The TFAO Free Online Digital
Library
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
Go to
Individual pages in this study will be
amended as TFAO adds content, corrects errors and reorganizes sections for
improved readability. Refreshing or reloading pages enables readers to view
the latest updates.
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 and in employing referenced consultants
or vendors. Information from linked sources may be inaccurate or out of
date. Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc neither recommends or endorses
these referenced organizations. Although Traditional Fine Art Organization,
Inc. 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 those other sites. For more information on evaluating
web pages see Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc.'s General Resources section in Online Resources for Collectors and Students of
Art History.
Search
Resource Library
Copyright 2003-2011 Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation. All rights
reserved.