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The main purpose of the present study is to identify open access e‐book collections in selected digital archives related to social sciences in general and greater Central Asia in particular.

The selected digital archives, which were all rich in Central Asia collections, were searched using different keywords. The first 50 hits were retrieved to identify open access e‐books and their bibliographical details were recorded to complete the present study.

The results reflect that a good collection of open access e‐books is available on Central Asia, and some titles date back to the nineteenth century. The collection includes both “made digital” and “born digital” items. The results further depict that most of these e‐books were published in developed countries like the USA and the UK. These books mostly deal with political science (especially international relations), sociology and economics, and are mostly published by national and international organisations like the US Strategic Research Institute (SRI), Human Rights Watch (HRW), the World Bank (WB), and the World Health Organization (WHO).

The study does not explore the whole worldwide web, but only selected digital archives that have rich Central Asia collections.

The study is very helpful for Central Asian academic communities, worldwide scholars conducting research on Central Asia and library and information professionals serving the academic and research communities of the region.

The study is original research highlighting the role of library and information managers in information discovery and identification. The study is a corner‐stone in information discovery and is very valuable for research, academic and literate communities in this region and other parts of the world conducting research on Central Asia.

A range of different types of electronic texts are being offered to the distributed users of the Open University library, including free out‐of‐copyright texts, online versions of reference works, collections of full text and academic texts from netLibrary. Indications are that they are well used. Some indications of the criteria for evaluating different collections are emerging.

Use of the monograph collection at Swinburne Library is reported for a six year period during which a relegation programme has been in operation. The programme has involved relocating books to stack and discarding. Loan history was the major criterion for relegation. Although 56,000 volumes have been removed from the open access collection of constant size (113,000 volumes) over the period, the number of loans from the open access collection has remained reasonably constant. There are no signs of unduly high demand for titles in the residual open access collection. There are about six calls per year for each 100 titles removed to stack. The same loan history criteria were applied to all parts of the collection in selecting titles for relocation to stack and there are few signs that inconvenience to library users has been greater in some subject areas than others. An attempt is made to estimate the effect of the stack location in itself on inhibiting borrowing. By good fortune titles have been recruited to the category of titles meeting the relegation criteria at a regular rate. The dynamics of this situation are not understood because it has not been possible to demonstrate a regular decline in borrowing with age for books in the Swinburne Library.

This paper seeks to explore how Indian buying firms practise an open book (OB) policy in supplier relationships in three industries, i.e. the vehicle industry, the construction industry and the information technology industry. It also aims to study determinants of open book practices.

Application of the OB policy is operationalised as the nature of open book practices, the extent and stage of data disclosed, the form of data disclosed, the direction of data disclosed, the attitude towards cost data disclosed, and the purpose and conditions of data disclosed. Determinants of the open book policy comprise characteristics of the exchange, the product, the buyer, the supplier and the supply market. Qualitative data were collected in the form of 22 interviews with representatives of three buying organisations and several of their suppliers in order to build three case studies.

The results suggest that the OB policy is used by buyers for diverse purposes ranging from strategic to operational, for example value engineering at the product development stage, to ensure supplier margins, for self improvements and cost reductions, and country entry decisions. Similarly, the data shared ranged from narrow to wide in scope and scale. Suppliers' attitudes ranged from fairly neutral to very negative towards open books. Power asymmetries, the number of alternative suppliers, product performance characteristics and value, incentives offered, and buyer efforts were found to influence OB practices.

Experiences gained from employing an OB policy in vehicle manufacturing suggests that firms in other industries can better leverage the use of open books for joint problem solving, equitable profit sharing and supplier selection.

The paper highlights that an OB policy can have broader applicability than recognised by many past studies and indicates that it can serve purposes of strategic decision‐making. It can also be an integrated part of a buyer's risk reduction strategy. Further, the study provides specific recommendations for Indian companies with regard to the application of an open book policy.

Annual book issues from UK public libraries have been decreasing since 1980, due mainly to decreases in issues of adult fiction and, to a lesser extent, adult non‐fiction. This paper describes an analysis of trends from 1980 to 1998 in annual book issues and selected factors that may have caused their decrease. Simple linear regressions were used to test predictors of issues over this period. The factors studied were: decreased funding of public libraries and library book stocks; reductions in opening hours and numbers of public libraries; increased personal affluence and leisure opportunities; and increased book purchases by readers. Significant regression relationships were found between annual book issues and all the factors studied. However, book issues showed the closest relationship to personal spending power, as measured by real households' disposable income, which explained over 96 per cent of the variation in issues. This compared with 92 per cent of the variation in issues being explained by the number of libraries open 45 hours per week, 80 per cent by real consumer spending on books and just 60 per cent by real book spend in public libraries.

