For more than five years, the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute has issued all its publications in dual OA/TA versions. Now it reports that the OA editions have increased the sales of the TA editions. (Thanks to Charles Ellwood Jones.) Excerpt:
Publication of research is a central tenet of the mission of the Oriental Institute. Of equal importance is the widespread accessibility of the Institute's publications to scholars and interested individuals throughout the world. Towards that end, on October 27, 2004, the Oriental Institute established the Electronic Publications Initiative (EPI), by which all publications of the Oriental Institute are simultaneously published both in print and electronically on the Internet, electronic distribution is complimentary, and older titles are to be scanned and distributed on the Internet as funding and time permit....
The response to the EPI has been overwhelming, with positive comments received from all over the world. Complimentary Web distribution ensures that publications of the Oriental Institute are made available to everyone with access to the Internet–especially in countries where the Institute carries out research. Statistics on downloads of electronic files and sales of printed books are tracked, and sales of the printed volumes have not decreased! Indeed, after the complimentary distribution of twenty-one titles in 2008 that had for many years only been available in print, sales of these titles increased by 7% compared with the previous two years.
At the time of this writing, 147 Adobe Portable Document Format (pdf) files, each containing an entire book from cover to cover, are being distributed on the Internet, plus hundreds more Annual Report and News & Notes articles, the Research Archives Catalog, as well as Institute project reports, and articles by faculty and staff–with much more to come....
Comment. This is especially persuasive because it's based on five years of experience. The only longer body of experience I know belongs to the National Academies Press, which has published all its monographs in dual OA/TA editions for more than 15 years (since March 1994). It too reports that the OA editions boost the net sales of the TA editions; see Mike Jensen's reports from 2001, 2005, and 2007.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/07/2009 09:22:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
