Open Access

The MIT Press Essential Knowledge

by Peter Suber

A concise introduction to the basics of open access, describing what it is (and isn't) and showing that it is easy, fast, inexpensive, legal, and beneficial

Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Technology, Library Science, Science, Law, Economics

255 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Peter Suber, a leading theorist of open access and a prominent voice in the OA movement, is Director of the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication, Director of the Harvard Open Access Project, Faculty Fellow at the Berkman Center, Senior Researcher at SPARC, and Research Professor of Philosophy at Earlham College. He is the author of Open Access (MIT Press), named by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2013.

Reviews

[Alejandro Teruel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sheer volume of research and rising subscription fees and charges make it impossible for even those university libraries with the deepest pockets to keep up with all the paying journals its members should have access to. Part of the problem has been attributed to journal publisher's profit margins:

...the largest journal publishers earn higher profit margins than the largest oil companies. In 2010, Elsevier’s journal division had a profit margin of 35.7 percent while ExxonMobil had only 28.1 percent. [...]

but an even more serious problem is that most researchers simply cannot access the literature they require, increasing the divide between rich and poor:

In 2008, Harvard subscribed to 98,900 serials and Yale to 73,900. The best-funded research library in India, at the Indian Institute of Science, subscribed to 10,600. Several sub-Saharan African university libraries subscribed to zero.

Sometimes the problem is not only a budgetary one, but lack of access to foreign currency. For example, Venezuelan universities and individual researcher's access to foreign currency required to subscribe to journals and buy books published outside Venezuela has been nil for at least four years at the time of writing this review (2016), one of the many reasons why research has plummeted and why the country is living a massive brain drain. In fact, communication with the international research community has not disappeared completely thanks to open access literature, personal contacts with researchers in other countries, and the generosity of alumni living abroad, corporations such as EBSCO and a few professional associations that have exempted membership dues. In spite of such efforts, the rapidly deteriorated levels of postal and Internet service, threaten to close even these few remaining windowlets.

The Open Access initiative is a fascinating and worthy attempt to help increase access to the research literature both for researchers and students as well as to interested members of the general public.

This is an excellent introductory book to the initiative which explains its goals, its categories and general mechanisms, its economics, its relationship to copyright, but also puts to rest many myths and objections which have been levelled against it.

The book provides an outstanding picture of this fast moving initiative roughly up to 2011 (the book was published in 2012) as regards open access to journal articles, journals and books and mentions open access to other research products such as theses and dissertations and data volumes, which form part of the so called grey literature. While it does not mention so-called predatory open access, it clearly warns the reader that, as in print and toll-access publishing (toll-access publishing is the author's term for conventional publishing in which the reader -or in his lieu, a library- is charged in order to access the published materials), there's excellent quality stuff out there and very low quality stuff as well. While it is true that some points are repeated a little too often, overall this is a relatively minor quibble in a very straightforward book.

In short, an excellent place for researchers, librarians, university and research institute administrators, students and the interested layperson to start reading on this very important initiative. Peter Suber keeps an excellent, updated web site with more recent material which is well worth consulting after reading this book at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/~psuber/....

[Xing Chen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-researched, up-to-date primer on open access and its definitions.

Importantly, it clarifies the terms 'gold,' 'green,' 'gratis,' and 'libre,' explaining how the terms are distinguished by the involvement of journals and repositories; the presence or absence of peer review; and the distinctions between making work monetarily free versus imposing copyright restrictions on how work may be used.

Gold: OA delivered by journals.
Green: OA delivered by repositories.
Gratis: Removal of price barriers.
Libre: Removal of some permission barriers.

Suber expounds the benefits of OA, debunking misconceptions and describing the range of choices available to content providers, and outlining ways in which they may select the desired level of access in each category.

He explains how OA is aligned with the goals of both researchers and journals, and is compatible with a sustainable, profit-making model, due to financial support from grant providers.

Readers who are familiar with the peer review process and who are already acquainted with the concept of OA will likely find the content conceptually familiar, while appreciating the assembly of clear facts and supporting arguments.

Though the book is billed as a concise introduction to the topic, it could have been condensed even further, as it was repetitive in parts (e.g. explanations of how open access has been miscontrued and misrepresented were repeated across several sections).

[Marta Boksenbaum · Rating 3 out of 5]

A clear and concise overview of Open Access, what it is, and why anyone would want to publish OA. It's definitely strongly biased towards the open access movement, but the arguments are well formulated and persuasive. This serves as a good introduction to anyone interested in the topic, and is an especially good resource to authors who want to know what this OA thing is and how they can publish OA.

[Dasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Suber needed to do little work to convince me of the importance and need for open access (OA). But he did do a good job nuancing many ideas around OA such as revealing the potentially synergistic relationship between gold and green OA and explaining how toll-access publishers need to adapt if they are so worried about decreased use in the face of OA (also a fan of Suber calling subscription journals "toll-access" rather than "conventional" journals). My only gripe comes in the preface where Suber plainly states "research benefits all" which, to me, seems like a dangerous oversimplification when we know how research has, and continues, to harm marginalized populations particularly Indigenous peoples.

[Algirdas Kraunaitis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very good introduction to the concept of Open Access. It goes through some key terminology, underlying philosophy, key issues, a how-to, and a bunch of other related things. The topic is explored in a way that is easy to understand. I also appreciated that the author is clearly very passionate about the project and I agreed with a lot of his assessments with regards to scholarly publication practices. The only thing that brings this book down is that inevitably it might be out of date (it even mentions in many places that things move quite fast in this field).

[Bruce Sanders · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short work is a primer on open access for scholarly publications (as opposed to toll-access publications, i.e., publications that a person or institution must pay for to obtain access to them). It is very well done. If all you are interested in is a summary of what open access is and the motivation for it then the first two chapters of the work is all you need to read. The remaining chapters go into greater detail about the kinds of open access, its relation to copyright and fair use, the economics of open access, and some of the ramifications of open access. The book does a great job of busting myths and clearing up confusions about open access (e.g., the false belief that open access is incompatible with peer review). There are a lot of pithy statements worth highlighting and that is exactly what the author does by repeating those statements on separate black pages with large white lettering and interspersing them throughout the book. There is also a short glossary and lots of endnotes for further reading. The work is thorough, its arguments sound, and the writing clear. If you are looking for an introduction to open access of scholarly publications this is the book to read.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little too Utopian, but still worth a read on how we can change the way we all consume knowledge and information, especially scholarly works. A good #sundayquickreads for school. And since it's about open access, http://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default...

[Benjamin Manning · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book because I've become both fascinated by the open access and reproducible science movement, but also slightly off put by it's most ardent supporters (as with literally anything to be honest). However, I'll admit, besides monetary interests, I see virtually no reason that all scientific work should not be COMPLETELY open access after reading this (excessively) comprehensive book on the top.

A few takeaways

1. Most journals (even annoying ones with paywalls like science) allow authors to post preprints and copies of their papars in repos like arXiv - I didn't know that this was allowed even for toll-access journals. This is known as Green OA.

2. Gold OA is simply totally public journals (see PNAS)

3. The two other important OA categories (but not distinct from green and gold necessarily) are 1) gratis OA - free access to work, but not necessarily copyright and licensing restriction access and 2) Libre OA - free access to work with at least some copyright/licensing restrictions removed (higher level than Gratis).

P.S. I will not be exclusively trying to publish in OA journals after reading this, because the calculus is probably still to detrimental career-wise for a young/aspiring academic. I've also published nothing
and have no near-ready papers soooooo..... :(

[Andy Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a non-academic, I found Peter Suber's book very enlightening. While I have worked in Universities and have been around several Professor's that have published journals, I didn't realize the gravity of the Open Access initiative and the impact on authors and publishers around the world. This book gives a good understanding of the current situations and projects some future issues. Clearly there is more to discuss but this book gives a you a very good initial understanding of what is happening and why it is important to promote Open Access.

[Abdullah Shams · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book cover a multiple aspects of Open Access and argues well in OA's defense. The Key idea being Knowledge does not degrade by sharing, and open access argued in regression makes sure that knowledge is shared in its entirety, including results, discussions and the data used by entire humanity with the necessary means to be able to access, and that mean is not strictly money.

[Angelo Agosti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro che porta un po' di chiarezza su una tematica spesso oggetto di continue dicerie e pregiudizi: non bisogna farsi ingannare dall'età del libro; sicuramente rimane uno dei più completi in materia di Open Access.

[Kingsborough Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book helpfully taught me the difference between green OA and gold OA.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good introduction to the world of Open Access. I read this book as part of a seminar on Open Access, working toward my Master's in Library Sciences.

[Kiwie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to read. A bit repetitive. Good primer on the concept. Utopian.

[Federico]

Err:509

[Vidu]

Read for my practicum on open research.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely a groundbreaking book back in the days, a bit repetitive... would need an update.

