The profits of free books: an experiment to measure the impact of Open Access publishing

293

Learned Publishing, 23:293301

doi:10.1087/20100403
The profits of free books: an experiment to measure the impact of Open Access publishing
Ronald Snijder
LEARNED PUBLISHING VOL. 23 NO. 4 OCTOBER 2010

The profits of free

ntroduction

The dissemination of scientific knowledge through paper books is challenged

by economic factors, as scholarly publishers are faced with a decline in sales.
Considering these restrictions, open access
(OA) publishing may be an alternative way
to disseminate scholarly books that would
otherwise not have been published. Amsterdam University Press (AUP) is a strong
believer in OA, and decided as research on
the effects of OA publishing on academic
books is scarce to conduct an experiment
using 400 titles that it published.
AUP is an academic publisher, mainly of
books in the field of humanities and social
sciences. It also publishes several journals in
paper and in electronic form. AUP is owned
by the University of Amsterdam and works
on a not-for-profit basis. 1 AUP publishes
around 160 books per year. Apart from
books, AUP publishes several journals, some
of which are published both on paper and
online, some as online OA e-journals. AUP
is currently co-ordinating a project called
OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) wherein several academic
publishers are working together to develop
an OA business model for monographs in
humanities and social sciences, combined
with the creation of an OA library.2
The experiment was designed to provide
an answer to the following research question: what are the effects of changes in
accessibility and dissemination channels on
the scientific impact of academic books?
This research question can be broken down
into smaller questions:

books: an
experiment to
measure the
impact of open
access publishing
Ronald SNIJDER
Amsterdam University Press
ABSTRACT. This article describes an experiment
to measure the impact of open access (OA)
publishing of academic books. During a period of
nine months, three sets of 100 books were
disseminated through an institutional repository, the
Google Book Search program, or both channels. A
fourth set of 100 books was used as control group.
OA publishing enhances discovery and online
consultation. Within the context of the experiment,
no relation could be found between OA publishing
and citation rates. Contrary to expectations, OA
publishing does not stimulate or diminish sales
figures. The Google Book Search program is
superior to the repository.

Does OA publishing of academic books

lead to a higher discovery rate? In order to

be used, the publication must be found
first. Opening up the complete contents of
books to search engines should have a
positive effect on this.

Ronald Snijder

Ronald Snijder 2010

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Ronald Snijder

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Does OA publishing of academic books

the experiment
consists of
creating four
equal sets of
100 titles

lead to more usage? This question has several aspects, described below:
Does OA publishing of academic books
lead to more online consultations or
downloads? Disseminating scientific
output is the main goal of academic
publishers and OA publishing may
enhance that.
Does OA publishing of academic books
lead to higher citation rates? An important part of the discussion on OA
publishing of articles focuses on citation
advantage. The question is whether this
effect also can be measured for books
within the experimentation period,
which is very short for citation analysis.
Does OA publishing of academic books
lead to higher sales figures of their paper
counterparts? At this moment, most
readers seem to prefer a paper book
over an e-book for extensive use.
Which channel is best suited to promote
discovery of academic books published as
OA? Traditionally, OA publishing of articles is associated with repositories. For
books, the Google Book Search program
may be used as an alternative dissemination channel.
Does a multichannel approach lead to a
higher discovery rate of academic books
published as OA, compared to using a

single channel? As scholars in the humanities and social sciences tend to use
several channels for finding information,
making OA publications available through
more than one channel may stimulate
their usage.
Setup of the experiment
The experiment consists of creating four
equal sets of 100 titles, where each title is
placed in one of four sets. The different sets
are defined using two variables: accessibility
and channel. Each set is disseminated using
a specified channel and accessibility settings.
For a period of 9 months, starting in April
2009, the effect on discovery, online consultation, sales, and citations is measured.
Discovery and online consultation are measured using the number of views and
downloads from the respective channels. As
all titles are accessible in the Google Book
Search program, the usage statistics help to
determine the interest by readers. Among
the usage statistics are book visits
measuring the number of times the webpage
of the book is accessed and page views,
which measure the number of pages opened.
Furthermore, the AUP repository can deliver
its own usage statistics: the number of times
a record is accessed and the number of
downloads of the digital books stored in the
repository. Sales figures are provided by

