# Open Access e-books at University of Oslo


I came across a newsflash at the [University of Oslo
website](http://www.uio.no), published January 14th, about their [new
open access electronic
book-series](http://www.uniforum.uio.no/nyheter/2009/01/lanserer-elektronisk-bokserie.html)
called [Oslo Studies in
Language](https://www.journals.uio.no/index.php/osla/issue/current).

[![](http://lh4.ggpht.com/_0zhFe8pB7to/SXDqnyQISAI/AAAAAAAADOI/LA2g1vd2Fm4/None.jpg "OSLa logo")](https://www.journals.uio.no/index.php/osla/issue/current)Here
are some translated sections from the news brief (from Norwegian): *–
Now we hope that language researchers and lignuists from the four
relevant departments at the Faculty of Humanities will use this series,
and come up with relevant book projects. All the articles will be sent
to peer-review...*

*The editors admit that many researchers still have a nostalgic
relationship to paper. – Therefore we are publishing 25 copies on paper
which we send to all the contributors in the first book in the series
"Structuring information in discourse: the explicit/implicit dimension.”
The book was edited by Bergljot Behrens and Cathrine Fabricius-Hansen.*

***Ensures quality***

*Our desire is to contribute to the growing family of freely available
electronic publications that are distributed to the entire research
world. Through the establishment of**Oslo Studies in Language we
guarantee the control of both the academic content, the typographic
presentation and storage for the future, without having to go through
the traditional publishing houses, state Grønn and Haug. Both refer to
the important power that lays with the traditional publishing houses.*

*– Today researchers and universities actually have to pay to have books
published with international publishers. The peer-reviewers and editors
are usually not paid. Then, the publishers charge good money for the
journals and books. This happens, even if it is the universities and the
state has has paid for the research. With this service, the researchers
only have to send the content to us, before we pass it on to
peer-review. If it is accepted, it will immediately be published in our
electronic book series.*

What is interesting is that this great project was the result of
pressure from one of the academics involved: *Both give credit to a
member of the editing committee, [Östen
Dahl](http://www.ling.su.se/staff/oesten/index.htm) from [Stockholm
University](http://www.su.se) for sowing the seed about launching an
electronic book series. – The only demand he had for joining the editing
committee, was that the book series should be made available through a 
publishing channel that was electronic and freely available. It is said
that Dahl is the most cited linguist in the Nordic countries.*

I visited [Östen Dahl](http://www.ling.su.se/staff/oesten/index.htm)'s
homepage, and see that he has a number of his publications available in
electronic format, as well [two book
manuscripts](http://www.ling.su.se/staff/oesten/downloadable.htm)
available for download. I think is a great example of how people can
push for and educate about open access in the different academic
projects they are involved with. (If he really is the most cited
linguist in the Nordic countries, I am sure that didn't exactly hurt
either).

The book series is hosted using [Open Journal
Systems](http://pkp.sfu.ca/?q=ojs) on a site called [Free Journals from
University of Oslo](https://www.journals.uio.no/), which offers free
hosting for peer-reviewed journals at the University of Oslo that are
starting up as OA journals, or older TA journals that would like to
convert to OA. This news, together with the [self-archiving of metadata
policy, and mandate for archiving of student
theses](http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006/03/oslo-self-archiving-policy.html)
are all very good news coming from the University of Oslo.

On a final note, I tried downloading one of the chapters, and I like how
all the references are linked to the sources at the bottom, so that if
you mouse-over the reference (at least in my PDF reader), you see the
reference in a small pop-up.

Stian *(Significant content in this article is translated from a
Norwegian
[article](http://www.uniforum.uio.no/nyheter/2009/01/lanserer-elektronisk-bokserie.html)
in Uniforum, the newspaper for the University of Oslo.)*