Opening the future: a new model for funding Open Access monographs

We outline the work of two university presses, with assistance from the COPIM Project, in building an innovative revenue model to fund Open Access (OA) monographs at a traditional publisher. Building on library journal subscription models and on Knowledge Unlatched's approach to monograph funding, this OA publishing model (called “Opening the Future”) gives members special access to a backlist, with the revenue then used to make the frontlist openly accessible. We examine the general landscape of OA and funding models and discuss some of the challenges and benefits