Social Science Space

The future of the academic monograph has been questioned for over two decades. At the heart of this ‘monograph crisis’ has been a publishing industry centred on the print publication of monographs and a failure and lack of incentives to develop business models that would support a transition to open digital monographs. In this post Mike Taylor argues that if monographs are to be appropriately valued, there is a pressing need to further integrate monographs into the digital infrastructure of scholarly communication. Failing this, the difficulty in tracking the usage and discovery of monographs online, will likely make the case for justifying further investment in monographs harder.

Under attack from some quarters for research that is portrayed as wasteful or out of touch, it’s time, argues Jason Ensor, to find newer and more public ways to engage the community beyond the ivory tower.

A new project is trying to figure out what the future of the monograph will be in the age of open access.

Monographs are an intrinsically important mode of academic production and must not be sacrificed on the altar of open access, argues Nigel Vincent in Debating Open Access, a new publication from the British Academy.