OPEN ACCESS MANDATES AND THEIR EFFECTS ON SMALL UNIVERSITY PRESSES

Abstract

Open access mandates from research funders and universities have reshaped scholarly communication over the past two decades. While much analysis has focused on their effects on large commercial publishers, subscription-based journals, and major research universities, the impact on small university presses remains underexplored. These presses, often operating with lean staffing and narrow financial margins, occupy a distinctive niche in academic publishing. They produce specialized monographs, regional journals, and edited collections that serve niche scholarly communities but rarely generate substantial revenue. This article examines how open access mandates, particularly those requiring open access publication for funded research and those encouraging open access monograph publishing, have affected the operational models, financial sustainability, and strategic priorities of small university presses. Drawing on case evidence from North America and Europe, the article argues that while open access mandates have created genuine opportunities for increased readership and discoverability, they have also imposed significant transitional costs. These costs include the need to develop new business models such as library partnership funding, article processing charges that small presses struggle to collect, and the labor-intensive work of retroactively digitizing backlist titles. The article concludes with recommendations for policymakers and university administrators to design mandate implementations that do not inadvertently undermine the very presses that often publish the highest-quality, most rigorously peer-reviewed specialist scholarship.