Academic Books and their Future

"Open access (OA) and the benefits to be gained from it have become prevalent themes in the development of policies by governments and research funders across Europe (including the UK) and North America over the past decade. For the potential benefits to be gained from worldwide adoption of OA are indeed very attractive. Initial attention focused in the main on OA for articles in scholarly journals, where significant progress has been made; and hence it is not surprising that attention has more recently turned to OA for academic books."