The Lever Initiative has today published the results of phase one of its project to investigate the feasibility of launching a new Open Access (OA) publishing venture for the liberal arts.
The report summarizes a number of research projects which have explored the overall landscape for OA monograph publishing and attitudes of the library and research community. The report concludes that there are four main routes (none of which are mutually exclusive) though which The Oberlin Group might support more open forms of publishing in the liberal arts. These are:
1) Independently establish a new OA press;
2) Collaborate with existing publishing ventures to launch a new OA monograph series;
3) Support ‘unlocking’ initiatives where library funds are used to ‘free up’ key online texts by negotiating removal of access controls by the publisher for a fee;
4) Focus on active advocacy to remove barriers that are slowing down uptake of existing OA monograph options.
The full report is available here: Lever_Initiative_PhaseOne_Report_Apr14
Lever Initiative 