Table 1. Accessibility of titles

Fully accessible in Google Book Search

Fully accessible through the AUP repository

Set 1

Set 2

Set 3

Set 4

No
No

No
Yes

Yes
Yes

Yes
No

Set 1: Available as usual. An electronic version of almost all books by AUP is submitted to the Google
Book Search website. By default, AUP allows a user of Google Book Search to see only 10% of the books
contents. The full content of each book is indexed by the Google search engine. The titles in this set are
not uploaded into the AUP repository. The accessibility of this set is the lowest.
Set 2: Freely available via the repository; visible for 10% in Google Book Search. The titles of this set are
uploaded in the AUP repository. For each title, a record is created in the repository database containing
metadata and an electronic version of the book. The visibility settings of Google Book Search are not
changed and remain at 10%.
Set 3: Visible for 100% in Google Book Search and freely available via the repository. The titles of this set are
uploaded in the AUP repository, and the visibility settings of Google Book Search are set to 100%. The
titles in this set are fully accessible through both channels. The accessibility of this set is the highest.
Set 4: Visible for 100% in Google Book Search; not available via the repository. For this set, the visibility
settings of Google Book Search are set to 100%. The books are not placed in the AUP repository.

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The profits of free books: an experiment to measure the impact of Open Access publishing

AUP and citations are measured using the

Google Scholar search engine.
The division of titles can be summarized
as shown in Table 1.
Selection of titles
In April 2009 a selection was made from 893
titles published by AUP which were in print
at that time in order to create the four sets
of titles. To create a useful selection, several
selection criteria were used:
In print and available. The titles must be in

print and remain available through the

period of the experiment. Titles that go
out of print during the period of the experiment cannot be ordered. This would have
a direct effect on sales figures, one of the
aspects measured.
Imprint. AUP uses several imprints, each
with their own characteristics. Furthermore, AUP distributes titles from other
publishers. As AUP does not possess the
right to make these titles freely available,
they are excluded from the experiment.
Available in Google Book Search. AUP
makes almost all its titles available for
searching in the Google Book Search program. Some titles are not placed on the
Google Book Search website, depending
on certain circumstances. These titles are
also excluded from the experiment.
In print in 2008 or before. In the first three
months of publication, sales of a title are
influenced by several factors such as fixed
sales or pre-orders. In order to avoid these
effects, all selected titles are published
before January 2009.
Exclusion of the IMISCOE, ISIM, ICAS,
IIAS series. The IMISCOE, ISIM, ICAS
and IIAS series are already published as
OA. Therefore these titles are excluded
from the experiment, as the effects of
making them available as OA cannot be
measured.

Using these criteria, a list of 412 ISBNs was

created, containing 22 titles which were
published both as a hardback and a paperback book. As this distinction is irrelevant in
the digital domain, 11 ISBNs were removed
from the list. Removing the oldest title
published in 1994 completed the list.

295

Removal of bias
Considerable effort has been put into the
removal of bias. This experiment operates
using four sets of books; therefore these sets
must be as equal as possible. Each of the 400
books is compared using the following criteria: subject, type of work, language, expected
sales, and publication date. To address most
of these criteria the book series could be
used. All titles within one series should contain the same properties: the same language,
type of document, sales expectations, and
subject. This seemed a promising way to
proceed, as more than 70% (283) of the
selected titles are part of a series. Unfortunately, not all series are centred on a broad
subject. For instance the series LUP
Dissertaties, UvA Proefschriften, Amsterdam
Academic Archive, LUP Academic or
Atheneum Boekhandel Canon cover a wide
range of subjects, while language and document type are similar. Other series such as
Film Culture in Transition, Changing Welfare
States, Tekst in Context or Studies over Politieke
Vernieuwing also share a main topic. In order
to overcome this, all titles from a subject-based series were assigned the same
subject codes.
In the AUP database each title is assigned
several subject codes describing the content.
In order to create relatively large groups
with the same subject, the number of subject
codes was reduced. The same principle was
applied to the expected sales. In order to
measure this, the print run of a title was
used. While each individual title may have a
different print run from 0 for printon-demand titles to 6,500 an amount
rounded up to the next 500 was used. This
created again relatively large groups, which
could be evenly divided over the four sets. In
addition, the publication year was taken into
account for the distribution of the titles.
Research results
The research questions were translated into
hypotheses. The experiments data was analysed using ANOVA (analysis of variance)
in order to test the various hypotheses. The
results are summarized in Table 2.
As described before, each set was created
using several properties of the 400 titles in

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considerable
effort has been
put into the
removal of bias

Ronald Snijder

296

Table 2. Hypothesis results

Hypothesis

Result

Hypothesis 1: The discovery of fully accessible titles

is significantly higher, compared to titles which are
not fully accessible.
Hypothesis 2: The online consultation (e.g. pages
read or number of downloads) of fully accessible
titles is significantly higher, compared to titles
which are not fully accessible.
Hypothesis 3: The citation rate of fully accessible
titles is significantly higher, compared to titles
which are not fully accessible.

