Moving beyond closed silos: liberating workflows based on open metadata to bring about an interoperable and open not-for-profit ecosystem for open access books and chapters

Tobias Steiner; Juan Pablo Alperin; Joe Deville; Jordy Findanis; Rupert Gatti; Kevin Sanders; Niels Stern; Graham Stone; Zoe Wake Hyde

doi:10.7557/5.8159

Authors

Tobias Steiner Thoth Open Metadata https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3158-3136
Juan Pablo Alperin Public Knowledge Project https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9344-7439
Joe Deville Open Book Collective https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0583-3493
Jordy Findanis OAPEN Foundation https://orcid.org/0009-0009-5290-075X
Rupert Gatti Thoth Open Metadata https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0676-9024
Kevin Sanders Open Book Collective https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1217-0149
Niels Stern OAPEN Foundation https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6466-9748
Graham Stone OAPEN Foundation https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5189-373X
Zoe Wake Hyde Public Knowledge Project https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9523-6635

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7557/5.8159

Keywords:

Open Access books, Open Infrastructure, Open Data, interoperability, not-for-profit

Abstract

(Watch the RECORDING.)

Within the context of Open Science, book publishing has traditionally lagged behind in the adoption of open access, open data and corresponding practices. Not-for-profit infrastructures including the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB), the OAPEN Foundation, Open Book Collective (OBC), the Public Knowledge Project (PKP), and Thoth Open Metadata have joined forces to collaboratively develop open, community-led solutions to the many barriers faced by publishers when considering the creation, discovery, distribution, archiving and financing of open access (OA) books.

Our presentation will showcase a variety of innovative open metadata management, hosting, and distribution solutions tailored to tackle the problems of getting OA works into the wider book supply chain. We will show how Thoth enables publishers to create rich, fully open data in industry-standard formats, incl. ONIX (2.1, 3.0, 3.1) MARC21 & KBART for free, encouraging uptake of good metadata practice e.g. by integrating PIDs and controlled vocabularies as well as adhering to recent legislative reporting regulations. The resulting metadata is automatically released into the public domain (CC0), to facilitate easy re-use by e.g. libraries. Publishers can also either use the self-service option to export fully Crossref-compliant XML to directly register DOIs for books and chapters with Crossref themselves, or benefit from a dedicated Sponsorship route (via Thoth) and automated registration workflows that are available through the Thoth Plus service model.

Building on that open data, a variety of open dissemination workflows come into view. For example, PKP offers an open source book production and title management system, Open Monograph Press (OMP), which is now being integrated with both Thoth and DOAB/OAPEN to provide robust, free and open metadata management and dissemination workflows for books and chapters. Interoperability between the collaborating infrastructures means publishers can be supported with their website and catalogue hosting needs (by Thoth), with the distribution and archiving of OA book content and metadata to a variety of channels (by Thoth and OAPEN, and including Crossref, the Internet Archive, Portico, and the Thoth Open Archiving Network (TOAN)); have their content and metadata hosted in internationally-recognised discovery solutions (including DOAB & OAPEN); access privacy-respecting usage metrics across multiple platforms (via the OPERAS Metrics service, Thoth, and COKI); and in creating and managing collective funding channels for OA books via the Opening the Future programme and the Open Book Collective – two models supporting presses to transition away from a reliance on unsustainable author-facing fees (BPCs) through collective funding, with OBC also providing a means to financially sustain open infrastructure / service providers via voluntary contributions from supporting libraries.

All in all, this close collaboration between like-minded infrastructures – and with some of them (OAPEN & PKP) having existed for more than a decade – constitutes a collective, open, equitable ecosystem of interoperable not-for-profit services and platforms that are jointly active in a variety of international networks and communities, including the Copim community, OPERAS, COMET, the Knowledge Equity Network (KEN), and the Barcelona Declaration group of supporters.

Doing so, this dedicated group of infrastructures exemplifies a community- and values-led not-for-profit approach to supporting open access book publishing that is understood to live by the principle of 'Scaling Small' – a concept that "puts forward the idea that scale can be nurtured through intentional collaborations between community-driven projects that promote a bibliodiverse ecosystem while providing resilience through resource sharing and other kinds of collaboration" (Adema & Moore, 2021).

