Open Access Books in the Dutch context
Open Access (OA) publishing has gained significant momentum, becoming a priority for numerous funding agencies, governments, and institutions worldwide. In the Dutch research landscape, the Dutch Research Council (NWO) is among the funders mandating OA for books. While OA has seen rapid growth in journal articles, thanks to its deep-rooted history in fields where journal articles are the norm, OA for monographs presents unique challenges. These challenges include issues related to publication formats, publishing models, funding, copyright, and licensing, among others. Despite these, OA monograph publishing is on the rise, with new financial models emerging that bring both challenges and opportunities in a diverse and rather unbalanced scholarly communication landscape.
Libraries play a crucial role in promoting OA and facilitating access to scholarly literature. As advocates for OA, libraries emphasize equity and sustainability in scholarly communication, aiming to foster and support open access equally in all different research cultures. Libraries support OA monograph publishing by addressing researchers’ questions, highlighting available publishing options and strategies, and developing inclusive collection and publishing policies to allocate funds to foster a more equitable and sustainable scholarly publishing ecosystem.
The Working Group Open Access from the University Libraries and the Royal Library of the Netherlands (UKB) has identified OA Books in the national landscape as a key focus in their 2024 annual plan. One of the primary outputs of this initiative is to develop a community that addresses Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) from researchers and librarians about OA monograph publishing targeted at libraries. This community aims to serve the library community within the Dutch research landscape by mapping available resources and addressing questions concerning exploring various financing models and funding options for OA books, redirecting collection development budgets towards open initiatives, and advising on establishing an OA fund.
The goal is to create a comprehensive platform to facilitate knowledge exchange by listing existing resources and tools while covering less-discussed topics relevant to Dutch libraries and the broader research library community. This community is intended as a dynamic hub where libraries can share experiences, best practices, innovative ideas, and solutions.
This community will also feature interviews and case studies that showcase good practices and address challenges in the field. Although it is first envisioned to provide a structured and supportive environment for Dutch libraries to navigate the complexities of OA monograph publishing, the community is expected to be open to everyone interested in these topics, ultimately contributing to the discussion towards a more open and accessible scholarly landscape.
The editors
Beatriz Barrocas Ferreira, Tilburg University
Beatriz Barrocas Ferreira is a subject librarian and the Open Access Officer at Tilburg University Library. She holds both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Information Science from the University of Coimbra, Portugal, where she’s also pursuing her PhD, focusing on Scholarly Communication and Digital Humanities.
Chiara Livio, Utrecht University
Chiara Livio is an Open Access Advisor at Utrecht University Library and the lead of the Mapping and Monitoring project within the national program “Strengthening Diamond OA in the Netherlands”. In line with her academic research background in Sanskrit philology (PhD at Sapienza University, 2020), she is a member of the organization team of the Initiative Fair Open Access in South Asian Studies (FOASAS).
Fleur Praal, Leiden University
Fleur Praal is the scholarly communications librarian at Leiden University Libraries | Centre for Digital Scholarship. Before this role, she worked as a university lecturer in publishing studies for some years, in the same institute where she obtained her doctorate (Leiden University, 2020). Her dissertation centres on scholarly publishing in and for the Humanities — for which the book is of special importance.
Giulia Trentacosti, University of Groningen
Giulia Trentacosti is the Open Access and Scholarly Communication Specialist of the University of Groningen Library (the Netherlands). In this position, she has been coordinating the open access support services of the university since 2018. She obtained a PhD in publishing studies from Edinburgh Napier University (UK) in 2020. She holds an MA in publishing from the same institution and a BA in modern languages from the University of Pisa (Italy).
Rashmi Shetty, Utrecht University
Rashmi Shetty is an Open Access Advisor within the Publishing Support Department at the Utrecht University Library (The Netherlands), with a special focus on books and humanities publishing, and equitable publishing. Prior to this role, she worked as the Editor for Religious Studies books at Brill. Rashmi completed her Research Master in Religious Studies at Utrecht University (2021), with a focus on religion and new media.
Susanne van Rijn, Erasmus University Rotterdam
Susanne van Rijn is programme manager for Strengthening Diamond Access in the Netherlands (2024-2026), on behalf of the Dutch academic library consortium UKB. Besides, she is the project manager for Infrastructures for Diamond Open Access in the Netherlands.
