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Bloomsbury announces pilot collective-action funding model for Open Access books
Bloomsbury has announced ‘Bloomsbury Open Collections’, a pilot collective-action funding model for Open Access books.
The publisher said Bloomsbury Open Collections seeks to improve equity in scholarly publishing by spreading the cost of Open Access publications across multiple organisations, while providing private benefits to participating libraries. According to Bloomsbury, it is the first commercial publisher to pilot such a model, and this approach aims to "reach and engage a more diverse set of authors, bringing their work to a wider global audience".
An "alternative to more traditional Open Access models," which typically rely on an individual or their funder or institution paying a fee (or ‘book processing charge’) to cover the costs of publishing, this collective-action approach seeks to spread the cost more equitably across multiple institutions.
By taking this approach, Bloomsbury’s goal is to enable Open Access publication for research communities that may otherwise have limited or no means to access them. In this way, the publisher seeks "to open up important new research and publishing opportunities for these scholars".
In its pilot year, Bloomsbury Open Collections aims to make research from the Global South more widely available, and to make Open Access publishing an option for more authors from the region. If the pilot is successful, 20 academic titles in African studies and international development will be made Open Access immediately on publication due to collective funding from institutional libraries. The titles are due to publish between March 2024 and February 2025, and include works from Bloomsbury’s Zed Books imprint.
Ros Pyne, global director of research and Open Access at Bloomsbury, said: “Bloomsbury has long been committed to Open Access for scholarly books in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, but we recognise that the prevailing fee model excludes many researchers. By leading with African Studies and International Development for our collective-action Open Access pilot, we hope to showcase the voices of a number of new authors from African countries, while also addressing local accessibility challenges.
"If the pilot is successful, it is our intention in future years to expand Bloomsbury Open Collections to support more of our authors and subject communities.”
Libraries will be requested to pledge funds between now and December 2023. Participating libraries will receive 12 months’ access to 194 backlist books in African studies and international development to benefit their researchers, and are guaranteed perpetual access to the 20 titles on publication, regardless of whether the funding required to flip the collection to Open Access is achieved.
Since starting as an Open Access book publisher in 2008, Bloomsbury’s Academic division has grown to have one of the largest Open Access book portfolios, with several hundred titles available. The publisher said it "is committed to evolving its programme as well as adapting to change as the demand for Open Access increases".
