Call for Submissions – June 2020 issue of Against the Grain “Of paywalls and proxies: Authority and access in 2020” guest edited by Lettie Conrad.
Traditional modes of controlling access to scholarly resources have been undeniably disrupted — by the various campaigns for open access publishing, by the subversive efforts on the part of wily activists, and by the technological advancements that offer new pathways and loopholes. Given the challenges to patron privacy and institutional security, libraries and publishers are looking for solutions to today’s “content leakage.” A number of collaborative efforts have been been born of these disruptions, from the IP Registry and collaborative fraud detection schemes, to the new authentication standards from SeamlessAccess.org (aka, RA-21) and early applications like GetFTR.
The June 2020 issue of Against the Grain will focus on today’s cutting-edge solutions to managing institutional and individual access to licensed, peer-reviewed publications. Contributors will debate what it takes to safeguard entitlements and ensure successful online researcher experiences in today’s scholarly communications environment.
What do libraries expect of publishers? What do publishers need from technology suppliers? What about user privacy, how do we balance the need for access with the need for security? How do we safeguard legitimate access from licensed institutions, while also protecting our assets from criminals?
If users will choose convenient (sometimes questionable) means over conventional ones, how do we design systems that meet both researcher and organizational goals? Is there an innovation underway that changes what we can expect? What does this landscape look like in an open access future? What are the risks of doing nothing? What are the opportunities available to us today?
I am so pleased to be serving as guest editor for this special Against the Grain issue — because these questions of access controls have been abuzz in the scholarly communications industry for a few years now and the disruptions will only continue to evolve. I trust that each of you have insights into these challenges, first-hand case studies of what’s working and what’s not, or original analysis that will contribute to our ability to collectively adapt to these changing access models and business practices.
We’re accepting articles now through early April. Drop me a message here on LinkedIn for more information. Submissions are flowing in, so get your article in today!
