Researcher Support Library Services: OA books
Find out about OA book publication models, the benefits of publishing an OA book, and some of the different resources available to researchers.
OA books, funder policies and REF
OA book policies: UKRI and REF 2029
The REF Open Access policy applies only to scholarly articles and full-length conference papers in proceedings with an ISSN. A new OA policy for REF 2029 will be consulted on during 2024 to take effect in 2025 or 2026. All HEIs are expected to continue adhering to the current Open Access policy to be eligible for submission to REF 2029 until further notice.
Research England and the other funding bodies behind REF will be consulting on whether the open access policy should expand to incorporate other output types e.g. monographs and book chapters for the next REF.
UKRI's Open Access policy applies to monographs and book chapters published from 1 January 2024.
Helpful resources for researchers
- OAPEN-UK guide to open access monograph publishingGuide to open access monograph publishing for arts, humanities and social science researchers.
- Think Check SubmitAdvice about choosing a publisher for your open access monograph.
Locating Open Access books
- DOAB Directory of Open Access Books A discovery service for academic, peer-reviewed Open Access books.
- HathiTrust A partnership of academic and research libraries offering millions of digitised titles from across the world.
- The Internet Archive Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.
- Knowledge Unlatched Knowledge Unlatched is a global library consortium enabling open access books. The model depends on many libraries from around the world sharing the cost of Open Access publishing in return for books being made freely available.
- OAPEN The OAPEN Library contains freely accessible academic books, mainly in the area of humanities and social sciences.
- Open Library An initiative of the Internet Archive, Open Library is an “open, editable library catalog, building towards a web page for every book ever published”.
- Oxford Text Archive A collection of digitized historical books from the University of Oxford.
- Project Gutenberg Over 60,000 free eBooks, with focus on older works for which U.S. copyright has expired.
More open access books can be found on the publishers’ websites listed below.
How does OA book publishing work?
There are many different business models and revenue sources for Open Access books, including:
This model of OA book publishing is similar to journal APC (article processing charge). A fee is charged which covers the costs of production. This is called a BPC (book processing charge). This may be paid by the author, or by the author’s funder or employer.
Example: SpringerOpen Books charges OA publication fees determined by the total pages of a work.
This model of OA book publishing involves the publisher providing both a full-text OA edition and a priced edition of the book. The OA version might be in a lower-quality format than any priced digital editions, such as a HTML or XML format.
Example: Open Book Publishers publish priced hardback, paperback and ebook editions, but also provide free online editions of their titles in PDF, HTML and XML formats.
This model of OA book publishing involves an institution (which could be, for example, a university, research centre, library, non-profit organisation, foundation, or a government agency) subsidising all or part of the OA book publication costs.
Example (foundation subsidies): Wellcome Trust supports "funds available for the payment of publisher’s open access monograph processing charges".
Example (consortial subsidies): Knowledge Unlatched is a global library consortium enabling open access books. The model depends on many libraries from around the world sharing the cost of Open Access publishing in return for books being made freely available.
This model of OA book publishing offers additional priced content or services on top of freely available OA content. This could include full-text search, navigation tools, connections to additional resources, detachable formats.
Example: Open Edition is a portal for OA electronic resources, with the option to subscribe to additional services and receive access to detachable formats (PDF, ePub).
This model of OA book publishing works in a similar way to journal embargoes. Free access to the book is delayed for a set period of time, during which a priced version is available.
Example: Leiden University Press (LUP) provide the option to make manuscripts immediately available, and the final book Open Access after a set period of time.
Many more OA book publishing models, as well as additional examples, can be found in the Open Access Directory (OAD).
Open Access book publishers
A selection of book publishers who publish all or a significant portion of their titles in an Open Access format.
- Amsterdam University Press A publishing house for the humanities and social sciences. The key aim of Amsterdam University Press is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP publishes nearly all of its books and journals Open Access and has over 200 titles listed in DOAB.
- ANU Press (Australian National University) ANU Press is a globally recognised leader in open-access academic publishing. They produce fully peer-reviewed monographs and journals across a wide range of subject areas, with a special focus on Australian and international policy, Indigenous studies and the Asia-Pacific region.
- Bloomsbury Open Content Bloomsbury Academic publishes with a focus on the social sciences and humanities. Several hundred open access titles are available through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme.
- Brill Open Brill is one of the largest Open Access publishers in the humanities and social sciences and have published over 400 open access books since 2009.
- InTechOpen Over 5000 peer-reviewed open access books, with a focus on the fields of science, technology and medicine.
- Manchester University Press Manchester University Press is a founding member of the OAPEN project which has led the way in developing a sustainable platform for OA publishing of monographs in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
- Open Book Publishers Open access academic research in the humanities and social sciences.
- Open Humanities Press Open Humanities Press is an international open access publishing collective whose mission is to make leading works of contemporary critical thought freely available worldwide.
- Palgrave Open Palgrave MacMillan offers authors the option to publish their academic books and chapters open access.
- Re-Press A publishing house for contemporary philosophy, re.press seek to make as many of their publications as possible available as open access files.
- SpringerOpen Offers authors the option to publish open access books and chapters in a wide range of areas within science, technology and medicine and within the humanities and social sciences.
- Taylor & Francis Open Access Books Taylor & Francis’ Open Access Book program allows authors and their funders to publish Open Access single- or co-authored books, edited collections and individual chapters.
- UCL Press UCL Press was established as the UK's first fully open access university press in 2015, and currently publishes 40 open access books a year.
You can find a more extensive list of book publishers with Open Access titles here in the DOAB.
OA Books Toolkit
OA Books Toolkit
The OA Books Toolkit aims to help book authors to better understand open access book publishing and to increase trust in open access books. You will be able to find relevant articles on open access book publishing following the research lifecycle, by browsing frequently asked questions or by searching with keywords.