For my final topic I think I would like to look into university presses and their role in monograph publishing. I am particularly interested in the free to use digital book policies that our last guest speaker mentioned and the open textbook publishing going on at SUNY from Bonn. While I am not very business or math savvy I think that this will allow me to really explore how a specific part of publishing has developed and may continue to develop. Aside from studying information science in my undergrad, I was an Ancient history double major and latin minor. Both of those fields heavily utilized monographs but did provide some free resources and versions online. I would like to better understand how all of this is possible, practically and financially, and to compare the practices and policies across institutions.
Update: For my final project I will be exploring differences in scholarly communications in the connected fields of history and public history. This will include a look at what types of scholarly communications are traditionally accepted, new types of communication, and changes occurring between the two since they are often combined into one field and evaluated together. I will obtain feedback from those in these fields and I will also look at the differences/similarities in various trade and academic journals and articles especially pertaining to what is being discussed and how.
Sounds good. John Sherer can direct you to resources, and talking to him more will provide you lots of insights since he's a leader in the field, and very connected/aware of other institutions efforts.