Who you gonna call? OA Mythbusters – Open Access Books Network

For this year’s open access week, the Open Access Books Network (OABN) is pleased to introduce its latest video series: ‘The OA Mythbusters’.

Through this video series the OABN community seeks to dispel a number of key myths around OA books. In these short videos, common statements will be addressed by fellow community members, informally known as ‘the OA Mythbusters’

Background

Since its introduction, the OABN has steadily developed as a space for passionate conversations about OA books. Its community is open to all, composed of researchers, librarians, publishers, infrastructure service providers and other stakeholders  interested in discussing OA books.

It’s an exciting time for OA books, with a plethora of new initiatives, policy developments and business models (1, 2, 3) emerging to support their publication, but this can make it difficult to understand what’s out there and closed access publishing remains the predominant model. There is still a long way to go! To help us get there faster, this video series aims to address some of the common misconceptions, myths and questions around OA books. It is designed to be short, snappy and shareable–so please do share it!

We are excited to launch the first two videos during Open Access Week 2021, taking inspiration from this year’s theme ‘’It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity’’:

Myth 1: If I want to publish Open Access I have to pay the publisher

Mythbuster: Dr. Sebastian Nordhoff, Managing Director, Language Science Press

Watch: https://youtu.be/Bpe8myCzcJQ

Myth 2: People who are interested in academic books can easily access them, Open Access or not.

Mythbuster: Caroline Ball, Academic Librarian, University of Derby, UK

Watch: https://youtu.be/3cGQ4pLQgDU

These are the first of ten mythbusting videos which will be released on a weekly basis until the end of the calendar year. In early 2022 we’ll be sharing the complete OA book mythbuster series as one video alongside other shareable materials, and we hope that these resources will be distributed widely across the OA book community and well beyond.