The MIT Press has released Mind the Gap: A Landscape Analysis of Open Source Publishing Tools and Platforms (openly published at mindthegap.pubpub.org), a major report on the current state of all available open-source software for publishing. Funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the report sheds light on the development and deployment of open-source publishing technologies in order to aid institutions and individuals decision-making and project planning. It will be an unparalleled resource for the scholarly publishing community and complements the recently released Mapping the Scholarly Communication Landscape census.
The report authors, led by John Maxwell, Associate Professor and Director of the Publishing Program at Simon Fraser University, catalogue 52 open-source online publishing platforms, i.e. production and hosting systems for scholarly books and journals, that meet the survey criteria of ‘available, documented open-source software relevant to scholarly publishing’ and in active development. This research provides the foundation for a thorough analysis of the open publishing ecosystem and the availability, affordances, and current limitations of these platforms and tools.
The number of open-source online publishing platforms has proliferated in the last decade, but the report finds that they are often too small, too siloed, and too niche to have much impact beyond their host organization or institution. This leaves them vulnerable to shifts in organisational priorities and external funding sources that emphasise new projects over the maintenance and improvement of existing projects. This fractured ecosystem is difficult to navigate, and the report concludes that if open publishing is to become a durable alternative to complex and costly proprietary services, it must grapple with the dual challenges of siloed development and organization of the community-owned ecosystem itself.
Readers are invited to read, comment, and annotate Mind the Gap on the PubPub platform: mindthegap.pubpub.org.
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