Publishers of OA books
This list is part of the Open Access Directory.
- This is a list of publishers of OA books.
- As of June 13, 2013, there are 96 publishers on the list.
- When possible, please annotate each publisher:
- to indicate whether it publishers just a line (series, imprint, etc.) of OA books, or whether all its books are OA
- to indicate whether it publishes OA monographs, textbooks, novels, or other kinds of OA books
- to indicate whether the OA books are also offered in priced, printed editions, perhaps print-on-demand (POD) editions
- to indicate when it launched its (different lines of) OA books
- to indicate the licensing terms on its OA books
- to use deep links to the relevant parts of its portfolio (i.e. its OA line of books or its different lines of OA books)
- (If you don't have some of this information, add the entry anyway. Other users can add other details over time.)
- Related lists in OAD: OA book business models
- For real-time news about OA books, including announcements about OA book publishers not yet reflected here, follow the oa.books and oa.textbooks tags of the Open Access Tracking Project. Also see the oa.books.sales tag for studies, news, and anecdotes on whether full-text OA books help or hurt the sales of print editions.
A
- Academy of Science of South Africa Scholarly Publishing Programme
- The Academy of Science of South Africa Scholarly Publishing Programme, born out of a 2008 proposal to the Department of Science and Technology, is “focused on the enhancement of the quality, quantity and worldwide visibility of original, peer-reviewed publications produced by researchers in the public sector.” The current available gratis OA work may be purchased through print on demand.
- Amedeo
- Amedeo "serve[s] the needs of healthcare professionals, including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, administrators, other members of the health professions, and patients and their friends". Among the services Amedeo provides are "weekly emails with bibliographic lists about new scientific publications, personal Web pages for one-time download of available abstracts..., and an overview of the medical literature published in relevant journals over the past 12 to 24 months". Launched in 2006, Amedeo Challege is an imprint of Amedeo that commissions OA books written by medical and health care experts.
- The American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA)
- ASCSA, launched in 2014, began to provide free access to many volumes in the "Corinth", "Athenian Agora", and "Hesperia Supplements" series, which are out of print. The 57 e-books are available as PDFs, which were scanned by JSTOR. Titles are made available under BY-NC-ND Creative Commons licenses. Find additional details here.
- Amherst College Press
- A new digital publishing venture founded by Bryn Geffert, a Librarian of Amherst College, that offers "peer-reviewed books written by leading scholars in the humanities and the social sciences that are then carefully edited and made available for free online". Producing books, or 'scholarly novellas' in "liberal arts disciplines such as political science, literary studies, history, economics and anthropology" in formats that will be suitable for most e-readers, not print editions. Funded by Amherst's Frost Library. Includes a free online version of Amherst's biannual literary magazine, The Common.
- Anticipated to begin soliciting manuscripts in the summer of 2013.
- AMS Books Online
- The AMS Books program of the American Mathematical Society has published "books that further mathematical research, awareness, education, and the profession while generating resources that support other Society programs and activities" since the 1890s. Several titles from AMS's Mathematics History series are OA, for which priced editions are available. See the copyright and permission information.
- Amsterdam University Press
- Amsterdam University Press was founded in 1992, and since 2008 has worked to promote OA publishing efforts; its catalogue is focused on “scholarly and trade publications…in the area of humanities (language and literature, history, film studies, art) and social sciences.” Many of the titles are available through the OAPEN repository; and print-on-demand editions of these works are offered. Creative Commons licensing is used.
- Apress
- Apress is a technology and business trade publisher "devoted to meeting the needs of IT professionals, software developers, and programmers". Like its parent company Springer, Apress offers an open access line of electronic books under its ApressOpen program, launched in 2012. ApressOpen books are underwritten by a sponsoring organization, and print copies are available for purchase.
- Athabasca University Press
- Athabasca University Press is the publishing center for Athabasca University, and is part of the Lois Hole Campus Alberta Digital Library. AU Press publishes the following OA titles, which now include textbooks. The books are available electronically as PDFs, but are also available for purchase in print. All AU Press publications are protected by copyright, and in many cases are licensed through Creative Commons; details thereon are available.
- Atlantis Press
- Launched in 2006, Atlantis Press is a scientific publisher that produces “high quality, peer-reviewed conference articles, journals and books.” Most of the booklist is not OA because, as noted in the vision statement, “we think that there is still a need for publishing books in print”; however, three editions, Activity Recognition in Pervasive Intelligent Environments, Trust Networks for Recommender Systems, and Nonlinear Hybrid Continuous/Discrete-Time Models, are available through Springer Link. Print editions are available for purchase, and Creative Commons licensing is used.
- Australian National University (ANU) E Press
- Launched in 2003 "to advance the intellectual output of the academic community of ANU and associated researchers," the ANU E Press offers an OA collection "across a wide variety of academic disciplines" that is also available for print-on-demand purchase. Authors retain their copyrights, and ANU holds distribution rights; details are available.
B
- Baen Books
- Baen Books is a science fiction and fantasy publisher whose “author(s) can, at their own personal discretion, put up online for free any book published by Baen”; this collection, called the Baen Free Library, has been operational since 2000. These author-submitted titles are gratis OA, with print and electronic versions available for purchase, as well as webscriptions.
- Bauhaus-Universität Weimar University Press. No longer active.
- [Original entry:] The Bauhaus-Universität Weimar University Press operates as a division of the library and publishes print media covering a “wide range of artistic and scientific publications from all four faculties at the university.” The gratis OA titles, which have been published since 2008, can be found here. Priced editions are available for purchase. Copyright and licensing information and conditions of use are available.
