Open Access

The Internet lets us share perfect copies of our work with a worldwide audience at virtually no cost. We take advantage of this revolutionary opportunity when we make our work “open access”: digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. Open access is made possible by the Internet and copyright-holder consent, and many authors, musicians, filmmakers, and other creators who depend on royalties are understandably unwilling to give their consent. But for 350 years, scholars have written peer-reviewed journal articles for impact, not for money, and are free to consent to open access without losing revenue.

In this concise introduction, Peter Suber tells us what open access is and isn't, how it benefits authors and readers of research, how we pay for it, how it avoids copyright problems, how it has moved from the periphery to the mainstream, and what its future may hold. Distilling a decade of Suber's influential writing and thinking about open access, this is the indispensable book on the subject for researchers, librarians, administrators, funders, publishers, and policy makers.

Chapters

Frontmatter

Preface

by Peter Suber

1. What Is Open Access?

by Peter Suber

Shifting from ink on paper to digital text suddenly allows us to make perfect copies of our work.

2. Motivation

by Peter Suber

There are lamentably many problems for which OA is part of the solution.

3. Varieties

by Peter Suber

There are many ways to deliver OA: personal web sites, blogs, wikis, databases, ebooks, videos, audios, webcasts, discussion forums, RSS feeds, and P2P networks.

4. Policies

by Peter Suber

Authors control the volume and growth of OA. They decide whether to submit their work to OA journals (gold OA), whether to deposit their work in OA repositories (green OA), and how to use their copyrights.

5. Scope

by Peter Suber

Any kind of content can be digitized, and any kind of digital content can be put online without price or permission barriers. In that sense, the potential scope of OA is universal.

6. Copyright

by Peter Suber

OA could be implemented badly so that it infringes copyright. But so could conventional publishing.

7. Economics

by Peter Suber

Many publishers who oppose OA concede that OA is better for research and researchers than toll access. They merely object that we can’t pay for it. But we can pay for it.

8. Casualties

by Peter Suber

Will a general shift to OA leave casualties? For example, will rising levels of green OA trigger cancellations of toll-access journals?

9. Future

by Peter Suber

One transition complexity is the fresh convert who supports OA in theory but doesn’t understand how to pay for it, how to support peer review, how to avoid copyright infringement, how to avoid violating academic freedom, etc.

10. Self-Help

by Peter Suber

Publishing in an OA journal is like publishing in a conventional journal. Find a suitable journal and submit your manuscript.

Resources

Glossary

by Peter Suber

Additional Resources

by Peter Suber

The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series presents short, accessible books on need-to-know subjects in a variety of fields. Written by leading thinkers, Essential Knowledge volumes deliver concise, expert overviews of topics ranging from the cultural and historical to the scientific and technical. In our information age, opinion, rationalization, and superficial descriptions are readily available. Much harder to come by are the principled understanding and foundational knowledge needed to inform our opinions and decisions. This series of beautifully produced, pocket-sized, soft-cover books provides in-depth, authoritative material on topics of current interest in a form accessible to non-experts. Instead of condensed versions of specialist texts, these books synthesize anew important subjects for a knowledgeable audience. For those who seek to enter a subject via its fundamentals, Essential Knowledge volumes deliver the understanding and insight needed to navigate a complex world.

Bruce Tidor

^{Professor of Biological Engineering and Computer Science}

^{Massachusetts Institute of Technology}