There was a significant effect of accessibility on

discovery, F(3,3420) = 7.164, P < 0.05, one-tailed.
There was a significant effect of accessibility on
online consultation, F(3,3420) = 37.705, P < 0.05,
one-tailed.

There is not sufficient evidence to support the claim

that the citation rate of fully accessible titles is
significantly higher, compared to titles which are
not fully accessible.
There is not sufficient evidence to support the claim
Hypothesis 4: The sales figures of fully accessible
that sales figures of fully accessible titles are
titles are significantly higher, compared to titles
significantly higher, compared to titles which are
which are not fully accessible.
not fully accessible.
There is not sufficient evidence to support the claim
Hypothesis 5: The discovery of titles disseminated
that the discovery of titles disseminated through
through both the institutional repository and the
Google Book Search program is significantly higher, both the institutional repository and the Google
Book Search program is significantly higher,
compared to titles disseminated through one of
compared to titles disseminated through one of
those channels.
those channels.
Hypothesis 6: The online consultation (e.g. pages
There was a significant effect of accessibility
through single channels compared to multiple
read or number of downloads) of titles disseminated
channels on online consultation, F(3,3420) =
through both the institutional repository and the
37.705, P < 0.05, one-tailed.
Google Book Search program is significantly higher,
compared to titles disseminated through one of
There is not sufficient evidence to support the
claim that the number of monthly page view of
those channels.
titles disseminated through both the institutional
repository and the Google Book Search program
is significantly higher, compared to titles
disseminated through one of those channels.
There is not sufficient evidence to support the
claim that the number of downloads of titles
disseminated through both the institutional
repository and the Google Book Search program
is significantly higher, compared to titles
disseminated through one of those channels.

the experiment. Using a multiple-regression

analysis, the effects of those properties on
sales, citation rates, the number of page
views, and the number of download from the
repository were measured. The results are
listed in Table 3.
Discussion of the results
Hypothesis 1 states that the discovery of
fully accessible titles is significantly higher,
compared to titles that are not fully accessible. Discovery was measured as the number

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of book visits in the Google Book Search

programme a title received during the experimentation period. The results of the
experiment confirmed the hypothesis, which
was in line with expectations as both the
library and information sciences and the
field of e-commerce predicted these results.
In the library and information sciences,
direct access is linked to a greater research
impact. In the field of e-commerce, search
costs are part of the transaction costs. Lowering search costs by making the contents of
scientific books fully accessible should have

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Table 3 Multiple regression results

Sales

Citations

Page views

Downloads

R2 (Adj0. R2) R2 (Adj0. R2) R2 (Adj0. R2) R2 (Adj0. R2)

Step 1

0.12 (0.11)

0.04 (0.02)

0.80 (0.79)

0.14 (0.11)

Set 2 vs. Set 1

0.08

0.06

Set 3 vs. Set 1

0.06

0.00

Set 4 vs. Set 1

0.07

Set 3 vs. Set 2

Book visits

0.06

Dutch vs. English

0.07

0.02

PrintRun

0.31**

Year

0.09**

0.02

0.87**

0.10

0.02

0.05

0.04

0.03

0.01

0.09

0.01

0.02

0.01

0.09

0.08

RepositoryViews

0.09**

0.13*

0.11*

German vs. English

0.01

0.01

0.04

0.36**

R2 (Adj0. R2) R2 (Adj0. R2) R2 (Adj0. R2) R2 (Adj0. R2)

Step 2

0.27 (0.18)

0.12 (0.02)

0.82 (0.80)

0.30 (0.13)

