Friends: Here is a news story from Peter Suber's blog. Indian universities will do well to follow this model. Best wishes. Arun U of Tennessee libraries launch all-OA academic press Newfound Press is a new digital imprint from the University of Tennessee University Libraries. All its publications will be OA.
From the site:
Todays scholarly publishing environment presents a strategic opportunity for academic libraries to expand their role in the publications process. Universities are both creators and consumers in the information economy. A digital library press offers the potential for making scholarly and specialized resources widely available at a reasonable cost. The University of Tennessee Libraries is developing a framework to make scholarly and specialized works available worldwide. Newfound Press, the University Libraries digital imprint, advances the community of learning by experimenting with effective and open systems of scholarly communication. Drawing on the resources that the university has invested in digital library development, Newfound Press collaborates with authors and researchers to bring new forms of publication to an expanding scholarly universe. We consider manuscripts in all disciplines, encompassing scientific research, humanistic scholarship, and artistic creation. It will publish OA journals as well as OA books and OA multimedia scholarship. It only asks for non-exclusive rights from authors and offers CC licenses as an option. It works in partnership with the University of Tennessee institutional repository. And it links to Open Access News from the front page --from the phrase, Open Access. What's in it for us? PS: Kudos to the UT librarians! I wish this enterprise well and hope other universities consider testing the same waters. Update. Also see Scott Teague's article about the launch in the Daily Beacon Online.