How can we achieve sustainable funding for open access books?

Abstract

Is the biggest blocker to open access (OA) for books actually the economics of it all? Book processing charges (BPCs) do not scale but they remain a significant method of paying to produce OA monographs for many researchers and libraries. However, in the last few years, we have seen several new initiatives emerge that seek to solve the problem posed by funding via BPCs alone. There is a proliferation of collective funding models for OA books, including Opening the Future, Open Book Collective, MIT Press's D20, JSTOR's Path to Open and others. They all work differently, but they all offer alternatives to BPCs. In this article we explore the theme of sustainable funding for OA monographs, presenting a range of new models, and suggest that their normalization is well overdue. We also present the work of the library at Lancaster University on their new strategy supporting open access. While this article takes a somewhat UK-centric path, what is happening in the UK may be replicated in other countries and contexts. With demand increasing for monographs to be open this is a timely topic. The authors welcome discussion from publishers, libraries and other stakeholders.