The New World of Republishing in Open Access: A View From The Author's Side

In the United States, where scholars typically do not hold copyright to their published work, many essays they previously published are now available only from a journal publisher for a high access fee or from an out-of-print book. As twenty-first-century researchers seek overviews and coherent histories of the many fields of literary and cultural studies that emerged over the last three decades, how can older generations of scholars, who worked primarily in print venues, put previously published work into digitally accessible formats that will keep it in current conversations? And why might new scholars want to? The author describes a new mode of republishing one's past essays in open access online, as illustrated by her and her co-author's experience. They learned the nuts and bolts, and also discovered some pitfalls, of open access republishing, including obtaining permissions from corporate publishers, correcting PDF-to-Word conversions, identifying design elements helpful for online use, and marketing their own book.