Calling it a “significant next step in digital-first publisher journey”, Oxford University Press said that putting core research books alongside journals on one digital platform will streamline access to high quality scholarly content. At the beginning of August, the platform has over 42,000 books and 500,000 chapters joining the 500 journals and some 3 million journal articles already hosted on the platform. The step also benefits OUP partners, including authors and societies, as their research can be published more rapidly and reach a larger potential audience.
Having books and journals on one platform is only one aspect of facilitating access to scholarly literature, as OUP recognizes. For those with a print disability, it is necessary to be able to use accessible reading devices and applications. OUP’s Academic frontlist collection is now available on RNIB Bookshare, a service run by the RNIB, and the backlist collection, with over 900,000 books, will be added at a later date.