Written by John Willinsky, Pacific Press Professor of Literacy and Technology at the University of British Columbia and Open Journals Systems Software developer, the eighth book in the Digital Libraries and Electronic Publishing series (edited by William Y. Arms) provides a compelling and convincing argument in favor of open access. At the core of this work is Willinsky's "access principle," a commitment that "research carries with it a responsibility to extend circulation of such work as far as possible and ideally to all who are interested in it and all who might profit from it" (p. xii). One by one Willinsky tackles the obstacles, both real and perceived, to open access, succeeding in his goal to "inform and inspire a larger debate over the political and moral economy of knowledge" (p. xiv).
The author does note the irony of publishing a book while advocating for open access, but points out that he does so to reach a larger audience. Willinsky also points out that most of the chapters' earlier versions can be found in open-access journals and on his Web site (http://www.lled.educ.ubc.ca/faculty/willinsky.htm). The Access Principle is organized topically into thirteen chapters covering a broad range of practical and theoretical issues. Taken together, these chapters provide the reader with an excellent introduction to the open-access debate as well as all the potential benefits and possible impacts of the open-access movement. The author also includes six appendices, with information on metadata and indexing, over twenty pages of references, and an index. Willinsky begins his case for open access by discussing how open access began, pinpointing 2003 as the breakthrough year as top journals and newspapers all heralded open access as a top story resulting from the beginning of PLoS Biology from the Public Library of Science. Willinsky goes on to describe the history of open access, and puts open access in context in the academic and economic sphere. People new to the open-access debate will find this discussion a useful backdrop for the rest of the book.
The chapters on access and copyright are particularly pertinent for librarians. In chapter 2, Willinsky looks at how the increasing price of journal subscriptions has stripped library budgets, so that even the big research libraries cannot afford to keep pace with journal prices, much less smaller colleges and universities. He also discusses the influence of open access on things like impact factors and increased citations for authors. In chapter 3, Willinsky discusses the role of copyright in an open-access world. He argues that copyright law actually aids openness