Tear it down, build it up: the Research Output Team, or the library-as-publisher

Academic publishing is in an unstable period of transition. There is a growing degree of anger, especially from early-career academics in a time of austerity, at perceived publisher extortion. The current models of open access do not address all these problems, especially with regard to library budgets. While some of this anger is misplaced, publishers must either self-discipline their practices or find themselves displaced by alternate models. Libraries, likewise, face a dangerous time in which the threat of third-party tender for their services brings extinction ever closer. This article begins to outline a system dubbed the ‘Research Output Team’ (ROT) that moves publishing in-house to institutional libraries, thereby safeguarding publishing jobs and expertise while defeating the problematic aspects of the existing set-up.