Summary This book brings together many of the world's leading open access experts to provide an analysis of the key strategic, technical and economic aspects on the topic of open access. Open access to research papers is perhaps a defining debate for publishers, librarians, university managers and many researchers within the international academic community. Starting with a description of the current situation and its shortcomings, this book then defines the varieties of open access and addresses some of the many misunderstandings to which the term sometimes gives rise. There are chapters on the technologies involved, researchers' perspectives, and the business models of key players. These issues are then illustrated in a series of case studies from around the world, including the USA, UK, Netherlands, Australia and India. Key Features 1. Chapters by leading experts in the field, including Professor Jean-Claude Guédon, Clifford Lynch, Stevan Harnad, Peter Suber, Charles Bailey, Jr., Alma Swan, Fred Friend, John Shipp and Leo Waaijers 2. Discussion of open access from a wide range of perspectives 3. Country case studies, summarising open access in the USA, UK, Netherlands, Australia and India Readership This book will be of interest to anyone involved in the communication of academic research, including publishers, librarians, university managers, learned societies, research funders and academics. Contents Part 1: Open Access - History, Definitions and Rationale Overview of scholarly communication - Alma Swan (Key Perspectives Ltd., UK) What is open access? - Charles W. Bailey, Jr. (University of Houston, USA) Open access: a symptom and a promise - Jean-Claude Guédon (University of Montreal, Canada) Economic costs of toll access - Andrew Odlyzko (University of Minnesota, USA) The impact loss to authors and research - Michael Kurtz (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, USA) and Tim Brody (University of Southampton) The technology of open access - Chris Awre (University of Hull, UK) Part 2: Open Access and Researchers The culture of open access: researchers' views and responses - Alma Swan (Key Perspectives Ltd., UK) Opening access by overcoming Zeno's paralysis - Steven Harnad (Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada, and University of Southampton, UK) Researchers and institutional repositories - Arthur Sale (University of Tasmania, Australia) Part 3: Open Access and Other Participants Open access to the research literature: a funder's perspective - Robert Terry (Wellcome Trust, UK) and Robert Kiley (Wellcome Library, UK) Business models in open access publishing - Matthew Cockerill (BioMed Central, UK) Learned society business models and open access - Mary Waltham (Publishing Consultant, USA) Open all hours? Institutional models for open access - Colin Steele (Emeritus Fellow, ANU, Australia) Part 4: The Position Around the World DARE also means dare: institutional repository status in the Netherlands as of early 2006 - Leo Waaijers (DARE Programme, the Netherlands) Open access in the USA - Peter Suber (Earlham College, USA) Towards open access to UK research - Frederick J. Friend (Scholarly Consultant, JISC, UK, and Honorary Director of Scholarly Communication, UCL, UK) Open access in Australia - John Shipp (University of Sydney, Australia) Open access in India - D. K. Sahu (Consultant Paediatrician and CEO Medknow Publications, India) and Ramesh C. Parmar (Consulting Paediatric Cardiologist, India) Part 5: The Future Open competition: beyond human reader-centric views of scholarly literatures - Clifford Lynch (Coalition of Networked Information, USA) The open research web - Nigel Shadbolt, Tim Brody, Les Carr (University of Southampton, UK) and Steven Harnad (Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada, and University of Southampton, UK) Links, bibliography, index