Open-access books are no masterstroke for art history | Times Higher Education (THE)
peter.suber's bookmarks 2024-11-23
Summary:
"Last month’s swift clarification that trade books will remain exempt from open access mandates at the UK’s next Research Excellence Framework was widely welcomed by researchers. However, the principle that all monographs submitted to the REF must, barring a few exceptions, be open access is still alarming.
That worry is particularly acute in subjects whose publications rely on numerous illustrations, such as my field of art history. Obtaining licences to use images in academic publications is already onerous and expensive. Some major US and European museums recently started making high-resolution photographs of their public-domain artworks reproducible without the need to negotiate a licence or fee, but that remains very much the exception. In most cases, each book illustration has to be individually negotiated and purchased...."