The Future of Academic Publishing

Andy Naselli, a good friend of mine and an avid Logos user, points out a relevant quote in a new book from Crossway: The New Media Frontier: Blogging, Vlogging, and Podcasting for Christ, edited by John Mark Reynolds and Roger Overton. In his chapter, “Professors with a New Public: Academics and New Media,” Fred Sanders avers,

The coming crisis in academic publishing is centered on the expense of printing and distributing scholarly works with an extremely narrow focus. Electronic publishing is the obvious source of a solution to this problem. The current editorial systems could stay in place just as they are, with the cost of production dropping to a fraction of the current system. It may be a long time before paperless publication is desirable for all users, but in academia it seems like an obvious need. The current system . . . must find a way out of its deadlock. (p. 172)

We’re happy to be a large part of this solution.

If you’ve been following our Pre-Pub offerings for the last couple of years, you’re well aware that we are publishing digital editions of a host of expensive academic resources. While the front-end costs of high-end digital publishing aren’t small (especially if we have to work from print rather than digital sources), the on-going costs are significantly less allowing volumes that cost $100-200 or even more in print to be available for significantly less digitally. This set was a perfect illustration of the savings that digital can offer: Library of NT Studies: JSNTS on the Gospels and Acts (16 Vols.).

On a closely related note, you may remember that back in May Dale Pritchett addressed this subject in his presentation “Logos in the Classroom.” If you missed it, be sure to give it a listen or read the transcript.

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Written by
Phil Gons

Follower of Jesus, husband of Shanna, father of five, Chief Product Officer at Logos, PhD (ABD) Theology, reader, learner, blogger, technophile.

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Written by Phil Gons
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