Author Biographies

Tobias Steiner, Thoth Open Metadata

Toby Steiner is COO of Thoth Open Metadata, a non-profit, community-led metadata management and dissemination platform based in Cambridge, UK. He also works on collaborative outreach across infrastructures for the Copim Open Book Futures project, and co-coordinates the OPERAS Open Infrastructures for OA Books Working Group. He is a co-convener of the Radical Open Access Collective and sits on the Editorial Advisory Board for the OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit.
Juan Pablo Alperin, Public Knowledge Project

Juan Pablo Alperin is the Scientific Director of the Public Knowledge Project (PKP), and Associate Professor in the Publishing Program, and the Co-Director of the Scholarly Communications Lab (ScholCommLab) at Simon Fraser University. Dr. Alperin is an established researcher of scholarly communications, known for bringing evidence-based perspectives to pragmatic solutions in support of open access and open science.
Joe Deville, Open Book Collective

Joe Deville is Professor in Science and Technology Studies at Lancaster University and Managing Director of the Open Book Collective. He is currently leading the Copim Open Book Futures project, which is developing a fairer, more sustainable and more diverse ecosystem for the production, funding, and preservation of Open Access books. He is also a co-founder and co-editor of Mattering Press, a Diamond Open Access book publisher and UK-registered charity.
Jordy Findanis, OAPEN Foundation

Jordy Findanis is a Project Manager at OAPEN and the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB). He also contributes to the Copim Open Book Futures project, which supports the development of community-led, equitable, and sustainable open access book publishing models and infrastructures. Before joining OAPEN, he spent fifteen years working in academic publishing.
Rupert Gatti, Thoth Open Metadata

Rupert Gatti is a co-founder and Director of Open Book Publishers, Thoth Open Metadata, and the Open Book Collective. He has been actively involved in the development of several other OA book initiatives, including the Open Access Book Network, the OPERAS Metrics service, and the COPIM (2019-23) and Copim Open Book Futures (2023-26) projects.
Kevin Sanders, Open Book Collective

Kevin Sanders (Open Book Collective) is a longstanding, critical advocate of the nebulous concept of openness in the context of the academy. Recently, for many years, he developed and supported institutional strategies to enhance open access at multiple HEIs as a Scholarly Communications Manager. Kevin has particular interests in the politics of information, digital rights, and privacy, and he has exclusively published works on a number of open access platforms. Kevin co-founded and co-operated the Journal of Radical Librarianship.
Niels Stern, OAPEN Foundation

Niels Stern, Managing Director of OAPEN and DOAB Co-Director. He has been working in the field of scholarly publishing for more than twenty years. He is serving on the OPERAS Executive Assembly and coordinating the OA Books SIG. Niels is currently Vice-Chair of the Open Book Collective. He was the Scientific Coordinator of the EU funded Horizon Europe PALOMERA, a 2-year long project, which, among other things, delivered over 40 stakeholder aligned recommendations to support OA book publishing and policymaking in Europe as well as a new Policy Forum for OA books to be coordinated jointly by Science Europe, cOAlition S, and OAPEN.
Graham Stone, OAPEN Foundation

Graham Stone is Head of International Projects at the OAPEN Foundation, having strategic oversight of international project engagements. He has over 30 years experience in the scholarly communication sector. He is a chartered librarian and holds a doctorate in Open Access publishing from the University of Huddersfield. He has worked on a number of UK and European projects on Diamond OA publishing and is a committee member of the IFLA Library Publishing Special Interest Group and well as a member of the Irish Open Access Publishers advisory board.
Zoe Wake Hyde, Public Knowledge Project

Zoe Wake Hyde is a dedicated advocate for open publishing and open infrastructure as a means to improve access to and participation in knowledge creation globally. She joined PKP in 2024 as the Open Monograph Press (OMP) Coordinator to focus efforts around OMP and its user community. Monographs were her first love, though she now takes an expansive view of what counts as “publishing” – an interest reflected in her founding of Radish Press, an independent press and consultancy focused on non-traditional ways of sharing knowledge.

References

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