Editor’s note: Today’s guest post is by Benedetta Siviero & Lena Ryzhova. Benedetta is a Library Trainee at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, where she works on library communication, digital collections, and user engagement. Lena is a recent graduate of the MA in Book and Digital Media Studies at Leiden University.

Diamond Open Access (Diamond OA) has received much attention in recent years as a possible answer to some of the toughest questions in scholarly publishing. But what do researchers themselves actually think about it? As part of the Strengthening Diamond Open Access in the Netherlands program, we found that while many researchers welcome the principle of Diamond OA, awareness remains uneven and actual publishing choices continue to be shaped by career incentives, reputation, and visibility rather than a deliberate commitment to community-owned infrastructures or long-term sustainability. This misalignment highlights the need for stronger institutional recognition of Diamond venues, clearer guidance for researchers, and incentives that meaningfully reward publishing in scholar-led, non-APC venues. Placing the findings into the context of what is sometimes called the ‘monograph crisis’ allows us to ask a sharper question: Can Diamond OA serve as a genuine lifeline for the scholarly monograph?

The results highlight both opportunities and challenges, offering important insights for strengthening the monograph.

Why Monographs Are in Trouble

Library budgets for books have contracted dramatically, driven in part by the rising cost of journal bundles and recurring budget cuts, leaving little room for single-title acquisitions. As a result, average sales per monograph have fallen to a fraction of what they once were, prompting university presses to become increasingly selective and market-driven in order to remain financially viable. At the same time, scholarly monographs require years of research and writing, substantial editorial support, and significant investment from publishers or authors, often for a relatively small readership. Digital formats, shifting reading practices, and an academic reward system that privileges fast, citable journal articles over long-form argumentation further erode the monograph’s visibility and value. Together, these pressures have weakened the economic and cultural scaffolding that once sustained the monograph, leaving this cornerstone of humanities scholarship symbolically central yet materially precarious.

All of these pressures together constitute what is widely referred to as the ‘monograph crisis’ — a long-running erosion of the financial viability, visibility, and distribution of scholarly books, especially in the humanities and social sciences. More recent studies show that even as presses continue to publish monographs, the underlying economic model has become increasingly fragile, with declining sales, shrinking library budgets, and a growing dependence on digital formats that do not fully replace lost print revenue. This is more than a publishing industry problem: it shapes research agendas, career trajectories, and the kinds of scholarship that remain feasible. When the long-form format becomes harder to sustain, disciplines that depend on book-length, interpretive, and archival scholarship risk losing the space required for deep, sustained intellectual work — narrowing not only what gets published, but what can be imagined as valuable knowledge in the first place.

In this context, Diamond OA publishing has begun to offer a potential counterbalance to these pressures. By removing costs for both authors and readers, Diamond OA can expand the reach and visibility of monographs, particularly for niche or specialized research that might otherwise struggle to find a commercial market. Early evidence shows that OA monographs are more widely read and cited, suggesting that the model can help preserve the circulation of long-form scholarship.

What Researchers Told Us

The current monograph crisis can be understood on two levels. First, the format itself is often regarded as redundant or impractical in an academic system that rewards shorter, faster outputs. Second, even where the value of monographs is recognized, institutions such as libraries simply lack the resources to sustain them. As Rick Anderson pointed out, it is difficult to prioritize OA when budgets are shrinking and more immediate needs press in.

To explore whether Diamond OA could help sustain the viability of academic monographs, we conducted a nationwide study in the Netherlands in 2025. A six-week survey gathered responses from close to 200 researchers across the humanities, social sciences, and STEM fields at Dutch universities, complemented by six follow-up interviews. Participants ranged from PhD candidates to senior professors, offering perspectives across career stages.

Several key insights stand out:

• Appeal — The principle of Diamond OA is attractive to many researchers, particularly in the humanities and social sciences.
• Recognition — Diamond OA needs to move out of the margins of academic culture. Researchers are unlikely to stake their careers on something not widely seen as legitimate.
• Infrastructure — Sustainable platforms, inclusion in international indexing systems, and strong editorial support are crucial for making Diamond OA publications discoverable and trusted.
• Motivation — Career progression depends on publishing in venues perceived as prestigious, while some Diamond OA publishers are highly respected, many researchers continue to equate prestige with traditional, well-known publishers, which can limit uptake of this model.
• Mentorship — Supervisors and senior colleagues strongly influence the publishing decisions of early-career researchers. Endorsement from respected figures could encourage choosing a Diamond OA venue.

