Foreword

Libraries have an important role to play in supporting open initiatives, extending beyond journals and transformative agreements to include all types of scholarly outputs and their underlying infrastructure. The University of Sussex Library is committed to actively supporting innovation in open publication, and recognises that open has as much value for education and students as it does for research.

We are proud to present our first open textbook, the result of a pilot project run by the Library in collaboration with authors from Sussex and other UK institutions. We are hugely grateful for their contributions of time and expertise. The outcome represents an exciting change to the way the University of Sussex community creates, shares and values scholarly textbooks. These are the first steps in the development of an institutional open publishing infrastructure which offers the opportunity to invest in our scholarship, and drive a cultural shift to a form of publishing that is more equitable and sustainable.

The textbook is designed to be used as primary reading for undergraduate Psychology students studying core biological psychology modules and we invite course leaders at other institutions to adopt the textbook for teaching. We hope that teachers and students alike will find it useful.

Jane Harvell, University Librarian and Director of Library Services
Brighton, UK
February 2023