Peer into the Crystal Ball: Finding a Place for Open Access Monographs

Celebrating Open Access Week

During Open Access Week (October 2226), join the Knowledge Futures Group and the MIT Press as we illuminate new models for open access publishing and open source content platforms and describe how the MIT Press and our campus partners are responding to new demands for open access content.

The MIT Press will be releasing four podcasts that contribute to the conversations about open access publishing and provide insight into MIT-led initiatives. In the first Open Access episode, available at this link, Travis Rich, PubPub cofounder and project lead, speaks with Edward Finn, founding director of the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University. They discuss Frankenbook—an open access digital version of the print edition of Mary Shelley’s masterpiece Frankenstein published by the MIT Press in 2017—and why it was important to make this book open access. They explore what challenges they faced and how a platform like PubPub lends itself to new ways of engaging with the story. For updates on further episodes, please subscribe to the MIT Press podcast.

Additionally, we are proud to announce that, in response to user feedback and increased demand for community publishing, the PubPub team has launched an updated version of the platform with significant improvements to its user interface, administrative tools, analytics dashboard, and editing and user engagement functionalities. As always, PubPub’s mission is to give research communities of all stripes and sizes a free and open alternative to existing publishing models and tools. Potential users are encouraged to create their own publishing community and contact the PubPub team with any questions or feedback.

Open Access Week, a global event now entering its tenth year, is an opportunity for the academic and research community to continue to learn about the potential benefits of Open Access, to share what they’ve learned with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to make Open Access a new norm in scholarship and research.

The MIT Press is committed to reimagining and redefining the boundaries of scholarly publishing and we are proud to support the work of our colleagues in the Knowledge Futures Group as they pursue their mission to transform research publishing from a closed, sequential process, into an open, community-driven one.