The document discusses the benefits of open access publishing and initiatives in India. It notes that open access can increase print sales, as seen when the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa went open access and saw a 300% increase in print sales. It highlights several open access textbook initiatives in India, including textbooks from Karnataka and NCERT that are freely available online. The document argues that open access has the potential to contribute to a global pool of knowledge, encourage collaboration, and create models that can be adopted more widely to deliver better quality education.

1. A little story not exactly about open access: Binyavanga Wainaina

2. G21 Granta Unpublished Author Vanity Fair Book contract

3. Open access: Free to read (Often) also available to purchase Free to USE

4. Open access – not just the “right” thing to do But also, frequently, a sound publishing strategy for authors and publishers How so?

5. Human Sciences Research Council South Africa ( www.hsrc.ac.za ) Went open access in 2001 Put all its publications online Print sales went up by 300% as a result

6. Questions Why do authors [of books published by Pratham] write? Why does Pratham publish books?

7. Observations Reading is a “good” Stories can be universally appealing School subject matter is largely the same anywhere in the world Collaboration is a “good”

8. Free High School Science Texts www.fhsst.org 7 subjects, over 15 books All written by graduate students And totally free to be re-used/ built upon

9. Wikipedia ~ 10 million articles ~ 75,000 active contributors And growing!

10. Open access textbook initiatives in India: Karnataka textbooks online http://dsert.kar.nic.in/textbooksonline/first.asp NCERT http://www.ncert.nic.in/textbooks/testing/Instructions.htm

11. The Potential Open access books Contribute to an existing global pool Use resources from the global pool Collaborative workspace

12. The Potential Collaboration Encourage a vast group of volunteers Organise them Grow faster; better Get people actually involved

13. The Potential Create a model To be adopted by other NGOs To be adopted in the public sector? That delivers better quality

14. A few endnotes “ Free” is not incompatible with good business sense 75,000 heads are better than one Access to the internet is limited, but accessible content can yet serve as a catalyst through NGO facilitators (“proxies”)

15. In conclusion Open access is a simple , practical and efficient way to significantly shake things up : the question we might ask ourselves is, what we have got to lose ?