Set 2 vs. Set 1

0.07

0.06

0.00

Set 3 vs. Set 1

0.05

0.01

0.09**

Set 4 vs. Set 1

0.07

0.06

0.09**

Set 3 vs. Set 2

Book visits

0.06

0.15*

0.07

0.13*

0.00

0.08

0.02

0.01

Dutch vs. English

German vs. English

0.02
0.84**

0.08

0.11

0.11*

PrintRun

0.28**

0.10

0.01

0.09

Year

0.14*

0.01

0.02

0.02

0.08

0.06

RepositoryViews

Art_History

0.30**

0.02

0.02

Culture

0.02

0.05

0.02

Culture_History_Culture

0.01

0.02

0.02

0.06

0.05

0.07

0.01

0.02

Dutch_Language_Study

0.01

0.03

0.02

0.00

Dutch_Literature

0.05

0.04

0.02

0.01

0.20*

0.05

0.01

0.02

Dutch_Language

Dutch_Literature_History
Dutch_Literature_Education

0.36**

0.09

0.03

0.02

0.03

Economics

0.03

0.00

0.01

0.01

Education

0.05

0.01

0.02

0.01

History

0.08

0.06

0.02

0.06

Information_Technology

0.02

0.01

0.04

0.01

0.03

0.02

0.01

Japan_Culture_History

0.15*

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Sales

Page views

Downloads

Law

0.03

0.03

0.01

0.02

Law_History

0.03

0.11

0.08

0.02

Literature

0.03

0.02

0.02

0.02

Mathematics

0.01

0.01

0.03

0.02

Medicine

0.05

0.02

0.03

0.02

Motion_Pictures

0.04

0.03

0.03

0.05

Music

0.04

0.00

0.07*

0.02

Philosophy

0.05

0.01

0.01

0.02

Political_Science

0.03

0.13

0.05

0.07

Political_Science_Law

0.03

0.02

0.00

0.03

Political_Science_Public_Administration
_Sociology
Psychology

0.14

0.07

0.03

0.01

0.06

0.15

0.01

0.03

Public_Administration

0.02

0.01

0.02

0.00

Public_Administration_Economics_Law

0.04

0.00

0.03

0.01

Public_Administration_Political_Science

0.04

0.01

0.01

0.01

Public_Administration_Political_Science
_Sociology
Public_Administration_Sociology

0.11

0.07

0.02

0.04

0.09

0.03

0.01

0.01

0.05

0.01

0.02

0.05

Religion
Science
Sociology
Theatre
*

Citations

0.00

0.27*

0.01

0.05

0.09

0.06

0.02

0.02

0.03

0.02

0.01

0.03

P < 0.05, **P < 0.001.

a positive effect, which was confirmed by the

results.
Book visits are used as an approximation
to discovery: it was not possible to measure if
a book visit occurred by a new reader or by
a returning reader. Therefore we cannot
state that 78 book visits are equal to 78 new
readers of that title. If we assume that a percentage of those book visits are made by
returning readers, then the differences in
book visits between the sets still convey relevant information on the discovery rate.
Further research is needed to measure the
percentage of new vs. returning readers, and
whether accessibility influences this.
Hypothesis 2 states that the online consultation (e.g. pages read or number of
downloads) of fully accessible titles is significantly higher, compared to titles which are
not fully accessible. The results of the experiment confirmed the hypothesis, which is
again in line with expectations. Online
consultation is of course closely linked to the

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amount of information that is directly available. It should therefore not come as a

surprise that a fully accessible document
receives more online consultation.
Hypothesis 3 states that the citation rate
of fully accessible titles is significantly higher
compared to titles that are not fully accessible. This hypothesis could not be confirmed.
While research on OA articles points to a
higher citation rate, this is not an unexpected result. As writing a book takes
considerably longer than writing an article,
the effects may not be visible within the
experimentation period. Apart from the
period, the number of titles within a scientific field may influence the results. Citation
research usually uses 100 or more articles
that are all connected to the same scientific
field.3,4 The sets used in the experiment do
not contain the same number of related
titles. While it is not easy to place exact
boundaries between scientific fields within
the sets, it is safe to say that the maximum

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The profits of free books: an experiment to measure the impact of Open Access publishing

number of titles rooted in one scientific field

will not exceed 20. Further research using a
larger collection of books over a longer
period may give a more comprehensive
description of the influence of OA
publishing of books on citation rates.
Hypothesis 4 states that the sales figures
of fully accessible titles are significantly
higher compared to titles which are not fully
accessible. The sales figures used were the
monthly number of sales per title. Contrary
to expectations, the hypothesis could not be
confirmed. The data does not suggest any
relationship between accessibility and sales
of academic books. Neither a negative nor a
positive influence could be found.
Using the theory of value creating factors
of e-business firms,5 sales of academic books
are supported by two mechanisms:
complementarities and transaction efficiency. The OA version of an academic
book could be considered to be a vertical
complementarity an extra services provided by the publisher. Prospective buyers
could examine the contents of the book,
before purchasing it. Given the low acceptance of e-books, it does not seem likely that
paper books are replaced in the near future.
Like most publishers, AUP enables online
purchasing of its titles through several
online vendors and its own web shop. The
transaction efficiency is therefore greatly
enhanced, which also should support more
sales. Further research is needed to find the
factors that effect sales figures of academic
books.
Hypothesis 5 states that the discovery of
titles disseminated through both the institutional repository and the Google Book
Search program is significantly higher compared to titles disseminated through one of
those channels. Discovery was measured as
the number of book visits in the Google
Book Search programme a title received during the experimentation period. The
hypothesis could not be confirmed. Again,
this was not in line with expectations based
on the literature review. The information-seeking behaviour of researchers in the
realm of the humanities and social sciences
is described as depending on different channels.6 The combination with research on
multichannel management7 where the use

