Will the coronavirus slow open access – and is the answer different for books and journals?

Abstract

We got to talking about life, the pandemic and everything and became intrigued about the different state of play around open access (OA) for books and journals and how it all might evolve. We had been surprised to hear speculation that OA might slow down even further as a result of Covid-19. However, this was not what we were seeing from our perspectives working with journals and learned society publishers (Alicia), and working with books and small university presses (Frances). So, we decided to collaborate on a short article to explore this and in the process have clarified our own thinking. We share it with Insights readers as an opinion piece.

Keywords

• open access
• covid-19
• plan s
• opening the future
• transformative agreements
• gold oa