- [Update:] In 2014 this entry became outdated. Since January 1, 2014 the University Press is an imprint of the commercial publisher Verlag und Datenbank für Geisteswissenschaften. Open Access contents have been disappeared from the publisher's website but remain available in the Weimar institutional repository (Search: Universitätsverlag).
- Berlin Academic
- Berlin Academic was founded in 2010 by Berlin Verlag and sister company Bloomsbury Publishing. Their first titles are forthcoming, but Berlin Academic will publish both English and German language academic and professional work in the humanities and social sciences. While Berlin Academic has a "special focus on digital developments and Open Access," print on demand and ebooks will be available for purchase. Berlin Academic’s publication models are flexible, and their licensing, based on Creative Commons licenses, is the author's choice.
- Bloomsbury Academic
- Bloomsbury Academic is an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing for OA books in the social sciences and humanities. Most of its books are OA, and all its OA books are also available in print editions. OA editions are published under CC-BY-NC licenses. In 2009, it purchased a back-list of upper level textbooks from Hodder Arnold, and from Duckworth Academic and Bristol Classical Press in 2010.
- Bookboon
- Founded in November 2008, Bookboon.com provides all its customized, European-academician authored publications gratis OA; an e-mail address and name of the state in which user is dwelling is required for access. Advertisements in the e-books are used to generate funding. Bookboon specializes in textbooks, and its holdings cover thirty-one textbook topics; travel guides for six continents; and books covering thirteen business subjects. Terms of Service are available.
- Boundless
- A Boston-based company that uses free, open-source information to rebuild free digital textbooks textbooks published under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license for students.
- Curates "the best free online educational content to cover the same concepts" in a student's assigned textbook and aligns the content to the student's textbook’s table of contents. It provides these alternative online textbooks with interactive features in 18 college-level subjects.
- Works directly with pillars of the Open Educational Resources (OER) community.
- Brill Open
- An offshoot of Brill Publishing, Brill Open allows authors to make their work freely accessible in exchange for a publication charge. Books and articles will be available under a Creative Commons license, either CC-BY or CC-BY-NC. Both books and articles published under Brill and its imprints are applicable, and freely accessible on Brill's Online Books and Journals platform.
- Also publishes four open access journals: Brill Open Biology, Brill Open Humanities, Brill Open Law, and Brill Open Social Science.
C
- Cairn
- In French. Carin.Info is the combined effort of four publishing houses, Belin, De Boeck, La Decouverte, and Eres. It is independent from the publishing house Cairn Editions. They offer both print and e-books. Find details of their OA editions here.
- California Classical Studies
- Launched on October 8, 2012, and supported in its initial phase (2013-2015) by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, California Classical Studies is a publication series based out of The Department of Classics of the University of California, Berkeley. It publishes long-form peer-reviewed scholarship with online open access and print-on-demand availability.
- The series aims to disseminate "basic research, data-heavy research, including archaeological research, and highly specialized research of the kind that is either hard to place with the leading publishers in Classics or extremely expensive for libraries and individuals when produced by a leading academic publisher."
- California Learning Resource Network
- Launched in December 1999 and suspended in June 2014, the California Learning Resource Network (CLRN) supplies “educators with a ‘one-stop’ resource for critical information needed for the selection of supplemental electronic learning resources aligned to the State Board of Education academic content standards,” which includes digital textbooks. CLRN links to external OA textbooks resources, some of which are available as print-on-demand editions.
- CK-12 Foundation
- CK-12, “funded by the Amar Foundation and by Vinod and Neeru Khosla,” produces customizable textbooks for K-12 students. Operating since 2007, the library is currently “focused on math and science for middle-school and high-school students,” but aims to grow in scope and coverage; national curriculum standards are met, and California and Virginia have explored FlexBooks. Print editions are not available, but a print partnership is expected in the future. FlexBooks employ libre OA CC-by-NC-SA licensing, and terms of use are available.
- CLACSO-Latin America Social Science Council
- CLACSO, a network of 346 social science institutions in 25 countries publishes all its 729 books, with only a very few exceptions, and 2 journals, in open access within CLACSO´s digital repository. Mainly books in Spanish and Portuguese, and a growing collection in English, with research results from its member institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean. The books are also offered in priced printed version. The OA collection started in 1998. The Argentine copyright law requires in the printed version indicating copyright restrictions, but CLACSO adds, in the following line, a statement indicating that the full-text is available in CLACSO´s digital repository which has a CC-BY-NC-SA licence for its contents.
- Co-Action Publishing
- Founded in January 2007, Co-Action Publishing is a for-profit company whose aim is to provide fair-priced services to societies wishing to pursue scholarly, open access publishing, while developing "...an international list of scholarly Open Access journals and books for a global audience" (Co-Action Publishing, 2011). Additionally, Co-Action Publishing maintains relationships with funding agencies to help societies acquire the financial resources they need to pursue their OA publishing endeavors. Co-Action Publishing has also created an online guide to provide groups key knowledge on how to launch and operate scholarly, open access journals. Co-Action provides publishing, administration, consulting, training, and peer-review services for books, journals, meeting minutes or conferences, dissertations, and more. Available journals and books are listed. Copyright and licensing details are provided.
- Collaborative Books Project
- A collaborative textbook publisher, the Collaborative Books Project (Collabooks), allows for anyone to edit and contribute to their textbooks. Collabooks focuses one four main categories of books: how-to, medicine and health, science, and philosophy, and there is a subset of the knol.gooogle.com beta service that allows people to self-publish articles through the website. Though all knols are available to the public for free, it is unclear that anyone has created a Collabook for distribution at this point. Licensing information is provided.
