ABSTRACT
This book is about the relationship between theory and practice in the domain of open access. In writing it we have two aims. First, we aim to cast light on the increasingly important phenomenon of open access (OA) publishing and dissemination of research outputs by focusing on an aspect of the OA phenomenon that has to date received little attention — how theory has been used to understand it and inform activity around it. Open access — where content is “digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions” (Suber, 2012, p. 4) — has been examined using various theoretical approaches, and we aim to understand more about how this has been done, and why it is important. Second, we aim to explore the relationship between theory and practice, a relationship often characterised as a “gap”. OA is examined here, in many respects, as a case study of the theory-practice relationship.
