The changes we have seen in recent years in the scholarly publishing world - including the growth of digital publishing and changes to the role and strategies of publishers and libraries alike - represent the most dramatic paradigm shift in scholarly communications in centuries. This volume brings together leading scholars from across the humanities to explore that transformation and consider the challenges and opportunities it brings.

Open Access has evolved into the most complex challenge of the scholarly publishing landscape and something libraries grapple with on a regular basis. But although librarians hold increasingly positive perceptions about OA, including its richness of unique content and immediacy of access, many lack the understanding, training, documentation, and knowledge of best practices that would allow them to engage with it confidently. This book helps to fill that gap, using a holistic approach that walks readers through the steps of integrating OA resources into library collections and supporting OA initiatives irrespective of budget, institution type, collection size, and staffing. Explaining definitions and models of OA, types of OA support, the tensions between free-to-read and libre OA, and other key topics, from this book readers will learn

• the origins and growth of OA, how to define it, and some of the ways in which librarians have made connections to OA;
• where OA diverges from the historic role of library collection development policies and ways to bring OA into alignment with an institution's collection development principles and practices;
• real-world examples of how libraries have supported or integrated OA into their collections, including strategies for selecting and activating OA titles and collections for inclusion, offering open educational resources (OER) to students, samples of collection management workflows, and ideas for aligning collections with institutional repositories or other Green OA initiatives;
• guidance on financially supporting OA content, initiatives, and platforms;
• how OA publishing does and does not harmonize with diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; and
• tips for using ongoing assessment and evaluation to continuously support the library’s path to an open future.

Many in the world of scholarship share the conviction that open access will be the engine of transformation leading to more culture, more research, more discovery, and more solutions to small and big problems. This collection brings together librarians, scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and thinkers to take measure of the open access movement. The editors meld critical essays, research, and case studies to offer an authoritative exploration of

• the concept of openness in scholarship, with an overview of how it is evolving in the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia;
• open access publishing, including funding models and the future of library science journals;
• the state of institutional repositories;
• Open Educational Resources (OER) at universities and a consortium, in subject areas ranging from literary studies to textbooks; and
• open science, open data, and a pilot data catalog for raising the visibility of protected data.