Open access book output has doubled in two years, supporting Springer Nature’s commitment to open research.
Springer Nature has reached a new milestone in open access (OA) publishing with the release of its 1000th open access book. With 84 million chapters downloaded across the portfolio, the company is advancing discovery by offering the possibility to publish scholarly books open access so they can be immediately and freely accessed by readers worldwide.
As the largest OA publisher, Springer Nature launched a dedicated OA book programme in 2012 to give authors the opportunity to publish scholarly books OA. Six years later, in 2018, the OA books programme comprised 500 OA books with over 30 million chapter downloads. Only two years later, the total OA book output has now doubled, and the number of chapters downloaded nearly tripled.
The 1000th open access book, Health of People, Health of Planet and Our Responsibility: Climate Change, Air Pollution and Health, includes a wide range of cross-disciplinary views regarding the health impacts of climate change. It brings together health care professionals, climate scientists, social scientists and humanities researchers, and theologians and political leaders and includes contributions from four Nobel Laureates.
“Reaching the milestone of 1000 open access books is a proud moment for us. Open access increases the visibility, readership, and impact of scholarly books, and we are delighted to be at the forefront in helping more authors benefit from this, given the important role books play in scholarly communication,” says Ros Pyne, Director, Open Access Books and Book Policies at Springer Nature.
Springer Nature offers its open access books across a wide range of areas in science, technology, medicine (STM), and the humanities and social sciences (HSS) with a diverse array of book types including monographs, edited collections, reference works, and proceedings. Springer Nature’s preferred licence for OA books is CC BY, and authors retain copyright over their work.
Springer Nature has been publishing academic books and textbooks for over 175 years and is using its experience and expertise, along with its investment in new technologies and initiatives, to drive forward the publishing and reading experience. Springer Nature was the first to offer all of its books in electronic format, alongside the print version.
