Open Access Monographs

["Colin Steele" <Colin.Steele@anu.edu.au>]

With reference to Sandy's and others recent comments about 
Athabasca and leaders, could one again try to balance the North 
American flavour of the list, by saying that Professor Ian Chubb, 
our former Vice Chancellor and now the Chief Scientist of 
Australia deserves to be mentioned for his establishment of the 
ANU E Press in 2003.  ANU E Press publishes between 50-60 titles 
a year, all of its eBooks are available free through its website 
and the reader may choose to purchase a Print-On-Demand version 
of the book. ANU has over 3 million eBook downloads a year. The 
ANU E Press website is at: http://epress.anu.edu.au'

The current top ten is, in terms of downloading.  It's been 
interesting for the E Press to note the varied geographical 
spread of downloads for each title.

ANU E Press Top 10 most popular eBooks in 2010

1.Ethics and Auditing - 93, 627

2.The Islamic Traditions of Cirebon - 77, 400

3.Aboriginal Placenames - 64, 964

4.Aboriginal History 33 - 59, 322

5.Myanmar-the state, community and the environment - 54, 769

6.China: Next Twenty Years of Reform and Development - 49, 105

7.Islamising Indonesia - 43, 502

8.TA 28 - New Directions in Archaeological Science - 41, 676

9.Anomie and Violence - 40, 245

10.Dictatorship, Disorder and Decline in Myanmar - 39, 044

This is not the time to re-engage with Stevan Harnad on OA 
monographs, but there is a growing OA monograph trend which the 
Australian E Presses continue to promulgate.  Given the limited 
distribution globally of a print academic monograph, often quoted 
sales of 200-300 copies with 200 remainder, then e-OA versions 
have an ability (with POD as required) to disseminate scholarly 
knowledge much more widely than is currently the case, 
particularly where trade "university publishers" increasingly 
have to eschew academic content.

Best

--------------------------------------------------------------
Colin Steele
Emeritus Fellow
Copland Building 24
Room G037, Division of Information
The Australian National University
Canberra  ACT 0200
Australia

Tel +61 (0)2 612 58983
Email: colin.steele@anu.edu.au