- College Open Textbooks
- College Open Textbooks is an entirely OA, Creative Commons licensed provider of peer-reviewed textbooks. The project is funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and is supported by a large consortium of academic, non-profit, and governmental institutions. The booklist is available here. There does not appear to be a print-on-demand pay service; the CC licensing allows users to print off their own physical copies. See also CCCOER, below.
- Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER)
- CCCOER is a large consortia that provides open access digital textbooks. Many of the books are libre OA, licensed under Creative Commons, but they also offer gratis OA material that is free to read online. The content is generally intended for use in community college courses. The group is part of the College Open Textbooks service, which carries peer-reviewed open textbooks.
- Computers and Composition Digital Press
- Founded in 2007, in the spring 2008 the Computers and Composition Digital Press became affiliated with The Institute for the Future of the Book, and in the fall of 2008 the press became an imprint of the Utah State University Press. From its call for papers c. June 2008 (now offline, but quoted from a blog post at OAN): "The mission of Computers and Composition Digital Press (CCDP) is to ensure open access to information for scholars worldwide and to provide a venue for the Web publication of peer-reviewed scholarly projects in a wide-variety of forms (ranging from primarily textual/verbal ebooks to integrated multimedia projects incorporating video, audio, animation, etc.)..." Available titles are listed, and copyright and licensing policies are addressed.
- Cornell University Library
- The Internet-First University Press, launched in January 2004, is an OA repository collection at Cornell University. The university-related scholarly titles are available electronically “without fees or restrictions on personal use”; permissions and licensing information is available from Cornell University's Digital Consulting & Production Services. Print on demand is supported by Cornell Business Services (CBS) Digital Services.
- Signale is a joint venture of Cornell University Press and Cornell University Library launched in 2010. The book series publishes works on “modern German letters, cultures, and thought”; some of the titles are available gratis OA, and print editions are available for purchase.
- Cotsen Institute Archaeology Press
- The Cotsen Institute is a research organization that specializes in "the creation, dissemination, and conservation of archaeological knowledge and heritage." Their press, operating since 1975, publishes academic titles in nine series, and one digital series hosted on the University of California's eScholarship site; "[o]ut of print books that are older than five years are gradually made available for free download". They currently offer full-text downloads of 14 publications, published between 1986 and 2011. Print on demand copies are available for a fee.
- Counterpress
- Launched in August 2013 (see further details here), Counterpress is an open access publisher associated with the website, Critical Legal Thinking (CLT). Counterpress publishes law and critical theory titles with their goal being to provide "critical legal scholars, allied theorists, philosophers, and other trans/inter-disciplinary academics an alternative to traditional book publishers." While printed books will be available at traditional and online bookstores, e-book versions will be provided on a pay-what-you-can basis, and a full open access option will be made available.
D
- De Gruyter Open Access
- Some 45,000 e-dition titles from the publishing house's backlist can be made freely accessible at De Gruyter Online under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. For €1,500 or $2,100 customers can purchase an e-book in the same standard as a work produced normally through De Gruyter's e-dition program. It is "directed first and foremost at libraries and research institutes, and a discount is offered when multiple titles are purchased simultaneously", and authors can choose to make their previously published works available as Open Access.
- The Open Access model is available for all publications released in 2004 or earlier and which are not available in any "Best Of" packages.
- Diane Publishing
- In September 2006, Diane Publishing “made all of its titles in Google Book Search 100 percent viewable.” These gratis OA Diane Publishing works include government documents and reports. Print copies may be purchased directly from Diane Publishing, along with the remainder of the titles they distribute. Google’s terms of service apply.
E
- Eagle Editions
- Eagle Editions is an imprint of scholarly books from the University of North Texas Libraries. All titles are gratis OA, and many are libre OA through various Creative Commons licenses. Many titles are available for purchase in print, e-book formats, or both. It was launched (as gratis OA from the start) in late 2014.
- Eclipse
- Eclipse is both a publisher and an archive of “radical small-press writing,” noted in in 2007 OAN and hosted by the University of Utah. The collective OA works may be found by title or author. No print options are listed, and licensing and terms of use are not addressed.
- eLangdell Press
- Supported by the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI), eLangdell Press publishes free, open eBooks for legal education.
- Published through CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 and CC BY-SA 3.0 Creative Commons licenses.
- Eldritch Press
- This site is no longer updated, and as a result many of the links do not work. The live book links are now made available through links to the Web Archive. These titles are in the public domain and are distributed with Creative Commons licensing.
- European Geosciences Union (EGU)
- The EGU is the largest scientific association in Europe for the geosciences and planetary and space sciences, founded in 2002 as a merger of the European Geophysical Society (EGS) and the European Union of Geosciences (EUG). The EGU offers quality scientific discussion and publications written by more than 60,000 scientists worldwide for free access on the Internet. EGU Open Access publications are listed here. All OA publications are available under Creative Commons Attribution Licensing.
F
- Flatworld
- Flatworld offers free textbooks online as well as print-on-demand softcovers, audio books, and chapters, as well as self-print options. Released in conjunction with professors who in turn offer the links to their students, Flatworld titles are listed here. Terms of use are discussed.
- FlexBooks
- FlexBooks allows the user to create a fully customized, standards-aligned, free digital textbook for grades K-12. After registering, the site allows the user to select chapters to create a customized book, name the work, and then share it. FlexBooks will automatically reorganize chapter numbering. FlexBooks are published under CC-BY-NC-SA licenses (see the foundation's terms of use).
