Open Access Books: an international collaboration to explore the practical implications for librarians of increasing access to scholarly research outputs

The University of Nottingham Ningbo China is seeking to maximize the dissemination and visibility of research to a global audience through open access. This paper focusses on the issues and challenges for librarians who wish to increase the number of books and book chapters available open access, including: relationships with global publishing partners; the complexity of publisher policies for books; challenging existing researcher practices; and, reskilling librarians for advocacy and influencing roles in scholarly communication. A set of recommendations is drawn from this in order to improve the library and information service roles in supporting research, publishing process and improving open access to book content.