Like most institutional imprints, the Université Libre de Bruxelles has published plenty of books that have long since gone out of print, left to languish in campus libraries and professors’ private collections. Until now, that is: The university is giving those texts second lives by recasting them as open-access e-books.
About 20 books are already available on the press’s Web site, and more are forthcoming.
Not surprisingly, Peter Suber of Open Access News is all for the idea. Presses that are reluctant to offer open-access versions of new books should follow the Brussels university’s lead, he says, to get their feet wet in online publishing. “Creating an open-access edition of an out-of-print book is a small investment with large gains for the author, for readers, and for the press,” he writes.
It seems like a sensible idea. Are many other university imprints heading down the same path? —Brock Read
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