- Flying Publisher
- Flying Publisher is an online publisher of medical guides, books, and articles. This material is made available to the public free of charge through the websites Amedeo, Free Books 4 Doctors, and the Flying Publisher websites. In addition, printed copies of the material are available for a fee through Amazon. Authors are asked to submit articles or guides of no more than 75 pages.
- Fordham University Press
- Since 1907, Fordham University Press has published works on the "humanities and the social sciences...[the] metropolitan New York region and books of interest to the general public." In the fall of 2009, the press partnered with Fordham's Walsh Library to create an OA Electronic Books collection in Digital Research@Fordham, the university's institutional repository. Print editions are available for purchase.
- Fountain Publishers Limited
- Fountain Publishers, “one of East Africa’s leading publishing houses with over 1000 titles in school textbooks, academic, general, fiction, tourism, children and local language books,” started experimenting with gratis OA books in 2009, and currently offers a few such titles, which address "health and welfare" and "government and public administration" topics. Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND licensing is used with these works, and print versions are available directly from Fountain Publishers.
- Free High School Science Texts
- The Free High School Science Texts project aims to promote science education in South Africa by providing free science and math textbooks, written by volunteers, to students; the latest releases, from September 2010, are available as PDFs here. The books are offered under the GNU Free Documentation License and are royalty-free.
- Free Press
- Free Press publishes “writing of all kinds - any language, any style, genre or subject matter, experimental or traditional, unpublished or previously published.” Initially launched in August 2006 as “a project of artist Sal Randolph,” Free Press accepted submitted works "from September 16 to October 15, 2006". Following the exhibit, "the Free Press site will remain, and people will be able to download books and order print copies" from Lulu.com. All of the titles are libre OA, and Creative Commons licensing is used.
- French Creek Press
- French Creek Press is a “a print-on-demand publishing and technical communications house catering to the needs of the high-tech industry and independent authors” that has been operating since 2009. Its OA series, “eBooks of the Classics,” serves as a sample for users to explore ebook functionality with the provided titles. Print on demand is only available for French Creek Press’s author list, and licensing is not addressed.
- FullBooks.com
- FullBooks.com hosts “thousands of full-text free books,” of classic works. It is an ad-supported site that was created in 2004 and is owned by Advameg. Licensing is not noted and print editions are not available.
G
- Gluejar
- Launched in January 2012, "Gluejar works with rights holders to determine a good price for ungluing their book". Titles that meet the required goal of the rights holder through crowdfunding are then made available under Creative Commons licensing. Details of the model are available and evolving.
- Goa, 1556
- Goa, 1556, launched in 2007, publishes Goa-related nonfiction. About half of its booklist is available OA through Google Books, and all of the titles may be purchased as print editions. Goa, 1556 “supports the principles of copyleft, sharing information and knowledge, and following alternative modes of publishing,” and as such works with their authors to encourage the use of open licensing, often through Creative Commons.
H
- Hamburg University Press
- Per Google Translate, Hamburg University Press “publishes selected works of scientists from the University of Hamburg as well as other scientific and science-related institutions.” Since 2007, all of the titles have been gratis OA, though print-on-demand editions are available for purchase. Creative Commons licensing may be used by the author.
- Hikari Ltd.
- Hikari Ltd. is a Bulgaria-based publisher of peer-reviewed OA journals and monographs specializing in mathematics, physics, engineering, and biology. The publisher offers online OA only; print-on-demand service is not available. Publication fees are the main source of funding. The website does not give any copyright or permissions information. A full listing of their journals and monographs leads users directly to the OA content.
- HSRC Press
- HSRC Press publishes high-quality social science research, both the "output of the Human Science Research Council and externally authored works.” In 2004 the press switched to a hybrid publishing model. Since then, most titles are available as either gratis OA or print-on-demand editions. Licensing terms are not discussed.
I
- Indiana University Press Online
- Established in the spring of 2009, Indiana University Press Online provides gratis OA to some of Indiana University Press's scholarly book titles; several collections are available: "African Studies; African American and Diaspora Studies; Bioethics; Jewish and Holocaust Studies; Military History; Music; Philosophy; Reference; Religion; Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies; and United Nations Intellectual History". Print editions of all titles are available for purchase through Indiana University Press. Terms of use are provided.
- The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW), NYU
- ISAW was founded to support research in the ancient world, and publication—in print, online, and in person—is one of the key ways we share our research methodologies and findings with both other scholars and the general public. This page describes some of publications that have been produced by ISAW or under its sponsorship. As outlined in the faculty statement on assessment of research (PDF), we aim for quality and long-term accessibility in all our research outputs, regardless of medium, while embracing collaboration and both traditional and new forms of review and assessment..
- InTech (also known as Sciyo, see below)
- InTech is an OA publisher of science, technology, and medical books and journals for research. It has published more than 1600 books, and twelve scientific journals, which are freely available online or download in PDF format under Creative Commons license, since 2004. It recently released InTechOpen.com to host Intech's OA publications.
K
- Knowledge Unlatched
- In October 2013 the Knowledge Unlatched "Pilot Collection" launched. This collaboration with Open Access Publishing in European Networks resulted in 28 Creative Commons-licensed titles from 13 participating academic publishers. Libraries may buy print or electronic versions of the work, but the business model relies instead on institutions pitching in to pay for the first-copy costs of the participating publishers (see details here).
