This book brings together many of the worlds leading open access experts to provide an analysis of the key strategic, technical and economic aspects on the topic of open access. Open access to research papers is perhaps a defining debate for publishers, librarians, university managers and many researchers within the international academic community. Starting with a description of the current situation and its shortcomings, this book then defines the varieties of open access and addresses some of the many misunderstandings to which the term sometimes gives rise. There are chapters on the technologies involved, researchers, perspectives, and the business models of key players. These issues are then illustrated in a series of case studies from around the world, including the USA, UK, Netherlands, Australia and India. Open access is a far-reaching shift in scholarly communication, and the book concludes by going beyond todays debate and looking at the kind of research world that would be possible with open access to research outputs.