I received the offer to review this book with some trepidation. Although active as an Open Access advocate, I have neither a scholarly background as a researcher and student of scholarly communications, nor a background in the humanities, which forms the disciplinary home for most contributors. I feared a long screed of very complicated terminology with little obvious relevance to those, such as myself, having a background in mathematics and natural sciences. Also, I have been suspicious of the motives of those who study ad nauseam issues such as open access without doing anything to change the world for the better.
In summary, I am glad that I accepted the offer. This book makes a distinct contribution, and its structure of short and very varied chapters contains a wealth of interesting content that should be of interest to anyone with even a passing interest in open access and scholarly communications more generally. I cannot envisage many readers going through the entire book in detail – it is more suited to dipping into one chapter at a time, allowing serendipity to do its magic and breaking the reader out of the algorithmically enforced filter bubbles that threaten to isolate us all.
The editors explain their purpose clearly:
… pithy, shorter chapters that would serve as introductions to different perspectives, as gateways to alternative approaches
coupled with a historical approach. They have succeeded admirably. The book has six sections, described under the headings of Colonial Influences, Epistemologies, Publics and Politics, Archives and Preservation, Infrastructures and Platforms, and Global Communities. These sections comprise 25 chapters each by a different authorial team. The introduction by the editors is very good, and contains an elegant and insightful description of the economic difficulties underlying public goods such as scholarly publications, by means of a parable about conference talks. There is an excellent glossary and list of abbreviations and acronyms, unfortunately essential for anyone reading about scholarly communications these days.
The variety of material is impressive and the writing overall clear and interesting, although every reader will find exceptions to that last claim. The historical approach is very useful and will extend the relevance of this book. Almost every chapter contains something new and interesting to me. The chapters that I found most valuable may give an idea of the breadth of topics covered: John Willinsky surveying the history of copyright, back to England in the late 17th century and the Statute of Anne in 1710; Martin Eve discussing the need for digital reading of research outputs when faced with a superabundance of possible articles and books to read, and the relation with open access and research evaluation; Aileen Fyfe on the Royal Society’s history as a publisher, and the little-known fact that for most of its 350 years the philosophy of supporting and subsidizing wide access predominated over the more recent approach of using journal sales to subsidize the Society’s other activities; Abel Packer and Dominique Babini surveying Latin American initiatives such as SciELO and Redalyc; Thomas Herve Mboa Nkoudou discussing the many challenges and yet the necessity of implementing open access in an African context. There are contributions discussing trends in peer review, politically sensitive archives, the history of public libraries, and the relevance of a medieval “how-to” manuscript to modern readers.
No book is perfect, and it is necessary to nitpick no matter how good the book is, in order to retain credibility as a reviewer. I was surprised to find some English errors even in the contributions by the editors (what does “comprise” really mean? what is the simple past tense of “to spring”?). I conjecture that the book took substantially longer to finish than expected (of course, Hofstadter’s Law shows that this must happen), which means that some chapters are, while still relevant, no longer at the cutting edge.
A strong theme of the promise and perils of universal open access to scholarly research runs through the volume. It is easily observed that decision-makers in wealthy countries appear to be obsessed with competition, credentials, and prestige, while in, for example, Latin America, the understanding that open access and open scholarship are justified by arguments from social justice and human rights is higher. This book should be particularly valuable for those in Europe and North America without much exposure to approaches in other parts of the world (and often without much interest in them) – give it as a gift to your relevant administrator today!