How to increase the quantity, visibility and usability of academic research while lowering costs? OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) is working on it. This is a 30-month EU-project intended to develop and implement an Open Access publication model for peer reviewed academic books in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Recently named as one of the most promising Open Access examples, OAPEN has had a very promising start. Spokesperson Saskia de Vries: “We want to build the largest European Open Access online library.”
Sometimes the best ideas just ‘happen’. When Saskia de Vries, director of Amsterdam University Press went to attend the February 2007 EU-conference on Open Access she had no idea that she would return from Brussels with a plan, the commitment, and partners to start OAPEN. It just happened that way after Sijbolt Noorda, VSNU-president, had introduced her to several of her colleagues at other European University Presses. Almost a year later, united University Presses from Germany, Denmark, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands had proposed their plan for Open Access Publishing in European Networks and the EU programme eContentplus rewarded it with a €900.000 funding. De Vries: “We had already experimented with Open Access publishing, but now we were ready to aim much higher.” ...
When asked if the financial crisis is slowing down the project De Vries states exactly the opposite. It seems to be fueling the development, because faced with harsh economic conditions University Presses are more and more looking towards digital publishing as a viable alternative for the costly printing of publications. This way it is also much easier to disseminate works that would otherwise not have been published. This means an increase in the availability of HSS [humanities and social science] works. De Vries: “Of course these works will be subject to the usual publishing restrictions of each press, and they will be made available as printed books through POD (Printing On Demand) partners globally.” ...
In the summer of 2010 the OAPEN online library is supposed to go online....
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.
