Open Access for Books offers an overview of publishers' book policies to help authors and research organisations make informed and confident decisions in open access publishing and meeting funders' guidelines.

The new feature has been launched with 20 publishers, with more to be added in the Spring 2024 following further refinement based on user feedback.

The Sherpa services, including Open Access for Books feature, is under active development and feedback from our users is invaluable. Please contact us help@jisc.ac.uk (adding Beta Sherpa Services Feedback in the subject field). You can also join the Sherpa user group to contribute to making it better for all.

How to use Open Access for Books

To find your chosen publisher's open access policy for books, select ‘Publisher’ in the search bar on the home page.

Choose the required policy for monograph, edited collection or chapter and scroll to the version of the manuscript you wish to view - published, accepted or submitted. The listings will appear only for the versions included in the publisher's policy.

Useful information

Typically publishers offer a direct open access route with a charge payable to the publisher (sometimes referred to as gold open access). These are displayed as ‘paid’ routes in the results.

Publishers also often offer a self-archiving policy (sometimes referred to as green open access) with some restrictions such as an embargo period and a limited number of permitted repositories. These are displayed as ‘self-archiving’ in the results.

Please check with your institution regarding funding for open access - many publishers will have agreements with universities that will enable authors to publish open access through schemes such as subscribe to open, diamond open access or many other models.

Open Access for Books is intended as a reference guide. We encourage authors to read their funder's and publisher's open access policies to ensure that they fully meet their guidance.