Springer now publishing Open Access books

“Springer is expanding its open access (OA) program by offering a fully open access option for books, which will extend Springer’s established SpringerOpen and BioMed Central journal portfolio, and its Springer Open Choice option. Any electronic version of a SpringerOpen book is fully and immediately OA, and thus freely accessible on SpringerLink for anyone in the world with access to the internet.  SpringerOpen books give authors and editors in all areas of science the opportunity to publish open access with the same high standards they are used to at Springer.  ‘Many of our authors, editors and societies have asked us for an open access option for books ,’ said Bettina Goerner, Manager Open Access at Springer. ‘The increasing interest in publishing open access books in the community led us to expand the SpringerOpen family by developing an open access option for books across all disciplines.’  The copyright for the entire open access book including every chapter remains with the editor/author. SpringerOpen books are published under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC) license. This facilitates the open distribution and the free re-use and sharing of the work for non-commercial purposes, as long as the authors/editors are properly attributed.  SpringerOpen Book titles will be listed in the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB), the discovery service for OA books which increases visibility and findability of Springer’s OA books.  ‘Books are the next logical focus in the progression of open access, and this initiative from Springer helps to establish open access as a viable publishing model for scholarly books,’ said Eelco Ferwerda, Director of the Directory of Open Access Books and the OAPEN Foundation...”