Can Open Access Save the Scholarly Monograph? ALA Midwinter Spotlight

"Scholarly monographs, long the gold standard for scholars in the humanities and social sciences, have been in a downward spiral for some time. But might a promising London-based open access initiative called Knowledge Unlatched, under the direction of Manchester University Press CEO Frances Pinter, finally offer hope for a turnaround? ... Indeed, the Knowledge Unlatched model is straightforward: publishers make high-quality frontlist titles available under an open access license in exchange for a single fixed-title fee. Users can access the titles freely online. To cover publications costs, libraries around the world pool their money, allowing the publishers to recoup their investment up front. And since the fee is fixed, the cost per library decreases as the number of participating libraries increases. In a nod to the library’s key role in the monograph market, KU features a nine-member library steering committee, and a librarian-collections committee is also being formed ... In the initial pilot, 13 scholarly publishers, both commercial and not for profit, offered titles in a single 28-book collection chosen by librarians. In early 2014, Knowledge Unlatched set the goal of recruiting 200 libraries around the world, which would each pay $1,680 for the collection, resulting in a title fee of $12,000 for each book. Ultimately, 297 libraries from 24 countries joined, which reduced the per-library cost to $1,195, or $42.67 per book, compared to an average hardcover price of $95. The publishers still received the full-title fee of $12,000.  The first KU titles became available in March, and the last in September. Print is available, and PDFs are downloadable on a Creative Commons license via the OAPEN Digital Library and through the HathiTrust, two of the most prominent partners backing this effort. The initial metricsreleased in October (excluding the title from September) show 12,763 downloads. The average number of downloads per title was 473, and the downloads came from 138 countries ..."