L
- Language Science Press
- Publishing open-access, peer-reviewed books about linguistics, Language Science Press started in August 2012. The imprint grew out of the OALI Open Access initiative, coordinated in Berlin by Stefan Müller out of Freie Universitat Berlin. The press publishes several catalog series. Titles are freely available as PDFs and print-on-demand services are available for a fee. Books are published under Creative Common's CC-BY license by default.
- Libertas Academica
- Founded in 2005, Libertas Academica publishes and provides free downloading of open access, peer-reviewed articles and journals that pertain to the fields of medicine, technology, and science; books will be forthcoming in 2012. On the Industry Reprint and Royalty Services page, Libertas Academica discusses their partner who can provide fee-based, discounted reprints, and a purchasable "Rights to reproduce." Copyright and terms of use are discussed.
- Linköping University Electronic Press
- Focused on research materials from Linköping University and the Region Östergötland, Linköping Electronic Press provides PDF full-text versions of all OA titles. They also publish Ph.D. these, books, research articles, reports, chapters, and student work. Book authors retain copyright in their work.
M
- MediaCommons Press
- MediaCommons Press is an “all-electronic scholarly publishing network focused on the field of media studies,” and as such print availability is not discussed. Launched in 2009, MediaCommons Press publishes libre OA work “from article to monograph length.” Its current booklist and its copyright policy are noted.
- Medrounds Publications
- Since 2005 Medrounds has published medical “high-quality teaching materials.” The gratis OA titles, which are predominantly ophthalmology related, may be found here either as "Featured titles" or under the “Online resources” tab. Some titles may be purchased in print form, and terms of use are available.
- Meson Press
- Run by the Hybrid Publishing Lab at Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Meson Press focuses on peer-reviewed Open Access monographs that deal specifically with "digital cultural studies and networked media". They "experiment" with OA titles and "hybrid formats and novel collaborative methods such as book sprints". Their current title, "Rethinking Gamification" was published in June 2014 and is available under CC-BY-SA licensing as an OA PDF or as a print title from Amazon. Both the Hybrid Publishing Lab and Meson Press are projects at the Centre for Digital Cultures.
- MIT Press
- MIT Press has experimented with publishing OA books with parallel print editions. Recent support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation helped to underwrite the MIT Press Series on Digital Media and Learning, which "examines the effect of digital media tools on how people learn, network, communicate, and play." Most titles in the series are libre OA, with priced printed editions available.
- Monash University Publishing
- In September 2010 Monash University ePress was recast as Monash University Publishing. This transition focused the press' output "on open access publishing, particularly but not exclusively of scholarly monographs." All of the titles, which focus on "the humanities and social sciences," are available as gratis OA and may be purchased in print. Copyright remains with Monash University Publishing, details of which may be found here.
N
- The National Academies Press
- National Academies Press publishes OA monographs on medicine, engineering, and sciences. The titles are also available to purchase in print form. The NAP began selling PDF book downloads in 1996, and 2011 they lifted the pay wall. All titles are protected by all rights reserved copyright. PDF files may not be shared without permission from the publisher. In order to maximize the impact of their work, however, NAP encourages readers to share the unique URL to the book with their colleagues.
O
- The Ohio State University Press
- The Ohio State University Press' Open Access Initiative has digitized more than 80 books and has made them available as free PDFs. Generally no longer available as print editions, these books may be used for any non-commercial purpose.
- Ontos Verlag
- As a participant in AGORA: Scholarly Open Access Research in European Philosophy, focusing on "research in Open Access of philosophical books in different business models," Ontos Verlag has offered an OA series, ontosOpen, since October 2010. The series titles focus "on Analytic Philosophy in general and the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein in particular," and are available in German and English. Authors may publish OA or convert their TA titles to OA under this series, and the experiment is exploring "hybrid and delayed open access models." Registration is required and terms of use are provided.
- Open Access Publishing in European Networks (OAPEN)
- Open Access Publishing in European Networks (OAPEN) provides free, peer-reviewed, open access e-books (monographs), and edited volumes pertaining to the social sciences and the humanities found here. Further still, OAPEN uses various Creative Commons licenses to provide authors with the means to direct the usage and further dissemination of their works (i.e., attribution, third parties use, commercial use, and derivative works). Terms and conditions and copyright details are available.
- Open Book Publishers
- Founded in 2008 at the University of Cambridge, Open Book is a nonprofit publisher of peer-reviewed, academic books. The books can be viewed online for free (via Google Books), while digital PDF editions and POD paperback and hardback editions are available for purchase. They are licensed under the CC-by-NC-ND license for England and Wales.
- OpenEdition Books
- A web platform for books in the humanities and social sciences. More than half of their books are available as OA HTML editions; POD PDF and ePub are also available. Founded in February 2013, the publisher plans to have 1,000 books available by Summer 2013. This catalogue will expand by 2,000 extra books each year. Some titles include series by the Centre d’études et de documentation économiques, juridiques et sociales and C. H. Beck.
- Open Humanities Press
- Open Humanities Press was established in 2009 in partnership with University of Michigan's Scholarly Publishing Office to publish open access monographs and make them available online. The site currently hosts a small number of journals as well as books.
- OpenStax College
- OpenStax College is a nonprofit organization offering free textbooks developed and peer-reviewed by educators primarily from Rice University. It is an initiative of Rice University and Connexions, supported by the Hewlett, Gates, Twenty Million Minds Foundation, and Maxfield Foundation. The five initial textbooks (1 May 2012) proposed were Introduction to Sociology, Biology, Concepts of Biology, College Physics and Anatomy and Physiology.
