Beyond Access – Publishing as Infrastructural Experimentation
Some thoughts for Open Access Week 2026 In a recent essay for Open Humanities Press, “Who Will Find Us? What Happens to Open Access After Search?,” Gary Hall raises a series of important questions about the future of open-access publishing in a world increasingly mediated by artificial intelligence. If people increasingly discover information through AI chatbots rather than search engines, what happens to the assumption that making knowledge freely available online also makes it discoverable? And what might radical publishers do in response? Hall explores several possibilities: a return to analogue forms such as zines and pamphlets, building more direct relationships with readers, and cultivating smaller, situated communities of intellectual exchange. These are all valuable directions for experimentation. But what would happen if we shifted the starting point slightly. Rather than asking how open-access publishing can adapt to the changing technological conditions of ...