Publishing Open Access Monographs ⋆ Open Science Talk

What is it like to be a small publisher of Open Access Monographs? In this episode, we talk to Lucy Barnes, who is the editor and project coordinator at Open Book Publishers.

She gives us some insight into what’s important for Open Book Publishers, the leading open access book publisher in the HSS in the UK and a founder member of the ScholarLed group and the COPIM (Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs)  project.

ScholarLed and “Scaling small”

She also talks about the philosophy of “scaling small”.  ScholarLed, a consortium of five not-for-profit, scholar-led OA book publishers, was founded in 2018 and consists of Mattering Press, meson press, Open Book Publishers, Open Humanities Press and punctum books.

Each member will according to their mission statement:

“[…] retain their distinct identity as publishers, with different audiences, processes, business models and stances towards Open Access. What they share, however, is a commitment to opening up scholarly research to diverse readerships, to resisting the marketization of academic knowledge production, and to working collaboratively rather than in competition.”