- Open SUNY Textbooks
- A collaborative effort “established by State University of New York libraries and supported by SUNY Innovative Instruction Technology Grants,” Open SUNY Textbooks launched in 2012, with the first titles becoming available in October 2013. The fully OA series is produces textbooks. Current work may be found here, with forthcoming work listed here. Titles are available as free PDF, EPUB, and iBook downloads, with priced versions occasionally available through Amazon. Open SUNY Textbooks use CC-NA-SA licensing.
- O'Reilly Media
- O’Reilly Media publishes media and technology books. Its libre OA series Open Books, which was launched in 2003, is a partnership with the Internet Archive and Creative Commons. Print editions of these works are available. The series has “use[d] various open licenses,” but since 2003 Creative Commons licensing has been used.
- The Oriental Institute, University of Chicago
- On October 27, 2004, the faculty of the Oriental Institute, led by Director Gil J. Stein, unanimously voted to issue all new publications both in print and online, printed copies to be sold and online copies to be free, and all older titles to be processed for complimentary download from the Institute’s website as time and funds permit. The project was completed October 1, 2013, with the Publications Office gathering together more than 700 titles, 128,000 files, in 510 gigabytes of data. We are certain the complimentary worldwide distribution of 700+ titles would very much please James Henry Breasted.
- OTexts
- Created by Rob J. Hyndman of Monash University, Australia and Souhaib Ben Taied of Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, OTexts provide free online textbooks. Although all titles and related exercises are currently freely available, OTexts plans on implementing a subscription-based service at some point in the future. Books are not downloadable, but instead are available online only, through any browser and on any device. Authors retain full copyright and are free to publish elsewhere. Revenue obtained from subscriptions will be shared with the authors.
P
- PaperC
- PaperC is an open source library developed in Germany by Felix Hofmann and Martin Frohlich in 2009. It currently offers over 11,800 "academic, reference and technical texts" ebooks for free (which are OA for a limited time per book) to registered users. Users can also create a personal online library. A premium service allows users to download, annotate, copy, or print content by page. Content is available in over 12 languages, including English, German, French, and Spanish.
- Palgrave Open
- An offshoot of the academic publisher Palgrave MacMillan, Palgrave Open gives authors the option to publish OA journal articles, Palgrave Pivot publications (mid-form research), and monographs. These works can be made OA immediately upon publication, with associated fees. OA content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, and is available through Palgrave Macmillan's journals website and ebook platform, Palgrave Connect.
- Paradise Publishers
- Paradise Publishers is an umbrella company that encompasses two digital publishers and one e-commerce site: Foboko, Free-ebooks.net, and One Smart Cart. The books are uploaded and published through Foboko, and free samples and full-work downloads are available to registered users on Free-ebooks.net. This is a self-publishing platform that draws revenue from ads placed in the books, and as such the books are not necessarily suited for an academic environment.
- Pennsylvania State University Press (PSUP)
- Metalmark Books. A series of "facsimile editions...of out-of-print, public domain works that hold a significant place in Pennsylvania’s rich literary and cultural past," Metalmark Books are the product of a collaboration between the PSUP and the Pennsylvania State University's Office of Digital Scholarly Publishing. Print on demand editions are available, complementing the online editions.
- Romance Studies. A series of peer-reviewed OA monographs on "the languages, literatures, and cultures of the Romance languages". The books are also available in priced, POD editions. PSUP experimented with OA chapters in 2008 before deciding to offer full-text OA editions. The books are gratis OA, without open licenses; see the series' terms of use page.
- Pickering & Chatto
- Pickering & Chatto established an OA policy by which authors may publish monographs and book chapters under CC-BY-NC licensing. Such titles will be available for purchase as electronic and print versions from Pickering & Chatto. Authors (or funders) will receive a digital file of the work, which they may make openly available as they choose. APCs are levied on OA titles, the cost of which depends on page count.
- Polimetrica
- Polimetrica publishes textbooks and monographs on the pure, applied, and social sciences, and publishing and open access. All of the titles may be previewed on Google Books. Print editions of the entire booklist are available, and licensing is addressed in the company’s “manifesto”.
- Potto Project
- Potto Project was created by Dr. Genick Bar-Meir and friends in 2005. The Project's intention is to build Open Source Software (OSS) and open content textbooks on fluid mechanics for college students. The open content is available online or downloadable under GNU Free Documentation License.
- Pratham Books
- Launched in 2004, Pratham Books publishes “good quality affordable books” for schoolchildren in Indian and English as part of their Read India Movement. The libre OA collections are also available as print editions. Pratham Books uses Creative Commons licensing.
- Punctum Books
- Punctum Books is an open-access and print-on-demand independent publisher dedicated to radically creative modes of intellectual inquiry and writing across a whimsical para-humanities assemblage. They publish both journals and books (under various imprints). The books are published under CC-BY-NC-ND licenses.
- Purdue University Press
- Purdue University Press publishes books and journals on topics “including business, technology, health, veterinary sciences, and other selected disciplines in the humanities and sciences.” The gratis OA booklist is available through Purdue e-Pubs, but may also be purchased in print editions. Licensing terms are discussed.
Q
- QScience.com, Open Access
- An online publisher that publishes journal articles under a Creative Commons 3.0 CC-BY license. As of April 2013, QScience also publishes OA ebooks which can be accessed through the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB).
- And off-shoot of Qatar Foundation Publishing, and a member of the Qatar Foundation.
- It has published a white paper about the OA movement.
