A National Consortium for Open Academic Books in Sweden: An investigation funded by National Library of Sweden, Swedish Research Council and Riksbankens Jubileumsfond

2. Concluding recommendations 2.1 Overall Academic books, particularly those published in Sweden and publically funded, should be made available via an open access version; Academic books should undergo an independent peer-review process; A national consortium should be set up that organizes a peer-review process for academic books and provides guidance on open access publishing; A consortium must work closely with existing publishing channels such as commercial publishers, Acta series and university presses; Peer-review should be single blind (i.e. reviewers are anonymous to authors but not vice versa) with two independent reviewers. New developments in peer-reviewing should be monitored for future potential application to academic books; We recommend that the consortium should be the responsibility of Swedish Research Council (SRC). We recommend that authors pay ca 10 000 SEK (non-refundable) for a peer review process; the remainder of the cost of the consortium should be covered as part of a national infrastructure; We recommend that publishers not be paid an extra sum to publish an OA version of a book, in recognition that they get peer review done cost-free; 2.2 Recommendations for National Funders National funding agencies should require for books that they support a freely accessible version and that the book has undergone independent peer review. We recommend funding agencies to increase the printing subsidy by 10 000 SEK to cover the cost of the peer review. It could also work if the 10 000 SEK could be included in project funding (or applied for separately in cases where project money comes from, e.g., a university and publishing subsidy from another source). A publishing subsidy of this nature would be in line with funders taking responsibility for the entire workflow associated with a project, from initiation to dissemination and ensuring high-quality output; Implementation of the first point also requires that someone takes central responsibility for the infrastructure required to allow an OA possibility for academic books (i.e. a national consortium for open academic books as outline here). Our suggestion is that this responsibility is taken by SRC, in their already given assignment to be Sweden’s national coordinator for OA. The issue of elite international publishers is going to require extra consideration in the short term. They do not generally offer an OA option (at present) yet resulting books are considered highly prestigious by univer