Participating in the OAPEN program | OUPblog

"I was recently invited by Oxford University Press (OUP) to have my book, The Republic in Danger, published on the online open access library OAPEN. After a few general questions, I happily accepted. Why? OAPEN is an online platform on which books from major academic publishers are freely available to download in as PDFs. Unlike some eBook formats, the PDF is printable and the text can be copied and pasted. Add to these benefits the fact that OAPEN is fully searchable, and it is clear that OAPEN editions have the potential to greatly increase a reader’s ability to interact with a text. OAPEN’s major feature, however, is that the books are free! Users do not need to sign-up to anything, log into anything, or agree to anything — they merely visit the site and download the content of their choice. As this seems, from the point of view of the author, to be economically irrational, some justification for my decision to participate in OAPEN seems warranted. So, to return to my original question: Why? The answer is related to my desire to publish in the first place. As a PhD thesis The Republic in Danger did the job. Original, provocative, and most importantly, worthy of the degree for which it was written. Mr Pettinger became Dr Pettinger, my wife was relieved, and I could move on to other things, i.e., paid work. So why publish? Wealth and glory? No. Roman history has its popular appeal, but academic history is a gateway neither to Hollywood nor, generally, a Nobel Prize (Theodore Mommson being the, now ancient, exception). Furthermore, I am not a paid academic, or aspiring academic, with a quota to meet. I am a civil servant who remains passionately interested in history and committed to the progress of historical knowledge, but without an obvious need to publish. I published because, as I sat in my study and watched the navy blue covered thesis turn dusty grey, the thought of five years of research standing silent and ignored seemed shocking and wrong. No doubt pride was involved, but I believed, and still believe, that The Republic in Danger has important things to say ..."