Open Science for Arts, Design and Music/Publishers/Edizioni Casagrande

Edizioni Casagrande is a Swiss publisher based in Ticino and publishing mainly in Italian.

Conversation with Edizioni Casagrande (Fabio Casagrande, 23.01.2024), interview by Iolanda Pensa and Chiara Barbieri, Project Open Science for arts design and music, SUPSI, 2024, CC BY 4.0.

Introduction

Born out of a bookshop founded in 1924, today Edizioni Casagrande is the most important publishing house in Italian-speaking Switzerland. In addition to its literary, prose and poetry series, Edizioni Casagrande publishes also non-fiction books with a focus on (local) history, culture, sociology and art. Particular attention is also paid to the cultural and linguistic history of the Alpine regions, with the publication of the journal Archivio Storico Ticinese. Since 2015, following the collaboration with the Museo d'Arte della Svizzera Italiana, the production of art and photography books has been intensified. In Switzerland, promotion and distribution in bookshops is handled directly by the publishing house or the bookshop of the same name. Since 2000, Edizioni Casagrande's books are promoted in Italy by Emme Promozione and distributed by Messaggerie Libri Spa.

Digital publications

Edizioni Casagrande produces digital publications of research in the humanities in cooperation with the Swiss National Science Foundation. These are mainly dissertations, conference proceedings, monographs. So far, Edizioni Casagrande has published around 40 digital books. The formats for the digital publications can be PDFs or ePUB. These are either in open access and available on libreo and OAPEN or for sale on the platform edigita.

Open Access

Edizioni Casagrande's move to open access was dictated by the policies of the SNSF. Initially they approached OA with some apprehension since they were accustomed to covering production costs with book sales. While recognising its importance in the academic field, the publisher expresses doubts towards OA with regards to copyright and bibliodiversity.
Almost all OA publications have also been published in hard copy, thus maintaining a double version (digital and paper) of the same book. The OA version of the publications have been released under CC BY-NC-ND licenses and authors' maintain the copyright of their works. The visibility of the OA publications is measured with Crossref.
The choice of OA is not always dictated only by the need to adhere to the requests of SNSF for publications in the field of academic research. Sometimes, the choice of whether to distribute a book in OA or not is the result of a decision made by the publisher together with the authors to promote the dissemination of the work to a wide and diverse audience.
The case of the monograph Navigando fiumi paraguaiani. Mosè Bertoni esploratore e cartografo dell'Alto Paranà is an interesting example that illustrates the rational for choosing or not OA. The bilingual (Italian/Spanish) book is a monograph dedicated to the Ticinese emigrant to Paraguay Mosè Bertoni. Sales, according to the editor, would never be of significant profit, thus decisions regarding OA were not made on commercial grounds. In an attempt to to reach a readership that would be otherwise difficult to reach with the paper version, namely the South American public, the authors Danilo Baratti and Patrizia Candolfi and the publisher had to decide whether to release the digital version in OA or not. They opted for the latter (two PDFs, one in Italian and one in Spanish) in the belief that the availability of digital books on international commercial platforms (e.g. Amazon) makes them easier to find than on OA platforms. the decision raises some doubts as to the actual findability of OA, especially when it comes to reaching a general public outside academia.

Swiss Open Acceess policy

Edizioni Casagrande's publishing strategy complies with the OA policy advocated in Switzerland concerning publications resulting from publicly funded research. The publisher is contrary to an extension of OA policies outside academic research. They are particularly opposed to a bill for 2025/2028, according to which Swiss publishers will have to release all their publications in OA to the national library. Along with other Swiss publishers, Edizioni Casagrande argues in defence of bibliodiversity and the copyrights of the authors and the publishing houses themselves. Objection to OA concerns publications that are not publicly financed but supported by sales.

Open Access and paper versions

The OA books published by Edizioni Casagrande are also available in print, giving the reader the choice of downloading the publication for free or buying the printed version. Funding for the print version are found outside SNSF, which only finances the digital version in OA.
The publisher's early experiences of OA revealed a superiority of the print version over the digital version in OA. According to the statistics of print sales and digital visibility, the former sold more than the latter was downloaded for free online, even thought on the publisher's website it is clearly stated that the publication is available for free of charge. The publisher explains this situation by attributing it to a preference of the average reader to read on paper rather than on the screen, especially when dealing with text heavy publications as it is the case with Edizioni Casagrande's books.

Multimedia content

Edizioni Casagrande publishes multimedia content that enriches its printed books. Nelly Valsangiacomo's book Dietro al microfono. Intellettuali italiani alla Radio svizzera (1930-1980) is an example of a paper publication enriched by multimedia content available online. Thanks to an agreement with RSI (Radio Svizzera Italiana), readers can listen to the voices of the interviewees on a dedicated webpage on the RSI website: www.rsi.ch/dietroalmicrofono. Or at least they could since the webpage is no longer available, thus raising the issue of the long-term sustainability of this type of content.
To overcome problems related to digital longevity, the publisher suggests using a new type of permanent identifier, namely the ISBN-A. The ISBN-A is an additional service of the ISBN code applicable to any published product. It is a persistent link that is activated on the Internet via the DOI system technology. The ISBN-A allows multimedia content to be placed on an external platform (e.g. on extendedbook) and be permanently linked to the book's ISBN code.

Images and third parties' material

The handling of copyrighted material (e.g. images) is not an easy issue for publishers. Already present in print media, the difficulty increases when dealing with multimedia formats and OA. Edizioni Casagrande attributes its difficulty in using open cc licences to the presence of images as by law they cannot sublicense the copyright of third-party material.

Future business models

The publisher's reflections on new business models concern aspects related to language and printing technologies. According to the Edizioni Casagrande, language has a considerable impact on editorial choices related to the digital. Indeed, the digital market changes depending on the language: in the case of the Italian language it stops at 5-7%, while in English the percentage of the digital book rises to 17-19%. New digital printing techniques have considerably lowered the production costs of paper books. Print on demand has further lowered production, storage and distribution costs. This change influences editorial choices, giving the possibility of producing a more refined first edition, followed by a second print-on-demand edition of lower quality at a lower selling price. Regarding OA, the publisher expects an evolution in the multimedia sector with the use of enriched books.