University of Michigan doctoral candidate Ani Bezirdzhyan identified 17 readers of open access books published by the Press and asked if she could interview them. She published the study as part of the University of Michigan Library's "Tiny Studies" series. Learn more here.

Ani also interviewed the authors of the five books she chose to focus on. Together, the interviewees provided valuable recommendations relevant to the work of University of Michigan Press and other open access book publishers.

1. Financial Sustainability: UMP should continue to pursue mechanisms that ease the financial burden on authors unable to pay for OA.
2. Better Support Structures: OA publishers should provide services/support to help navigate the publishing process.
3. Discoverability: It would be helpful to improve the visibility of OA resources to reach users more directly and efficiently. “If you can’t find it at the top of a Google search list ... then it doesn’t exist for my students, certainly, and I think that's true for a lot of people.” 
4. User Interface: Enhance the website’s user interface, making it easier for users to navigate, search, filter, and access just the OA books.
5. Translation: Providing resources in multiple languages or offering automated translation options might be beneficial.
6. Integration with Citation Managers: Users suggested the automatic provision of bibliographic details of books to citation platforms, highlighting the importance of facilitating easy reference for users. 
7. Accessible/Diverse Formats: Continuing to implement guidelines to enhance digital accessibility can potentially benefit a larger number of users. Some respondents also requested the availability of audiobooks, indicating the need for diverse formats.
8. Improve the sharing of usage and engagement with authors. As one author said of her OA book, “We have some idea that it’s circulating a lot, but there’s still a bunch we don't know.”
9. Incorporate User Feedback: Regularly solicit and incorporate user feedback to continuously improve the OA initiative. It is clear users value this resource highly and have invested interest in its ongoing success.