Book Talk: Publishing Beyond the Market
Virtual; December 4, 2025 at 10am PT / 1pm ET; REGISTER HERE Join author Samuel Moore in conversation with Heather […]
Big Ten Open Books: An Interview with Kate McCready (BTAA) and Charles Watkinson (UM)
Authors Alliance has had a longstanding interest in helping authors see their older books reinvigorated with new life by making them available online for free on an open access basis. One of the most exciting initiatives working on OA for backlist books is the Big Ten Open Books program. This post is based on a set of questions I posed to Kate McCready (Program Director for Open Publishing, Center for Library Programs at the Big Ten Academic Alliance) and Charles Watkinson (Director of University of Michigan Press and Associate University Librarian for Publishing at the University of Michigan) about what the program is and how it works.
Open? When Site Restrictions and Clauses Undermine Open Access
Open access publishing has transformed the way research circulates. In principle, open access means that anyone, anywhere, can read and reuse scholarly work without financial, legal, or technical barriers. But in practice, many works labeled as “open” are quietly constrained by restrictions that limit how they can be used, especially by machines.
Institutional Repositories and AI Scraping
We recently received a question regarding the AI scraping of Institutional Repositories, by which we mean online digital archives that
IMLS and DOE Policy Overview & FAQ Webcast
This event has passed. You can watching the recording here. On October 1 at 2pm ET / 11am PT, SPARC
AI, Open Science, and the Future of Research Integrity: An Interview with Alison Mudditt of PLOS
Below is an interview with Alison Mudditt, CEO of PLOS (Public Library of Science) discussing the impact of AI on publishing
AI and Copyright: What Authors and Libraries Need to Know about the Bartz v. Anthropic and Kadrey v. Meta Cases
Join ARL and Authors Alliance for an essential discussion on how recent landmark court decisions are shaping the landscape of AI and copyright law. This webinar is open to the public.
An Updated NIH and Publisher Guidance: What Authors Need to Know about NIH’s Public Access Policy
In June, we published an FAQ for authors and librarians to give some guidance on how they might respond to NIH’s accelerated implementation of its public access plan, which requires immediate availability of sponsored research articles upon publication. Our FAQ from June is still good advice, but since then both the NIH and several publishers have updated their guidance and so we are giving some additional information about the latest here.
Federal Agency Publication & Data Sharing Policy Overview & FAQ Events
In response to the 2022 Nelson Memo, federal agencies are required to update their public access policies by the end of this year. New policies are now in effect for several agencies: the NIH, CDC, AHRQ, DOE, and NASA. On August 5th at 1pm ET / 10am PT, Authors Alliance and SPARC will host a webcast focusing on new publications sharing requirements, providing an overview of key elements of these policies, highlighting the differences between them, and answering participants’ questions. You can register for the August 5th event here.
The NIH Public Access Policy: Implementation and Feedback
The NIH Public Access Policy is in effect as of July 1, 2025. In response, Authors Alliance and SPARC have created a form to collect information about challenges or questions faced by authors, librarians and their institutions in complying with the roll out of new public access policies by federal grant making agencies in compliance with the OSTP directive to make federally funded research freely available to the public immediately upon publication.