Making monographs, edited collections and book chapters open access can have many benefits:
- It can increase the readership and reach of a work, potentially leading to greater research impact. Recent research from the University of Michigan Press and Springer Nature has found that open access books were accessed more than non-open access books.
- The findings of the two studies also found that readership for open access books is more international and is not limited to researchers with a university affiliation (for example, researchers working for charities, government, arts organisations, museums and cultural heritage institutions, and independent researchers can access the text).
- Authors who publish their monograph open access retain the copyright, rather than the publisher - giving authors more control over how their book is used by others.
- It is common for academic monographs to have short print runs so providing an open access edition will allow researchers to access the work long after the print run has passed.
- It is increasingly difficult for libraries to purchase and make available every monograph relevant to their students and researchers. Therefore, with print-only monograph publishing, it is difficult to reach a wide audience quickly, with the result that citations are delayed by several years. Making monograph open access has the potential to increase citations and to do this more quickly.
- Although there were initial concerns that making a monograph open access would reduce print sales, some publishers have confirmed that publishing titles open access has not decreased the number of print sales. A recent study by Amsterdam University Press found that the impact of publishing a monograph open access had a negligible impact on print sales.