The OA Effect: How Does Open Access Affect the Usage of Scholarly Books?

"It is frequently claimed that open access (OA) has the potential to increase usage and citations1,2. This report substantiates such claims for books in particular, through benchmarking the performance of Springer Nature books made OA through the immediate (gold) route against that of equivalent non-OA books. The report includes findings from both quantitative analysis of internal book data (chapter downloads, citations and online mentions) and external interviews conducted with authors and funders. This enables the comparison of actual performance with perceptions of performance for OA books.

Part 1 of the report presents the findings of the quantitative analysis. The average performance of OA books, as measured by usage, citations and online mentions (see Appendix 1) for the first four years of each book’s life, was compared with the average performance of non-OA titles. We found that Springer Nature OA books perform better than non-OA books published by Springer Nature in all three categories that we assessed:

• Downloads: On average, there are just under 30,000 chapter downloads per OA book within the first year of publication, which is 7 times more than for the average non-OA book.

• Citations: Citations are on average 50% higher for OA books than for non-OA books, over a four-year period.

• Online mentions: OA books receive an average of 10 times more online mentions than non-OA books, over a three-year period....

Part 2 presents feedback from authors and funders who were interviewed about their experiences and perceptions of OA book publishing with Springer Nature. Interviews focused on: the impact of OA on books; OA book metrics that are of most relevance to authors and funders; and authors’ and funders’ expectations and experiences of, as well as motivations for, OA book publishing...."