Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Thursday, March 10, 2005

More on OA to books

Denise Nitterhouse, Digital Production Strategies for Scholarly Publishers, an OA offprint from the University of Chicago Press. On digital books, not journals, occasionally touching on OA strategies. Excerpt: 'One option for a publisher is to let a book go out of print, retain the copyright, and make PDF files of the book available on the Internet for free, as the Ohio State University Press does through its Open Access Initiative....Each press needs to develop its own process for deciding whether to put a book into a digital printing program that would extend its life. The University of Chicago Press examples and data illustrate how older backlist books, some more than a decade old, successfully live on in the CDDC SRDP program and continue to contribute to revenue. The MIT Press Classics Series has successfully brought many books back into print. Lightning Source, Harvard University Press's USIRP, and open-access initiatives provide other perspectives and models.' (Thanks to Ross Scaife.)