About Access Archaeology
Access Archaeology offers a different publishing model for specialist academic material that might
traditionally prove commercially unviable, perhaps due to its sheer extent or volume of colour content, or
simply due to its relatively niche field of interest. This could apply, for example, to a PhD dissertation or
a catalogue of archaeological data.
All Access Archaeology publications are available in open-access e-pdf format and in print format. The
open-access model supports dissemination in areas of the world where budgets are more severely limited,
and also allows individual academics from all over the world the opportunity to access the material
privately, rather than relying solely on their university or public library. Print copies, nevertheless, remain
available to individuals and institutions who need or prefer them.
The material is refereed and/or peer reviewed. Copy-editing takes place prior to submission of the work
for publication and is the responsibility of the author. Academics who are able to supply print-ready
material are not charged any fee to publish (including making the material available in open-access). In
some instances the material is type-set in-house and in these cases a small charge is passed on for layout
work.
Our principal effort goes into promoting the material, both in open-access and print, where Access
Archaeology books get the same level of attention as all of our publications which are marketed through
e-alerts, print catalogues, displays at academic conferences, and are supported by professional distribution
worldwide.
Open-access allows for greater dissemination of academic work than traditional print models could
ever hope to support. It is common for an open-access e-pdf to be downloaded hundreds or sometimes
thousands of times when it first appears on our website. Print sales of such specialist material would take
years to match this figure, if indeed they ever would.
This model may well evolve over time, but its ambition will always remain to publish archaeological
material that would prove commercially unviable in traditional publishing models, without passing the
expense on to the academic (author or reader).