an open-access book project: should I participate as an author?
»Dear Dr. XXX,
As a specialist in your field of research, we are pleased to invite you to contribute to our forthcoming Open Access book entitled ...«
Have you or a colleague been approached in this way, unsolicited and out of the blue? Sometimes the library staff is being asked for guidance on how to react to such a message. Here we suggest a few guiding principles which may help you with your own judgement.
first things first: when publishing your research or reviewing the status of research in your area you should always make sure that your publication undergoes a peer-based review process or rather some real quality control process, no matter what the business model of the publisher is, open access or otherwise.
how is quality ensured in a book project?
In your accustomed, traditional book project, the publisher commissions a respected scientist or group of scientist with the task of an editor of the book. The editor makes sure that the topic of the book is covered adequately in a number of chapters - and that the right authors are found for each chapter.
If the publisher is to sell a book such quality assurance is standard. The editors with their scientific standing guaranty the quality of the book with or without a formal refereeing process. And good quality of a book makes for good sales.
Now, an open-access book does not need to be sold
Exactly, an open-access publisher does not care about sales numbers but about the aquisition of authors who are willing to pay publication charges. It is then the authors whose best interest - along with the best interest of potential readers - it is that they publish in a quality assured book. They should check who the editors and what their credentials are.
What if the editors of the book are not yet determined?
You may want to have your reservations about the book project. It may then be a good idea to check the scientific board of the publisher: is there any and does anyone in the scientific board have any credentials in your own area of expertise?
What else should I care about?
The publisher should come up with a time schedule that fits into your own schedule. The number of pages that are attributed to your chapter should be compatible with the content of that chapter. If you are asked for a one- or two-pages chapter and if the publication charges for such chapter are a few hundred of Euros you may want to skip the proposal.
About publication charges: how much is o.k. and who pays?
At this point, there are no established general rules for acceptable publication charges. A transparent market has not yet emerged and, besides, the work load for the editors and the publisher can differ widely.
In any case make sure that your organisational unit in HZB agrees to cover the publication charges out of its reseach budget. Research does not stop with generating results on your desk, communicating research results is part of the research process. The library budget is for retrieving literature, not for generating literature.
Isn't this too much fussing ...
Unfortunately there are publishers who try to talk authors into book projects with little regard to the quality of such work.
...after all I want to support Open Access publications!
The open access to publicly funded research results deserves all the support it can get. It would be a disservice to the Open Access idea if Open Access would become associated with publications of questionable quality.
Are there any black lists or white lists of Open Access publishers?
No, there aren't and it would probably be unlawful to come up with such a list. You may however want to check the pages of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, their regulations and their members.