R
- Rand Corporation
- A nonprofit with a mission "[to] help improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis," RAND "disseminates its research findings as widely as possible to benefit the public good." RAND publishes gratis OA monographs, which are available for purchase in print form. Permissions information is provided, and RAND retains copyright.
- re.press
- re.press is an Australian based company, which seeks to publish "rigorous" OA books in philosophy. It uses an OA license that allows for the greatest possible dissemination of their authors' works. See its policy here. Hard copies of the titles are available for sale.
- Rice University Press
- Relaunched in 2006, after having been defunct since 1996, Rice University Press published an all-OA collection that was available for POD purchase. In 2010, Rice University Press was closed once again, due to financial constraints. Titles are still housed in Connexions to be read as the online editions, and may be purchased in print form from Qoop.
S
- Saylor Academy
- Launched in 2008 as “a free education initiative of the Saylor Foundation”, Saylor Academy was “awarded $80,000 to make four college textbooks available to the public through the Open Textbook Challenge”. Since 2011, Saylor “released five college-level textbooks under Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licenses”. Titles are available in PDF, HTML, EPUB, iBook, and DOCx format. Saylor also links to titles published by other vendors.
- SciELO Livros (Scientific Electronic Library Online)
- An electronic library covering a selected collection of Brazilian scientific journals.
- Part of a project being developed by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), in partnership with the Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information (BIREME). Supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) since 2001.
- Sciyo (previously known as In-Tech, see above)
- Sciyo is an open access publisher in the field of science and technology. Sciyo's database features free scientific books, journals, and videos; the booklist is available here. As their website states: "It's free for everyone, anywhere in the world so long as the original author(s) and source are correctly credited." All publications are published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license. Authors are charged 470 euro (as of 2010) and there is a peer review process for publication. See an interview by Richard Poynder, The OA Interviews: Sciyo's Aleksandar Lazinica, 12 February 2010.
- Siyavula
- A project, born of the Nguni word for “we are opening”, that aims to transform education in South Africa by providing free, open and curriculum-aligned educational resources, formerly supported by The Stuttleworth Foundation, with an aim for supporting open education and technology.
- Provides free online resources, EverythingMaths, EverythingScience and natural Sciences and technology workbooks, Thunderboltkids.
- They publish their textbook content under the terms of the Creative Commons By-Attribution license.
- Society of Biblical Literature
- Society of Biblical Literature's International Cooperation Initiative (ICI) "provides free electronic access" to their titles on "biblical scholarship" to users (identified by IP address) in developing countries. The complete booklist is provided, but select works are available here and here to all users, regardless of geographic location. Print editions are available for purchase. Licensing terms and the Society of Biblical Literature's OA policy are addressed.
- Springer Open
- Springer, a publisher of science, technology and medical materials, offers a fully open access option for books, extending Springer’s SpringerOpen, BioMed Central journals, and its Springer Open Choice option. Any electronic version of a SpringerOpen book is fully and immediately OA, and freely accessible on SpringerLink.
- Springer's OA is licensed though their Full SpringerOpen Access license agreement, which is identical to the Creative Commons Attribution License.
- Springer started incorporating OA lines in August 2012, and is a sponsor of the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB).
- Stockholm University Press
- Stockholm University Press (SUP) is an open access publisher of peer-reviewed academic journals and books. In partnership with our authors and series editors, we publish work within the humanities, social sciences and the natural sciences. Our main focal points are rigorous peer review, open access, affordable publishing and global dissemination.
- SUP published its first books and journals in late 2014 and early 2015. It is a publicly financed non-profit operation where the main goal is to provide public access to scientific results in multiple formats, both nationally and internationally. SUP is a part of Stockholm University Library, and a member of the Ubiquity Partner Network.
T
- Texas A&M University Press Consortium
- Since 1974, Texas A&M University Press Consortium has published work covering "agriculture, anthropology, nautical archaeology, architecture, borderland studies, economics, military history, natural history, presidential studies, veterinary medicine, and works on the history and culture of Texas and the surrounding region." An OA series, the Carolyn & Ernest Fay Lecture and Book Series in Analytical (Jungian) Psychology, was established in 2009 "to further the ideas of C. G. Jung among students, faculty, therapists, and citizens." These works are available either through the University's repository or as a print-on-demand edition through the press.
- TU Ilmenau Press
- In 2007 TU Ilmenau Press began publishing dual editions of the output of the Technische Universität Ilmenau’s affiliated authors. Gratis OA works are available through Digitale Bibliothek Thüringen, and print editions are available through Monsenstein und Vannerdat. Licensing is discussed here.
U
- UCL Press
- After University College London "repatriated" the UCL Press imprint in 2013, it became an open access publisher of journals, monographs, textbooks, conference proceedings, and re-publications. The website was launched in June 2015, though all titles published by the UCL Press are also available through UCL's repository service, UCL Discovery. Paid for print-on-demand options are available, in addition to the OA electronic versions. Some titles also have HTML-based enhanced online versions- also available via UCL Press's website
- United States Government Printing Office
- As of February 2014, the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) in conjunction with the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), has expanded its eBook program to include free access to federal publications. U.S. Government Publications are available through the catalog. The eBooks are available in PDF, Mobi, and ePub versions. The main goal of this expansion is to "provide the public with greater access to Government information in multiple formats." Find details of the expanded program here.
- University of Adelaide Press
- The University of Adelaide Press is the OA imprint of the now-divided University of Adelaide Barr Smith Press. Launched in October 2009, all of the titles, which are monographs or edited collections of "the University's intellectual and scholarly output,” are gratis OA; conditions of use are available here. Print on demand editions of the titles may be purchased.
