Practice Article

Motivations and barriers to publishing open access book chapters and monographs: An institutional perspective

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Abstract

Introduction: Recent years have seen an increase in publishers exploring open access for monographs and book chapters. Programs like the Direct to Open from MIT Press and JSTOR’s Path to Open have provided avenues for libraries and authors to support open access monographs generally, but not campus authors specifically. On our campus, we have seen an increase in requests for and questions about publishing monographs and book chapters open access.

Description of Program: We offer several options for support for open access article publishing, including transformational agreements, institutional memberships, and an open access fund, but have limited resources and strategies for supporting book and chapter authors to make their publications open access. To gauge our authors’ awareness and interest, we surveyed faculty who recently published a book or chapter about their publishing experiences with a focus on open access publishing. In addition to our survey, we conducted interviews with faculty to gain a better understanding of open access publishing from their perspective as recent authors.

Next Steps: In response to this research, the library has explored new methods of supporting open monograph publishing and plans to develop open education resources and webinars about the open monograph publishing process.

Keywords: Open Access, Academic Libraries, Monographs

How to Cite:

Thomas, W. J., Kaefring, A. & Hoover, J. K., (2025) “Motivations and barriers to publishing open access book chapters and monographs: An institutional perspective”, Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication 12(2). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.18280

Rights:

© 2025 The Author(s). License: CC BY 4.0