This month we welcome back MIT Press to discuss its open book publishing program Direct to Open (D2O) and the author benefits of open access. In addition to MIT Press’s Amy Harris, MIT Press authors David Gunkel and Janaki Srinivasan join the program to share their unique experiences with and advantages of open monographs.

In the first episode of this four-part series, we chat with David, Presidential Research, Scholarship and Artistry Professor in the Department of Communication at Northern Illinois University, and Amy, Senior Manager of Library Relations and Sales, about open book publishing. Amy first provides a refresher on D2O, detailing its development, accomplishments, and surprising trends from participating libraries. Next, David, author of MIT Press’s Person, Thing, Robot, explains his longstanding support for open access and why publishing his book via D2O was a natural fit. Reviewing rapid developments in AI research, David reveals the connections between open publishing and the global AI legal environment, sharing the utility of open books for AI ethics and robotics scholars.

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