Experimenting with the open access monograph

Experimenting with the open access monograph by Maria Bonn

"For many of us who are interested in advancing the case for OA books, there was an initial flush of enthusiasm about the potential for such publishing that is now being tempered by awareness that books are not journals and monograph people are different from article people. It is important to learn from the experiments that are taking place, and to embark upon more of them, so that we can design distribution and publication models that meet the needs of our scholars and ensure the vitality of the monograph for as long as it continues to serve as a useful vehicle for communicating research and ideas."


Maria Bonn’s essay, a review of the challenges of applying open access models to monograph publishing, is based on her presentation at the ALA 2010 Midwinter SPARC-ACRL Forum in Boston, MA. The entire Forum, “The ebook transition: Collaborations and innovations behind open-access monographs,” may be viewed online at www.arl.org/sparc/meetings/ala10mw/