- University of California Press
- The University of California Press E-Books Collection, 1982-2004, established in 2000 as the eScholarship initiative and managed by the California Digital Library Publishing Group, has published a large OA digital library of about 2,000 books for UC faculty, students, and staff; about 25% of these titles are available as OA editions to the general public. The books are copyrighted to the Regents of the University of California. Print editions are available for purchase. The titles in the collection were published between 1982 and 2004 by UC-based scholars, with topics ranging from humanities, art, and religion to the sciences.
- eScholarship was launched in October 2009 and is now operational as the "open access publishing and dissemination service for the University of California." A booklist is available, as is print on demand, and copyright and licensing details are provided.
- FlashPoints is a gratis OA series for a "broad audience within the humanities and the social sciences concerned with moments of cultural emergence and transformation." Copyright remains with the Regents of the University of California, and print ePub editions are available for purchase.
- University of Chicago Oriental Institute Publication Program
- In 2004, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago launched an Electronic Publications Initiative, which provided gratis OA to all of their subsequent titles. Print editions are available for purchase, and the backlist is slated to be digitized, which would make the entire catalog OA. Copyright and permissions information is detailed.
- University Press of Florida
- In September 2009, the University Press of Florida and Florida's Orange Grove repository, "an online library of openly available instructional resources for Florida's educators," partnered to offer OA scholarly monographs and textbooks from the University Press of Florida. Print on demand editions are available, and copyright is open under Creative Commons Licensing. Titles may be browsed here.
- University of Georgia Press
- The Georgia History Ebook Project was announced March 26, 2011. The project is a collaboration with the Digital Library of Georgia and makes early and seminal works on Georgia’s history and culture available as free downloadable PDFs. The books are gratis OA, without open licenses. Print editions are for sale from the press.
- University of Heidelberg’s Cluster of Excellence: “Asia and Europe in a Global Context” and University of Heidelberg Library
- The University of Heidelberg’s Cluster of Excellence: “Asia and Europe in a Global Context” and University of Heidelberg Library have teamed up to produce Heidelberg Studies in Transculturality, an OA “book series dedicated to the humanities and social sciences”. The forthcoming titles will be freely available in HTML, PDF, and ePub versions; POD editions will be available for purchase. Find additional details about the launch of the program here.
- University of Michigan Press
- The Digital Culture Books imprint of the University of Michigan Press publishes open access Creative Commons titles in the field of critical media studies. Books are free to read online and available to purchase in print or as offline e-book editions. The imprint has published more than 20 books since being founded in 2006. Digital Culture Books is created with the assistance of MPublishing, part of the University of Michigan Press.
- University of Minnesota - Open Academics
- The University of Minnesota's College of Education and Human Development has created an online textbook catalog "in an effort to reduce higher education costs", through various Creative Commons licenses.
- The catalog currently lists 84 open textbooks
- University of Pittsburgh Press, Digital Editions
- In 2007 the University of Pittsburgh Press partnered with the University Library System to establish Digital Editions, the gratis OA series. The available titles are digitized works from “the Pitt Latin American Series, Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies, and Composition, Literacy and Culture"; print editions are available for purchase. Rights and permissions are discussed here.
- University of South Carolina Press
- AccessAble Books, a collaborative imprint between University of South Carolina Press and the University of South Carolina Libraries, provides gratis access to books that are "important out-of-print volumes of scholarship and regional history." Titles are available as a University of South Carolina Libraries digital collection, and may be purchased through the University's press.
- University of Tennessee Libraries, Newfound Press
- Following its launch in 2005 as an imprint of the University of Tennessee Libraries, Newfound Press publishes “scientific research, humanistic scholarship, and artistic creation.” The OA booklist is available in print-on-demand editions through the University of Tennessee Press. Creative Commons licensing is used for this imprint.
V
- Versita
- Science publisher, Versita is part of the De Gruyter publishing group. (For more information about De Gruyter's OA policies, see its OAD entry, above)
- Versita started publishing society journals in the journal-pays open access model in January 2013 and has subsequently launching its own journals and books in the author-pays model.
W
- Wikibooks
- Wikibooks is a Wikimedia community for creating a free library of educational textbooks that anyone can edit. Set up almost exactly as Wikipedia, the content is in various languages. There are over 37,000 books that can be viewed by subject. Books are in wiki format (see the example on Art History). Creative Commons and GNU Free Documentation licensing is used. Print copies are not available.
- Worldreader.org
- Worldreader.org is a nonprofit group with a mission "to make digital books available to all in the developing world." Through partnerships with numerous organizations and private donors, Worldreader.org provides e-readers loaded with discounted and gratis OA titles to "underserved areas and underprivileged peoples." Publisher sponsors and individual authors have donated work, and Worldreader.org supplements these titles by digitizing books from African publishers that are then sold electronically, and in turn receives these "textbooks and storybooks" to distribute gratis OA to program participants.
Y
- Yashar Books
- Yashar Books publishes materials that relate to Orthodox Jewish scholarship. Its Open Access Project aims to develop Torah scholarship through open access to essays, articles, and books. These are available on the site as downloadable PDFs.
Z
- Zeta Books
- An arts and humanities publisher, Zeta books offers and OA option called Open Access Zeta (OAZ), through which "authors are offered the option to make their article/chapter publicly and freely online available against a article processing charge of 850 Euro per article or chapter".
- Zeta's OA option is available for all journals and book series published under the Zeta Books imprint.