Electronic journals and proceedings: Is there a future for small publishers?

Although many scholarly journals and conference proceedings owe their origins to professional societies, much or even most of this kind of publishing has been taken over by large scale commercial publishers. However, some of the world's largest societies, for example the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institution for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), retain their own publishing activities. Some Australian societies, for example HERDSA and the Association for Tertiary Education Management (ATEM), have "outsourced" their journals to a commercial publisher, some have remained unchanged, for example ODLAA's journal Distance Education, whilst others, including ASET and ASCILITE's AJET, and IIER published by the state based Institutes of Education, are seeking a renewed viability as small scale publishers. Their principal strategy for viability is to use to the utmost the unique opportunities given to small scale publishers by electronic publishing.

This session examines the wide diversity of perspectives and cases encountered in electronic publishing of scholarly journals and conference proceedings. As many people have concerns about excessive amounts of screen reading, we adopt the perspective that a designer's role is to facilitate easy selection of preferred options, including whether to convert to hard copy or not, and many other options concerning styles of browsing, searching, citing, storing of local copies, Internet or CD delivery, and file format. We consider the perspectives of librarians, caught in escalating costs as publishers extract monopoly benefits from prestigious titles, facing increasing demands for new kinds of electronic services to readers, and often expected to take some kind of leadership in facilitating transitions to electronic publishing. Authors have interests in facilitating the widest possible readership for their work, and in the amount of prestige associated with a publisher and the media of publication.

Professional societies have their own specific concerns about electronic publishing, as they seek new ways to retain and expand their memberships, including the granting of special electronic access privileges. The work of academics serving as honorary editors and reviewers requires full recognition by societies and publishers. Publishing houses and subscription agents have powerful perspectives on electronic publishing and how it may affect their jobs and the company income. Some publishing units owned by universities, for example Highwire Press of the Stanford University Libraries, and Digital Library and Archives by Virginia Tech Libraries, offer alternative perspectives on the new electronic age for scholarly journals.

From this wide diversity of case studies and perspectives, we can identify some unique features which ensure a future for small scale electronic publishing of journals and proceedings by professional societies. Internet delivery offers an immense increase in potential audience compared with the relatively small numbers of hardcopies distributed to society members, to participants in a particular conference, and to libraries. Many publications are beginning to realise that potential by securing listings in library catalogues, submitting URLs to Internet search engines, and using emailing lists for publicity. For small publishers, electronic journals and proceedings can reduce delays caused by waiting for enough articles to fill a hardcopy issue, reduce the costs of publishing and its requirements for honorary or paid labour, and offer scope for judicious combinations of hardcopy and electronic.