Open Access Monographs Conference

OLH Founding Members Dr Martin Paul Eve and Dr Caroline Edwards have been invited as speakers at the first conference to address the issue of open access monographs in the humanities and social sciences (HSS). The conference is being co-organised by JISC Collections and the OAPEN Foundation on 1-2 July 2013 at the British Library in London. It will involve all stakeholders in scholarly communications, including European research funders, senior institutional managers, publishers, learned societies, librarians and researchers and aims to raise awareness of open access through discussing the key challenges and identifying where common policies and frameworks could support the adoption of OA monograph publishing in the HSS.

As the organisers write:

In the last two decades, mongraphs sales have rapidly declined from an average of over 2000 to just 200 – in line with library budgets reductions. In order to support the continued existence of the monograph and to move HSS in line with other areas of scholarly communication and research funders' policies, a new open access business model is required. However, transitioning to new modes requires institutional and cultural change alongside experimentation, testing and consultation. 

The conference is sponsored by the AHRC and ESRC and hosted by The British Library. Confirmed speakers include:

      Kathleen Fitzpatrick – Director of Scholarly Communication at the Modern Language Association
        Frances Pinter – Executive Director of Knowledge Unlatched 
        Martin Eve and Caroline Edwards – Founding Members of the Open Library of Humanities
        Cameron Neylon – Plos’s Director of Advocacy
        Carrie Calder – Marketing Director of Palgrave Macmillan

 

Visit the conference website for more information.

 

     

 

Image by Erwin Boogert under a CC-BY-NC license.