NITLE News: CLIR and NITLE to Launch Digital Academic Publishing Program

NITLE News: CLIR and NITLE to Launch Digital Academic Publishing Program.

When I first started working at NITLE (the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education), one of the advantages of staying in the position was (and is) the tuition exchange program between liberal arts campuses throughout the nation. Sending my children to fantastic schools without the burden of tuition? That could be fantastic!

Then I had a conversation with my brother, who had just finished putting three kids of his own through college.

Tuition? That's maybe a third. "Then you got fees..." he told me. On top of that, books are..."ridiculous. I couldn't believe it."

The same is true with academic and scholarly research. To build my own website, using my own research examples, I ended up paying through the nose for the rights to my own writing. I wrote it. Then I paid for it. And I paid a lot.

Further investigation for my job revealed the thousands upon thousands of dollars that libraries pay for journals read by few, if any, faculty and staff. Forget about students reading those journals, especially undergraduate students. That's not really even a thought given to most of the very expensive journals.

Today, my employer (Southwestern University) and my actual employer (NITLE) are partnering with the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to change all of that. Anvil Academic is going to offer a real alternative to the current juggernaut held on academic publishing by a very small group of publishers and groups.

This could change everything. I'm proud and grateful to be a part of such a transformation. Libraries, scholars, consumers, students, even taxpayers will see their lives change for the better over time. And it all started today.

Adrenaline...WAY better than caffeine!