of multiple channels is associated with

higher sales volumes led to hypothesis 5. A
contributing factor may be the very large difference in performance of the channels. In
the Google Book Search program, the mean
number of monthly book views is 90; in the
AUP repository, the corresponding mean is
4! Both channels are available in an academic environment. At this point it is not
clear whether the large differences between
the dissemination channels is caused by
users outside the academic environment, or
by the searching preferences of researchers.
Hypothesis 6 states that the online consultation (e.g. pages read or number of
downloads) of titles disseminated through
both the institutional repository and the
Google Book Search program is significantly
higher compared to titles disseminated
through one of those channels. Online consultation was measured as the number of
monthly page views a title received in the
Google Book search program combined with
the number of monthly page views and the
number of monthly downloads a title
received in the AUP repository. Here the
results present a mixed picture. Contrary to
expectations and the results of hypothesis 5,
the amount of online consultation through a
single channel the Google Book Search
program is higher than through the combined channels of the repository and the
Google Book Search program. The same
does not hold true for the monthly page
views or the monthly downloads from the
repository: no relation to accessibility could
be established. More research may confirm
or deny whether single channels perform
better than multiple channels.
Conclusions
Research on the effects of free online accessibility of books is scarce, especially the
effects on academic books. This article
describes the first experiment of this scale
that involves sales figures and online consultation. Furthermore, no other research on
the effects of dissemination channels for OA
publishing has been reported. As OA is gaining momentum as a dissemination model,8
there is greater need for knowledge of the
effects it has on all stakeholders. While this

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299

the data does

not suggest any
relationship
between
accessibility
and sales of
academic books

Ronald Snijder

300

while online
usage is higher
for fully
accessible titles,
it was not
translated in
higher sales
figures. The
reasons for that
remain unclear

article is a start, many questions remain

unanswered.
The findings of this article reaffirm the
notion that removing barriers to access leads
to more discovery and more online consultations of publications. Authors profit directly
from OA publishing as it enables them to
spread their ideas to a maximum number of
readers, and helps building their reputation.
Academic publishers also profit from OA
publishing as an efficient means of disseminating scientific knowledge. These effects
can be directly measured, which may be a
useful tool for marketing purposes.
While online usage is higher for fully
accessible titles, it was not translated in
higher sales figures. The reasons for that
remain unclear. As can be seen from the
regression analysis, print run and publications in English have a measurable effect on
sales; also the subjects Dutch Literature
Education and Japan; Culture History
are found to be significant. The print run is
based on sales expectations from the publisher; therefore the relation with sales is
obvious. The larger market for books in English may account for the measured effect.
Furthermore, the books on the subject
Dutch Literature Education are aimed at
secondary schools, where sales to new students may account for the effects. Lastly, the
sales of the books on Japan; Culture History may be the result of remaindering, but
this cannot be confirmed. More important is
the validity of the regression model. The
correlation between sales and the variables
can be measured as a percentage of how
much the variability in the outcome is
accounted for by the variables in the model
(R2). Here, the percentage is 26.8%. Therefore, more than 70% of the sales figures
cannot be explained from the collected data!
At this moment, paper publication seems
to be the preferred format for extensive use.
Due to possibilities created by publishers
web shops and online bookstores such as
Amazon, ordering a book can literally be
done in seconds. Therefore other restrictions
may hamper the sales of academic books.
One of those restrictions may be the lack of
budget in university libraries. If that is the
case, publishing as OA is still useful by making unaffordable books available. This also

