CLIR and the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE) are developing a new model for scholarly communication: Anvil Academic, a fully digital, non-profit publisher of the humanities. The jointly developed title production system will be available for use by both organizations’ members, who will be able to use Anvil Academic to publish under their own imprints, contributing nothing more than editorial work.
Anvil Academic directly addresses the current crisis in academic publishing, including the growing inability of current models to support new forms of scholarly argument. It will take advantage of digital technology, particularly portable electronic reading/writing devices, to disseminate both traditionally conceived scholarship (such as articles and monographs) and innovative forms of argument that make use of the full range of digital tools available to the contemporary scholar.
Anvil Academic will also develop and test new revenue models for sustaining scholarly argument in an emerging digital world, exploring alternatives to current models that rely on institutional subsidy, author subventions, and decreasing per-unit sales of printed books to individuals, institutions, and libraries.