[Eric Phetteplace · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thorough and rather impartial survey of open access: what it is, why it makes sense, arguments for it, what you can do to help. Suber's overview is meticulous. I already knew a lot about open access but he pointed out arguments that hadn't occurred to me and even a few terms I wasn't familiar with (e.g. gratis vs. libre OA).
The one issue is that his writing style is so matter-of-fact and monotonous. Except for occasional lapses where he mocks illogical arguments, Suber chooses to relate facts one after another with little concern for his readers' sanity. Example:

Green OA can be gratis or libre but is usually gratis. Gold OA can be gratis or libre, but is also usually gratis. However, it's easier for gold OA to be libre than for green OA to be libre, which is why the campaign to go beyond gratis OA to libre OA focuses more on journals than repositories.

That's no less than six references to types of OA, five uses of "gratis", and five uses of "libre" in three extremely explicit sentences. He could've left "than for Green OA to be libre" off and reduced those a little bit but instead he seems to revel in unnecessary parallelism and repetition. That's great when it's Gertrude Stein writing prose poetry but horrible for a dry academic text in dire need of some life. It may seem like a minor quibble but it really does make the book wearisome.

[Brad McKenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is a great introduction into Open Access. I found the sequence of chapters a great help in making the subject more accessible to someone with very limited knowledge on it. For example after the first chapter defines what it is, the first couple of questions that sprang to mind were Why? and How? The “Motivation” and “Variety” chapters answered those questions quite nicely. By ending with the “Self-Help” chapter it allowed me to start thinking about how I can put what I learned into practice.

Learning is something that was facilitated by the fine balancing act of keeping the explanations simple but not insulting the reader’s intelligence. Some aspects of OA are fairly self-explanatory, such as “preprint” while others need a more in-depth discussion, such as gratis OA. At times the facet of OA borders on redundant, as seen with how many times you must state the OA is peer-reviewed. At other times the facet is seriously complex. In these cases, the humor that is liberally sprinkled throughout the book made serious subjects much less intimidating. That was particularly handy when I was going through the copyright chapter. That chapter, incidentally, is where the first of my two suggestions comes into play.

[James Townsend · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is absolutely a must read for academics interested in preserving and advancing journal publication in the 21st century and beyond. This book does a very good job of outlining the key issues and arguments around open access policies and discusses how the various obstacles to an open access future can be or already have been overcome. In addition, there are plenty of practical details here for researchers interested in furthering the open access cause. The final chapter on self help for researchers looking to publish in an OA journal was particularly helpful!

If the book has a flaw, it's that it is somewhat repetitive. Suber set out to make a short, handy book that could be read by busy researchers. I think he succeeded. The book is already brief enough that reading it from cover to cover is easy. I think the repetition arises from him anticipating that academics, perhaps busier than myself, would sit down and read maybe one or two sections at random, or read the whole book slowly over the course of weeks, in which case the repetition would be awesome for keeping the reader on track. As it was, it was mildly obnoxious for me, but oh well, still a very productive read for me.

[Sara Warner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thorough look at the ideas behind open access, different types, and alternative funding sources and business models that will encourage general access to research. Although author is a proponent for OA, his overview is unbiased and all-inclusive. Could use a different format for introducing terms for beginners, and some of the graphic pages are a little distracting, but an incredible piece of work-- well-organized information from one of the leading people in the field.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview of Open Access, its definitions, struggles, and relevance. This is a good book on learning about open access as it relates to publishing and accessing research articles. I will definitely be referencing this in my work later!

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Must read for anyone in academia and anyone who is tired of the exorbitant cost of journal subscriptions. The movement has started, get on board!

Very quick read so don't worry about having do dedicate too much time. Written as an introduction so it won't be over your head.

[Despoina · Rating 4 out of 5]

nice summary of open access. however if you have been following his blogs, you aren't going to learn anything new.

for sure, a must-read for beginners in open access and scientific publishing in general.

[Catherine Drake · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you need an overview of Open Access, read this book. It explains the historical context of Open Access and explains the economical and social benefits that Open Access brings. It is also a practical book that provides advice and clear guidance to help researchers and librarians.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent, concise introduction to Open Access.

[Mills College Library]

070.57973 S9413 2012

[Vít Baisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good overview.

[Ray Schwartz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent overview of open access.

[Heberquijano · Rating 2 out of 5]

59 La mejor introducción para entender el Open Acces, con el jefe de esa oficina en Harvard