Books are for (Re)Use

By Barbara Fister. Back in January, I invited faculty to take a survey to get faculty perspectives as a group of libraries considers whether to start an open access press. Thanks to everyone who participated. The results are in, and very interesting they are, too. The thing that impressed me the most about the responses was the fact that so many faculty said they might consider publishing a book with an open access press (with faculty in the arts and humanities most interested). Given the amount of FUD being spread about open access (claims that it's poor quality, requires author payments, or is some of kind of scam), I was pleased to see such positive results. You can read reports on the surveys at the Lever Initiative website. Read more...