Open Access: OA and the Humanities

Although the open access movement has made big strides for publishing articles, conferences and other formats, open access book publishing is a different landscape. This disproportionaly affects those in the humanities, because monographs and book chapters are a cornerstone of research output. Other factors that affect the humanities open access book publishing include diverse languages, a requirement for maininting the integrity of the text format, inclusion of third party materials, copyright, low levels of grant funded research, and less collaborative research groups. The current OA model also emerged in the sciences, so is build to suit those disciplines.

But, publishing books open access is possible, this page outlines the routes available and key resources.

Books, monographs and book chapters can be made open access using the same routes used for journal articles - Green, Gold or Diamond.

Green Route

For the green route, authors publish as normal with a pubisher. They then make either the 'Version of Record' or the 'Author Accepted Manuscript' of their work available on an open access repository. The ability to do this will depend on the publisher's policies. The publisher may impose an embargo (waiting period) on when the book can be made open access after publication. The Open Policy Finder can be used to search for publishers' open access policies and embargos. Authors choosing this route should ensure the embargo period meets the OA funder requirements. 

Research Repository UCD could be used to desposit the publication or authors can search OpenDOAR for other open access repositories.

There are no author fees associated with this open access route.

Gold Route

The gold route for books is the same as for journals. Authors choose a publisher that publish open access, they pay a fee, and the publisher will make the work open access on publishing. The work will be will peer reviewed, edited and marketed, as for a print version. Publishers may also make a print copy available.

There are significant fees associated with this open access route. 

Book Processing Charges are applied. At the time of writing these could be between €5,000 and €18,000 (2025) for an open access book. An open access book chapter may cost from €1,500 to €3,000. 

Currently, UCD Library does not have any funding to support authors who choose to publish books or book chapters using the gold route. Some funding bodies allow a portion of their grant to be allocated for open access publishing.

Diamond Route

In the diamond route, authors publish their work with a publisher who does not charge any fees to either the author or reader to access the work. The work is made fully open access, and there may also be an option to have a print version for sale. The work is peer reviewed, edited and marketed by the publisher. The open access version, will be the final 'Version of record.'

There are no fees associated with this open access route.

Diamond publishers are often subsidised by university presses or offer a membership option where institutions or libraries can pay a fee. Examples of diamond publishers include Open Book Collective, OECD, Open Book Publishers, OpenEdition, and Open Humanities Press. Visit the open access directory's list of OA book publishers.

The OAPEN Toolkit below has additional information on publishing via this route.