of academic journals.
   The Imprint is designed to overcome common drawbacks of Internet publishing, which have thus far prevented online journals from attaining the prestige of their paper and ink counterparts. Articles will be rigorously refereed on an anonymous basis, composed with a finished, typeset appearance, and made available at stable Internet addresses that will allow them to be cited by future authors and located by future readers. The University of Michigan Library has undertaken to guarantee the permanence and stability of the Imprint's contents. Although the Imprint is edited by analytically trained philosophers, it is not restricted to any particular field or school of philosophy. Its target audience consists primarily of academic philosophers and philosophy students, but it also aims to attract non-academic readers to philosophy by making excellent philosophical scholarship available without license or subscription. The Imprint issues papers at irregular intervals. Because it has no obligations to paying subscribers, the Imprint can publish only those submissions which meet the most rigorous standards; but it can publish as many such submissions as it receives, at whatever length is most appropriate, because it incurs no costs for printing, binding, or mailing.

   Readers can receive periodic notices of recent publications by subscribing to an electronic mailing list. (Send an e-mail to philosophers_imprint_general_request@umich.edu with the word 'subscribe' in the subject field.) Instructions for submitting work to Philosophers' Imprint are posted on the Imprint's website http://www.philosophersimprint.org. (Follow the link labeled "About".) Because the Imprint has no subscription income, it must operate economically, without paper or postage. Contributors are therefore required to submit their work electronically. Refereeing will take place on a secure website, and all correspondence with authors will be conducted by electronic mail. Finally, the Imprint will not manage rights and permissions, since copyright in all of its contents will be retained by the authors. Permission for instructional uses won't be necessary, since the Imprint will be accessible without charge to teachers and students alike. The Imprint's website currently features a prototype publication: "The Dear Self," by Harry Frankfurt, of Princeton University. The first refereed publication is due to appear in the early spring. Inquiries can be directed to imprint-editors@umich.edu.

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APA Newsletters

Spring 2001 Volume 00, Number 2

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2