Open Access: The New Future of Academic Publishing?

6.30pm - 8.00pm, Thursday 12 January 2012 

Venue: The British Academy 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH

Chair:
Paul Webley, Director and Principal of SOAS, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Speakers:
William St Clair FBA, Co-founder and Chairman Board of Directors, Open Book Publishers, and Senior Research Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge
Deborah Shorley, Director of Library Services, Imperial College London
Alice Prochaska, Principal, Somerville College, University of Oxford.  

All the above mentioned speakers have an interest, and experience of this mode of publishing. The first speaker has  made statements concerning open access. William St Clair is a powerful voice in Open Book Publishers, committed to free open access of all their texts on the internet. Paul Webley has a particular interest in open access founded in his commitment to accessibility for students and scholars throughout Africa and Asia.

Questions that will be asked: Can the scholarly world continue to support a system where monographs are published in 3-figure numbers at best, to be read only by the well-endowed in favoured centres of the world? Is it true that having text accessible on the web encourages rather than depresses sales? Is such a project financially feasible, and what are the costs and benefits? Is this the way forward for the democratisation of global knowledge?

About the participants:

Professor Paul Webley has been Professor of Economic Psychology and Director of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, since August 2006 and is currently also Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of London. He is Chair of UKCISA (the UK Council for International Student Affairs). Professor Webley was elected an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2010. Professor Webley's general academic aim has been to explore the contribution that psychology can make to our understanding of problems that have traditionally been seen as the concern solely of economics. He has written a number of books (notably Tax evasion: an experimental approach and Children's saving, and most recently The Economic Psychology of Everyday Life which has been translated into Italian and Korean). His current research focuses on children's economic behaviour and tax compliance.

Deborah Shorley is Director of Library Services at Imperial College London.  eborah took up her current post in October 2007. She moved to Imperial from the University of Sussex, where she had been Librarian since 2000. Before that, she had spent her entire professional career in Northern Ireland, latterly as Assistant Director of Information Services at the University of Ulster.

An active member of her profession, Deborah frequently contributes to national and international conferences and in 1998 was awarded the Library Association’s Charter Centenary Medal. From 2005-2006 she was President of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), and was awarded her Fellowship of CILIP in 2004.

Deborah is currently Head of UK Research Reserve (UKRR), Chair of MIMAS, a Board member of JISC Collections, Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER) and Research Libraries UK (RLUK) and a member of the ABES (Agence Bibliographique de l’Enseignement Supérieur).

Dr Alice Prochaska was elected Principal of Somerville College, Oxford in the summer of 2009 and took up the position in September 2010.

Dr Prochaska received both her BA and D.Phil. in Modern History from the University of Oxford, where she studied at Somerville. She started her career as a museum curator and subsequently as an archivist at the Public Record Office (now the National Archives). From 1984 to 1992 she was the administrator and deputy to the director of the University of London's Institute of Historical Research. From 1992 to 2001 she served as Director of Special Collections at the British Library, with responsibility for Maps, Manuscripts, Music, the National Sound Archive, the Oriental and India Office Collections, and Philatelic Collections. In 1989-90 she was a member of the special government committee that designed the first UK National Curriculum in History.

In 2001 Dr Prochaska took up the position of University Librarian at Yale University, where she remained until 2010, heading one of the world’s great research libraries. She also served on the Board of Yale University Press. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and holds Honorary Fellowships at the Institute of Historical Research and at Royal Holloway, University of London, and has broadcast and lectured extensively.

6.30pm - 8.00pm followed by a reception. Attendance is free, but registration is required for this event.  Please click here to register.