DPub S - History

History

Cornell University Library’s involvement in digital publishing dates back to the 1980s. In partnership with the Xerox Corporation and the Commission on Preservation and Access, Cornell developed an early digital imaging project to preserve books in a fragile condition. Initially focused upon republishing mathematics titles, this effort expanded to include projects in agricultural history, home economics and American studies.

The “serials crisis” in the 1980s and 1990s likely encouraged Cornell University Library and other academic libraries and institutions to investigate such possibilities. In the 1980s libraries noticed that their journal subscription prices were increasing alarmingly. By the early 1990s, many solutions were being explored, with cancellations being significant among them; in one dramatic case, LSU cancelled $650,000 in subscriptions in 1992-93. Other alternatives emerged, however, involving the use of new technologies – such as those that enabled Cornell’s digital imaging project – and the increasing availability of the Internet.

One such method of increasing access, Project MUSE, was initiated by Johns Hopkins University Press. Initially, Project Muse was intended to allow electronic access to titles published by Johns Hopkins University Press, but it has expanded to include the “full text of more than 300 journals from 60 different publishing groups worldwide." Another such project, developed by Cornell University Library and influenced by Project Muse, is Project Euclid, an electronic gathering of mathematics and statistics journals. As of 2005 it was delivering “40 journals to libraries and individuals under subscription, hosting, or open access delivery plans." Project Euclid was developed out of the code used to create NCSTRL, “a distributed network of Computer Science technical reports” in Cornell’s Computer Science department. It offers an opportunity for “low-cost independent and society journals” to take advantage of the benefits of inclusion in an online database “without sacrificing their intellectual or economic independence or commitment to low subscription prices." Several pricing options are available: Euclid Prime (EP), Euclid Select (ES), Euclid Direct (ED), and Open Access (OA).

Developed with the help of two grants from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Project Euclid, named after ancient mathematician Euclid of Alexandria, launched in 2003. As did their experience developing the digital imaging project, Project Euclid afforded Cornell University Library the opportunity to learn a great deal. Specifically, the library discovered much about functioning as a digital press that it was previously unfamiliar with, such as “marketing or handling subscription requests . . . editorial management procedures and the ability to negotiate contracts with journal owners." While Euclid has been successful thus far – reported as “healthy and growing” in early 2006 – Cornell’s heavy investment in the project and the ever-changing nature of the academic journal field where “sustainability is a moving target” has led to the exploration of other publishing avenues.

Another initiative with relevance to the development of DPubS, arXiv, came to Cornell along with its initial developer Paul Ginsparg in 2001. Institutional repositories, which serve as a central database of scholarly work such as preprints and postprints of journal articles, have become increasingly popular: OpenDOAR, an online directory of open access repositories, has shown an increase from 350 to 850 repositories included in its database since mid-2006. Use of arXiv has been described as “intense,” averaging about 4,000 submissions per month in 2005. Though many repositories – including all of those listed in OpenDOAR – are open access, they “have not substituted for traditional publications, and thus have not had a substantial impact on the journals pricing situation." However, the success of open access repositories such as arXiv could indicate a growing willingness on the part of scholars to make use of non-traditional methods of publishing for their work.

Apart from Cornell’s own desire to inquire further into unconventional approaches to publishing, there was an additional motivator. One of the results of the release of Project Euclid was interest in the software used to produce it. Cornell decided that they would eventually release this software, renaming it DPubS, but that it needed further development in order to be utilized by others. It was in 2004 that the Pennsylvania State University Libraries became involved – expressing interest in the software that was used to develop Project Euclid – and the first project in developing DPubS was making available the journal Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies. This journal has been published since 1934 and is an official publication of the Pennsylvania Historical Association (PHA).