3. Expanding Access to Published Research Findings: The Finch Report

3.3. Longer term view

Monographs have been on the open access agenda for some time, and there are a number of research projects underway investigating the opportunities.  There is little mention of monographs in the Finch Report, but the emergence of open publishing for books and monographs through platforms such as Open Book Publishers, Open Library of Humanities, and OAPEN can only help to move these opportunities forward.

The repository community asserts it still has a significant role to play in the Open Access movement, and in scholarly communication: that this is not, and should never be, limited to the collection of grey literature and research student theses.  Whilst there is no reason why these publications should not continue to be collected, institutions are best placed to collect all the publications of their research communities, reflecting the multi- and inter-disciplinary nature of the institution. 

Additionally, repository managers and developers should look to work at a national and international level to syndicate content in order to provide simple mechanisms to search and retrieve openly accessible content, making this the primary source of research publications in preference to the paid-for resources, thereby enabling that ‘inexorable’ shift to open access.

There is also a role here for Libraries in the better aggregation of research publications regardless of the source, providing simple services to enable researchers to stay up-to-date on the current literature in their field.