The TFAO Free Online Digital
Library
(above: Maurice Prendergast, The
Mall, Central Park, 1900/1903, watercolor and graphite on wove
paper, 22 x 20 inches, National Gallery of Art (USA). Collection of
Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National
Gallery of Art. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*)
Open access
What is open access? In a partial definition the Association of Research Libraries says: "Open
access refers to works... made available at no cost to the reader on the
public Internet for purposes of education and research."
Traditional Fine Arts Organization
(TFAO)'s library seeks to continually increase
its breadth and depth of its collection within a framework of free and open
access, rather than on a cost-recovery basis. In the Internet's brief history
individuals have been risk-adverse about paying for online information.
Since TFAO's library is targeted towards a broad audience, philanthropic
support has served as the financing solution for operations. Advertising
support, while an option, has not been considered as practical since advertising
is focused mainly on the most widely read web sites. In lieu of subscription
fees, many open access journals derive income from fees charged to authors
to have their papers published. TFAO does not charge authors to have texts
published.
An open access digital library may be compared to a physical
public library with free access to its contents. TFAO's library collection
of information is available for the convenience of its patrons without constraint
by hours operation or physical accessibility. Is is open 24 hours a day,
seven days a week, and 365 days a year to patrons worldwide. Registration
of patrons and passwords are not required to access the library's content.
Privacy of patrons is preserved via this policy.
In the case of TFAO's library, links to individual pages
are welcomed. All library content is protected by copyright law.
- Contents in the library are freely accessible to individuals
and institutions. Copies of content owned by TFAO may be distributed for
research or educational purposes without charge, provided that all appropriate
citation information is included. Commercial use of all contents is expressly
prohibited.
-
- Copyright for many essays and articles published in
publications of TFAO and contained in the library is retained by the authors
or other copyright owners. Permission to reproduce material owned by TFAO
does not extend to any material on this site which is identified as being
the copyright of a third party. Authorization to reproduce such material
must be obtained from the copyright holders concerned.
Momentum is gaining towards a paradigm shift [1] towards
open access publishing. [2] Nineteenth-Century
Art Worldwide, an open access journal of nineteenth-century visual
culture, cites advantages of electronic journals:
- The editors and editorial board of Nineteenth-Century
Art Worldwide believe that electronic journals constitute the future
of scholarly publishing, as commercial publishers are increasingly reluctant
to underwrite "paper journals" and libraries no longer have the
space to store back issues... electronic journals will soon grow into interactive
forms of communication that will be more exciting than traditional journals...
the instantaneity of electronic publishing eliminates the publisher's dependence
on unreliable delivery systems and allows the money saved on postage and
printing to be redirected toward enhancing the journal's quality.[3]
Roy Tennant, Manager, of eScholarship Web & Services
Design, California Digital Library, says:
- The current system of scholarly communication is in need
of major changes. Journal price increases have been so dramatic and devastating
that faculty who typically don't know or care about library expenditures
are now front and center in the battle to change the dominant paradigm.
Simply put, this model is: faculty and researchers at universities, many
of which are public institutions, create most scientific and academic journal
literature. Faculty typically publish articles with commercial publishers
for no compensation (in many cases they even pay to publish). Once published,
the research and scholarship of their faculty are licensed by libraries
from the commercial publishers, often at top dollar. [4]
A May 10, 2000 report titled "Principles for Emerging
Systems of Scholarly Publishing" published as a result of a meeting
sponsored by the Association of American Universities, the Association of
Research Libraries, and the Merrill Advanced Studies Center of the University
of Kansas, further explained the crisis in scholarly publishing:
- The current system of scholarly publishing has become
too costly for the academic community to sustain. The increasing volume
and costs of scholarly publications, particularly in science, technology,
and medicine (STM), are making it impossible for libraries and their institutions
to support the collection needs of their current and future faculty and
students. Moreover, the pressure on library budgets from STM journal prices
has contributed to the difficulty of academic publishers in the humanities
and social sciences, primarily scholarly societies and university presses,
to publish specialized monograph-length work or to find the funds to invest
in the migration to digital publishing systems. Numerous studies, conferences,
and roundtable discussions over the past decade have analyzed the underlying
causes and recommended solutions to the scholarly publishing crisis. Many
new publishing models have emerged. A lack of consensus and concerted action
by the academic community, however, continues to allow the escalation of
prices and volume.
-
Notes:
1. See "What is a Paradigm Shift?" from taketheleap.com
for application of the term to virtual publishing.
2. For further reading see:
- "MARS
Ad Hoc Committee on Virtual Reference Guidelines Draft Guidelines 5/2003"
by the American Library Association
- "Distance
Education and Virtual Reference: Where Are We Headed?" by Steve
Coffman
- Digital Libraries Initiative of the National Science
Foundation (NSF)
- "Comparing
Library Resource Allocations for the Paper and the Digital Library"
by Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Research Scientist, Office of Research, OCLC
Online Computer Library Center, Inc. and Stephen R. Lawrence, Associate
Professor of Operations Management, Leeds School of Business, University
of Colorado
- see "The
Return on Investment of Electronic Journals - It Is a Matter of Time"
by Jonas Holmström, Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration,
Helsinki, Finland
- For a discussion on the costs related to reading of "open
access publishing" vs. subscription based articles see " The
Cost per Article Reading of Open Access Articles" by Jonas Holmström,
Research Assistant, Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration.
3. Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide is published
by the Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art and is an affiliated
society of the College Art Association.
4. See Library
Journal, routing: Home > Digital Libraries >
More News > "Open-Access Journals" by Roy Tennant -- 10/15/2003
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Links to sources of information
outside of our web site are provided only as referrals for your further
consideration. Please use due diligence in judging the quality of information
contained in these and all other web sites. Information from linked sources
may be inaccurate or out of date. TFAO neither recommends or endorses these
referenced organizations. Although TFAO includes links to other web sites,
it takes no responsibility for the content or information contained on those
other sites, nor exerts any editorial or other control over them. For more
information on evaluating web pages see TFAO's General Resources section in Online Resources for Collectors and Students of
Art History.
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