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has far-reaching implications for academic

publishers in search of a new business model.
A sustainable business model cannot be
exclusively build on extra sales generated
from OA publishing. Knowing which factors
influence the sales of academic books
paper or online is very useful information
for finding new business models.
Within the experimentation period, the
increased online usage did not lead to a
higher citation rate. This result is not surprising, as the period is relatively short for
scientific disciplines where books instead
of articles are the norm. Furthermore, as
AUP publishes titles on a wide range of scientific fields, the number of titles rooted in
one scientific discipline is small. The regression analysis on citations did reveal a
significant positive effect of book visits.
Although research on OA articles points to
a higher citation rate, the correlation
between citation and the variables in the
regression model (R2) is just 12.3%. Therefore, the results of the regression analysis
should be interpreted with caution.
Research on OA publishing mainly focuses
on articles, and as far as dissemination is
covered, the dissemination channel is an
institutional repository. This channel is, of
course, usable for disseminating OA books,
but publishers can also employ the Google
Book Search program as an alternative. The
difference in performance between the two
channels is large: where the titles in the
AUP repository receive 4 monthly page
views on average, the titles in the Google
Book Search program received 90 monthly
book views on average. In other words: titles
in the Google Book search programs are
viewed on average 20 times more than
titles in the repository. It may come as no
surprise that the regression analysis revealed
a very strong correlation between book visits
and page views combined with accessibility.
In contrast to this, the regression analysis of
the repository downloads did not produce
such clear cut results. A significant effect of
the subject Culture was found, but again
the correlation between downloads and variables in the regression model (R2) is small:
22.7%.
The repository environment is closely
linked to the academic community, while

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the Google search engine is used by almost

all Internet users. This may explain some of
the differences, but at this point not enough
information is available on the information
searching behaviour of scholars in the
humanities and social sciences to understand which channel is used most to
discover and consult online books.

4.
5.
6.

7.

Limitations
For this particular experiment, no models
were available; therefore no best practices
could be assessed for guidance. The sample
(n = 400) is relatively large and in order to
remove bias the titles were placed in different sets using publication year, subject, print
run and language. The properties publication year, subject and print run fall within a
wide range, ensuring that one aspect does
not dominate the results. Nevertheless, all
titles were published by one academic publisher. If certain aspects of a publisher such
as reputation or marketing budget influence the results, these could not be tested in
this experiment. Furthermore, for citation
analyses, the experimentation period is relatively short and the number of titles used is
low. In citation analysis, the period usually
encompasses several years instead of nine
months, while the number of titles within
one scientific field is usually higher than
100. In addition, at this moment no established standard for the scientific impact of
academic books exists, such as set by the
Institute for Scientific Information.
References
1.
2.
3.

AUP. Amsterdam University Press. 2009. http://

www.aup.nl (accessed 26 November 2009).
OAPEN. Open Access Publishing in European Networks. 2009. www.oapen.org (accessed 23 October
2009)
Antelman, K. 2004. Do open-access articles have a

8.

greater research impact? College & Research Libraries,

65(5): 372382.
Eysenbach, G. 2006. Citation advantage of open
access articles. PLoS Biol, 4(5): e157.
Amit, R. and Zott, C. Value creation in e-business.
Strategic Management Journal, 2001;22:493520.
Shen, Y. 2007. Information seeking in academic
research: a study of the sociology faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Information Technology
& Libraries, 26(1): 413.
Neslin, S.A. and Shankar, V. 2009. Key Issues in multichannel customer management: current knowledge
and future directions. Journal of Interactive Marketing,
23(1): 7081.
NRC. NWO kiest voor vrij toegankelijke publicaties.
NRC Handelsblad, 2009, pp. 2710.

Ronald Snijder
Project Supervisor Digital Publications
Amsterdam University Press
Herengracht 221
1016 BG Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Email: r.snijder@aup.nl
www.aup.nl
Ronald Snijder (1970) joined AUP in 2007, where he is
responsible for developing digital publications, combined
with IT management. Before that, he has worked in
several profit and not-for-profit organisations as an IT and
information management specialist.

Corrigendum
After reanalysis of the data by Philip Davis
of Cornell University it was found that there
is no interaction between Google Books and
the AUP repository (on any response variable), meaning that the observation that
single channel distribution is superior to
multi-channel distribution is incorrect.
All other findings of the experiment
were reconfirmed: Open Access Publishing
enhances discovery and online usage; no
relation could be found between OA Publishing and sales or citations; as a dissemination
channel, the Google Book Search Program
performs better than the AUP repository.
R. Snijder

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if certain
aspects of a
publisher
such as
reputation or
marketing
budget
influence the
results, these
could not be
tested in this
experiment