Specifically for monographs, several additional challenges emerged. Long-form books require years of research, significant editorial support, and substantial investment from publishers or authors. In many fields, the number of publishers offering Diamond OA monographs remains limited, and career incentives continue to favor big-name presses, reinforcing the dominance of traditional publishing. Among early-career researchers, the biggest barrier is often a simple lack of awareness that Diamond OA publishing is even an option. These factors help explain why the adoption of Diamond OA for books lags behind journal articles, despite its potential to broaden access, visibility, and the long-term viability of scholarly monographs.

Diamond OA in the Dutch Context

Although the survey focused on the Netherlands, the issues it highlights are relevant globally. The Dutch case is particularly noteworthy for its proactive open-access policies and collaborative initiatives — such as available funds to flip journals and the aforementioned Strengthening Diamond Open Access in the Netherlands program — yet even in this favorable environment, researcher engagement with Diamond OA remains relatively limited. Closing this gap will be crucial if the Diamond model is to have a meaningful impact on the monograph crisis.

What we see is a paradox: researchers generally support the principle of Diamond OA, but publishing decisions continue to be shaped by prestige, visibility, and perceived career value. Awareness of the model remains uneven, and even those familiar with it often raise questions about sustainability and discoverability. Yet these very concerns highlight opportunities for change: if institutions and senior scholars actively endorse Diamond OA, and recognition systems acknowledge its legitimacy and impact, the model could move from being perceived as risky to a realistic, respected option — one that can coexist with prestige rather than being seen as an alternative to it.

Of course, scaling up will require significant investment from universities and governments — resources that are not easily available. It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Diamond OA cannot be sustained without researcher interest, yet a surge of interest could overwhelm existing initiatives. One way forward is to broaden the focus beyond researchers to include librarians and others responsible for budget allocation. If enough stakeholders can be convinced of the value of Diamond OA, the investment may follow.

Where Do We Go from Here?

Diamond OA won’t scale on its own. It needs coordinated support from libraries, societies, and funders to ensure sustainable platforms, solid standards, and strong discoverability.

Examples from around the world show the model can succeed. Open Book Publishers in the UK, Language Science Press in Germany, and SciELO Books in Latin America all demonstrate that community-driven publishing can be both sustainable and respected when institutions and researchers commit to it. The remaining challenge is scaling beyond these pockets of success: while Diamond OA may not need to dominate the entire scholarly book market, achieving a substantial, recognized share would be crucial to ensure that a meaningful portion of research outputs — especially in the humanities and social sciences — can circulate openly, sustainably, and with full academic credibility.

Education is a key step. Our survey found that lack of information was the number one reason researchers didn’t consider Diamond OA. That’s an opportunity: if libraries, scholarly societies, and senior scholars provide guidance, early-career researchers may see Diamond OA as an option. At the same time, recognition systems must evolve. As long as hiring and promotion committees reward commercial presses above all else, the prestige hierarchy will remain intact. Initiatives such as DORA and CoARA signal a shift toward broader research assessment, but until these reforms translate into concrete incentives, many scholars will hesitate to risk their careers on less traditional venues.

So what’s next for the monograph and Diamond OA?

Libraries and universities face urgent budget pressures, and supporting new publishing models often takes a back seat to more immediate needs. That leaves us with the two levels of the monograph crisis. On the one hand, the format itself struggles for relevance in a system that rewards faster, shorter publications. On the other hand, even where monographs are valued, the resources to sustain them are scarce. These two problems feed into each other: when availability and funding collapse, the incentive to publish in long form weakens too. Still, in fields where the monograph remains central to intellectual work, there is strong interest in the format.

Returning to the question we posed at the outset, whether Diamond OA can truly function as a lifeline for the monograph, the answer appears to be: it can be, but only if the academy chooses to make it one. Diamond OA offers a credible path to sustaining book-length scholarship in a landscape where commercial viability is shrinking. Yet its success depends not on researcher goodwill alone but on the willingness of universities, libraries, funders, and senior academics to reconfigure incentives and invest in shared infrastructure. Without such changes, Diamond OA will remain an admirable ideal with limited reach; with them, it could secure the future of the monograph as a vital, open, and vibrant scholarly form.

Authors’ note: This survey was conducted as part of the Strengthening Diamond Open Access in the Netherlands programme. A full account of the research findings, including detailed survey data and interview insights, is available in the full report. With nearly 200 responses, the survey offers a valuable snapshot of attitudes across Dutch universities, but the sample is not statistically representative of the full research population in the Netherlands. The findings, therefore, reflect tendencies rather than definitive national patterns and help identify emerging themes and tensions that merit further investigation.