Surveying the Scalability of Open Access Monograph Initiatives: Final Report

Abstract

In June of 2016, the University of Michigan Library (MLibrary) and Knowledge Unlatched (KU) announced the start of a collaboration “to study and overcome remaining obstacles to the spread of open access scholarly publishing in the humanities and social sciences.” This survey grew out of that partnership and was designed to gather data useful for determining the scalability of library-supported open access (OA) initiatives focusing on monographs in the Humanities and Social Sciences such as Luminos, Open Book Publishers, and KU. The survey was conducted from 1 December 2016 through 7 February 2017. It was targeted at collections units of academic libraries because the question of scalability for library-funded OA initiatives hinges on issues of budgets, discovery, workflow, and strategic collecting priorities. The population was limited to libraries at four-year colleges and universities in the United States, and respondents were told that they would be answering on behalf of their unit. A total of 103 valid responses were received from academic libraries in 37 states and the District of Columbia. Answers to follow-up questions are included as an appendix.