Knowledge Unbound: Selected Writings on Open Access, 2002-2011

by Peter Suber, Robert Darnton (Foreword by)

Overview

Influential writings make the case for open access to research, explore its implications, and document the early struggles and successes of the open access movement.

Peter Suber has been a leading advocate for open access since 2001 and has worked full time on issues of open access since 2003. As a professor of philosophy during the early days of the internet, he realized its power and potential as a medium for scholarship. As he writes now, “it was like an asteroid crash, fundamentally changing the environment, challenging dinosaurs to adapt, and challenging all of us to figure out whether we were dinosaurs.” When Suber began putting his writings and course materials online for anyone to use for any purpose, he soon experienced the benefits of that wider exposure. In 2001, he started a newsletter—the Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, which later became the SPARC Open Access Newsletter—in which he explored the implications of open access for research and scholarship. This book offers a selection of some of Suber's most significant and influential writings on open access from 2002 to 2010.

In these texts, Suber makes the case for open access to research; answers common questions, objections, and misunderstandings; analyzes policy issues; and documents the growth and evolution of open access during its most critical early decade.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262329569
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	04/06/2016
Series:	The MIT Press
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	456
File size:	685 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Peter Suber, a leading theorist of open access and a prominent voice in the OA movement, is Director of the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication, Director of the Harvard Open Access Project, Faculty Fellow at the Berkman Center, Senior Researcher at SPARC, and Research Professor of Philosophy at Earlham College. He is the author of Open Access (MIT Press), named by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2013.

What People are Saying About This

Endorsement

Peter Suber brings great philosophical insight into the world of scholarly communication, meticulously building the case for open access and mercilessly (though always calmly) demolishing any cant or obscuration deployed against it. This book offers a distillation of almost a decade of his deepest thinking about the potential for scholarly communication in the twenty-first century.

—David C. Prosser, Executive Director, Research Libraries UK

From the Publisher

Peter Suber draws together here his rich legacy of reflections, insights, and projections about what he had originally dubbed 'Free Online Scholarship' (FOS). FOS has since become the worldwide Open Access movement, of which Suber is the de facto leader. Knowledge Unbound shows how Open Access is no longer just about accessibility but about usability: exploiting the full creative potential unleashed by the online medium yet still unrealized today because of entrenched paper-based habits, institutions, and boundaries, from which Suber is still struggling to help free us.

—Stevan Harnad, Université du Québec à Montréal and University of Southampton; author of the 1994 “Subversive Proposal”

Peter Suber brings great philosophical insight into the world of scholarly communication, meticulously building the case for open access and mercilessly (though always calmly) demolishing any cant or obscuration deployed against it. This book offers a distillation of almost a decade of his deepest thinking about the potential for scholarly communication in the twenty-first century.

—David C. Prosser, Executive Director, Research Libraries UK

David C. Prosser

Peter Suber brings great philosophical insight into the world of scholarly communication, meticulously building the case for open access and mercilessly (though always calmly) demolishing any cant or obscuration deployed against it. This book offers a distillation of almost a decade of his deepest thinking about the potential for scholarly communication in the twenty-first century.

Stevan Harnad

Peter Suber draws together here his rich legacy of reflections, insights, and projections about what he had originally dubbed 'Free Online Scholarship' (FOS). FOS has since become the worldwide Open Access movement, of which Suber is the de facto leader. Knowledge Unbound shows how Open Access is no longer just about accessibility but about usability: exploiting the full creative potential unleashed by the online medium yet still unrealized today because of entrenched paper-based habits, institutions, and boundaries, from which Suber is still struggling to help free us.