As more courses move to online testing, it is important to understand how it can be used to enhance student learning. Adopting online testing strategies which have been documented to be effective (including increasing the frequency of testing, allowing the students to take the test “open book” and allowing the students two opportunities to take each test) may enhance student learning. This study assesses whether adopting these strategies, facilitated by online testing, leads to greater student learning.

I gathered data from eight sections of an undergraduate auditing course in which students in four sections of the class were tested using six online tests taken by the students outside of class. These six online tests were “open book” and allowed the students two opportunities to take each test. Scores from a common final exam are then compared to those from four sections of the same course where three in-class, traditional paper tests were administered. I also surveyed the online test group to gather information regarding their perceptions of online testing.

Students in the online group scored significantly higher on the tests and the final exam. Additionally, the online group reported a positive perception about their experience with online testing.

Online testing did not impair students’ learning, and if the testing environment is designed correctly, online testing may increase student learning.

Instructors considering introducing online testing should consider introducing some of the specific strategies and practical implications described in the chapter to increase student learning.

The present paper is compilation of open access resources in the subject area library and information science (LIS) and their usefulness in the LIS teaching and learning process. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Researcher compiled list by visiting library science department web sites, library web sites, OA forums/blogs, etc.

The library science subject area is rich in various forms of open access literature which is reported in the paper.

One of the first studies to report various forms of open access literature in the library science subject area.

It is one thing to discuss the clauses of a prospective Bill; but to get that Bill through Parliament is a vastly different affair. It was at the Buxton L. A. Conference, in 1896, that the matter was considered, and now, after four years' working and waiting, we have advanced just so far as to have got through the House of Lords “a Bill intituled an Act to amend the Acts relating to Public Libraries, Museums, and Gymnasiums, and to regulate the liability of managers of Libraries to proceedings for libel.” At the present moment this Bill is awaiting an opportunity of coming before the Commons. With this position it must be perfectly familiar, for it was only on account of Lord Avebury's despair at finding no opening for it in the House of Commons that the Association induced Lord Windsor to pilot it through the House of Lords. If the present Parliament lives long enough there is just a chance of the measure being entered upon the statute book; but, with forecasts of an early dissolution confronting us, and with Mr. Balfour's recent announcement of the Government appropriation of private members’ days this session, the prospect is not particularly encouraging. If these slender hopes are not realised, the Bill will be none the forwarder for passing the Upper House; whilst, if it should be so fortunate as to pass the Commons without further amendment, it would at once pass into law. Lord Balcarres has been good enough to take charge of the Bill in the House of Commons, and as it is well “backed,” and has been pruned down by the Standing Committee, and has really nothing of a contentious nature in its provisions, we may reasonably hope that if it once gets a start in the House it will reach a successful finish.

This chapter outlines some theoretical, historical and analytical themes covering national, trans-national and international trends in open education. It starts by looking at the social, economic and political drivers for education systems in general, and how openness has been used to widen access through attacking the iron triangle of education: access, quality and cost (open as a door). It then looks at the more recent technological and ideological developments that have aided openness (open as a book); including the central role that open licensing of digital materials (open as a right) has played in changing the social and economic drivers of education and in particular open educational resources. Next, it looks at the importance of open innovation, social innovation and communities of practice for open education (open as a relationship) and includes a comparison between the development of open source software and the development of open educational resources. It goes on to consider the impacts of all these on national and international policy (open as a border) before reviewing the social and economic role of open education from the perspectives of lifelong learners, students, educational institutions and educational publishers (open for business in the future). The chapter concludes by forecasting possible trends in open education for the next 15 years.

Science policy and practice for open access (OA) books is a rapidly evolving area in the scholarly domain. However, there is much that remains unknown, including how many OA books there are and to what degree they are included in preservation coverage. The purpose of this study is to contribute towards filling this knowledge gap in order to advance both research and practice in the domain of OA books.

This study utilized open bibliometric data sources to aggregate a harmonized dataset of metadata records for OA books (data sources: the Directory of Open Access Books, OpenAIRE, OpenAlex, Scielo Books, The Lens, and WorldCat). This dataset was then cross-matched based on unique identifiers and book titles to openly available content listings of trusted preservation services (data sources: Cariniana Network, CLOCKSS, Global LOCKSS Network, and Portico). The web domains of the OA books were determined by querying the web addresses or digital object identifiers provided in the metadata of the bibliometric database entries.

In total, 396,995 unique records were identified from the OA book bibliometric sources, of which 19% were found to be included in at least one of the preservation services. The results suggest reason for concern for the long tail of OA books distributed at thousands of different web domains as these include volatile cloud storage or sometimes no longer contained the files at all.

Data quality issues, varying definitions of OA across services and inconsistent implementation of unique identifiers were discovered as key challenges. The study includes recommendations for publishers, libraries, data providers and preservation services for improving monitoring and practices for OA book preservation.

This study provides methodological and empirical findings for advancing the practices of OA book publishing, preservation and research.