Open Access is More than Articles – It’s Books, Too!

Posted October 21, 2024 in JMU Libraries News

You may be familiar with open access (OA) journal articles, which are freely available to anyone, but did you know that books can also be published open access? 
 
Open Access Week is a great time to explore how you can publish and find open access books! 
 
Publish open access books: Thanks to support for OA book publishers from JMU Libraries and VIVA (Virginia’s academic library consortium), you can create a scholarly monograph that is freely available to read worldwide. 
 
Here are four major OA book publishers we’d like to highlight: 
 
Open Book Publishers and Punctum Books are considered “Diamond OA” publishers, which means all their content is open access and authors pay no fees. 
 
Other publishers such as MIT Press and the University of Michigan Press publish open access books without author fees if they receive sufficient funding from participating libraries. 
 
Find open access books: The next time you are considering a book to assign for a class or you want to share a topic with friends, consider looking for an open access title! Explore over 88,000 titles in the Directory of Open Access Books. You can also visit our Find Open and Affordable Course Materials page to find open textbooks and other materials you can assign in your courses. 

Contact: To learn more, visit our Open Access page or contact Yasmeen Shorish, Director of Scholarly Communications Strategies in JMU Libraries.