Open Access Book Collective |
Directors' Report |
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Report of the directors of Open Access Book Collective for the period ended 18 December 2023 |
Introduction |
The period documented by this report covers the eight months until the confirmation (on 19th December 2023) that the application by the Open Book Collective (OBC) to be registered as a charity by the Charity Commission of England and Wales was accepted: |
https://doi.org/10.21428/41ca814e.caf1d303 |
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This has been a very busy 8-month reporting period. A key feature was the transition from the OBC being an output of a grant funded project, as it was under the COPIM (Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs) project, to itself being a partner in a grant funded project. This ongoing project is Open Book Futures (link below), which will support the OBC’s work until the 30th April 2026. This project, like COPIM, is supported by Arcadia and the Research England Development Fund. |
https://copim.pubpub.org/open-book-futures-project |
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A key priority for the OBC is to be as transparent as possible about its activities. As such, in addition to our mandatory reporting requirements, we publish open reports about our activities. These contain more details about our work. Our most recent report can be read via the following link, and covers a similar period to that covered by the present Directors’ report: |
https://openbookcollective.pubpub.org/pub/what-a-difference-a-year-makes-an-update-on-the-open-book-collective/ |
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Governance |
A highlight during this period, was our first Annual General Assembly of Custodians, which took place in August 2023. One responsibility for Custodians at this meeting was to elect Trustees or ‘Stewards’ to our Board. This process saw our Managing Director Joe Deville (Lancaster University/Mattering Press) re-elected for a new term, alongside newly elected Stewards Rupert Gatti (Trinity College, Cambridge University/Open Book Publishers) and Demmy Verbeke (KU Leuven Libraries). Custodians also provided advisement to the OBC in the meeting, including recommendations on marketing and outreach strategies, as well as on relationships that OBC could develop with third parties and consortia. |
https://openbookcollective.pubpub.org/pub/first-annual-general-assembly-of-custodians-agac/release/1 |
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Our Board of Stewards met 3 times in this period. During these quarterly meetings, the Board approved Niels Stern (Director of OAPEN) as OBC Vice-Chair. The OBC Management Team — who run the OBC on a day to day basis — also updated the Board on their work, asked for input and advice, and submitted plans and documents for approval. |
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Meetings of the Board of Stewards |
During the financial year, meetings of the Board of Stewards took place on the following dates: |
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2023-06-15 |
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2023-10-11 |
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2023-11-15 |
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New Members |
Library Members |
During the financial year, the following Library Members joined the Open Book Collective: |
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Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf Library (15/09/23) |
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University of Waikato (01/11/23) |
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University of Chicago Library (17/10/23) |
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Edge Hill University (07/10/23) |
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Ohio State University Libraries (01/10/23) |
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University of Neuchâtel (12/08/23) |
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Liverpool John Moores University (01/11/23) |
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Bates College (01/08/23) |
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University of Arizona (01/09/23) |
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Imperial College London (01/10/23) |
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University of California Santa Barbara (01/06/23) |
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University of Liverpool (01/08/23) |
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Oxford Brookes University (27/08/23) |
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Rice University (01/07/23) |
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Coventry University (04/05/23) |
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University of York (01/07/23) |
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The Library - Lancaster University (01/05/23) |
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University of Pennsylvania Libraries (01/08/23) |
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Swansea University Library, Wales (15/12/23) |
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KB National Library Netherlands (13/11/23) |
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Lafayette College (01/07/23) |
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Iowa State University Library (25/10/23) |
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University of Bath (01/12/23) |
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University of Sheffield (01/07/23) |
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University of Salford (01/08/23) |
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University of Sussex (27/07/23) |
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Colby College (14/09/23) |
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Rowan University Library (11/12/23) |
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The Rockefeller University Library (21/09/23) |
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Outreach & outputs |
A significant part of the OBC’s work is engaging with the scholarly community, with a particular focus on academic publishers and university libraries. As part of the Open Book Futures project, colleagues working to support the OBC contributed to a range of events and outputs, in which they explored issues related to the OBC’s aim to support a fairer, more sustainable future for OA book publishing. |
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In building an effective approach to outreach, it is important for the OBC to engage directly with libraries, to explain our aims, values and the benefits of supporting our members. We also engage with publishers and publishing service providers, for example to explain our model and membership criteria to them and, for those that are interested in joining, to collaborate with them in building a Supporter Programme that is both fairly priced and will help them meet their open access publishing aims. |
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However, we are keen to engage more broadly, both to build understanding of the importance of open access amongst scholars, libraries, publishers, and infrastructure providers, and to learn from and collaborate with wider communities working on developing and scaling open access book publishing. To this end, towards the end of this reporting period, we issued a call for applications to join us in an event in Cape Town, South Africa in February 2024. The event was a 3-day workshop, exploring challenges that inhibit a sustainable open access book publishing ecosystem with the remit of developing interventions that contribute and/or accelerate the growth of African scholarship. The event was designed to respond to barriers and needs related to Open Access book publishers and initiatives across the African continent. |
https://openbookcollective.pubpub.org/pub/call-for-applications-towards-sustainable-open-access-book-publishing-in-the-african-context |
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Below we include some key outputs from the period: |
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Blog posts |
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Successfully recruited an Open Access Engagement Lead with extensive library experience through a blog post: |
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https://openbookcollective.pubpub.org/pub/open-access-engagement-lead/release/3 |
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Documented our first General Assembly of Custodians: Corazza, F. (2023). First Annual General Assembly of Custodians (AGAC). OBC Information Hub. Retrieved from: |
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https://openbookcollective.pubpub.org/pub/first-annual-general-assembly-of-custodians-agac |
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Fathallah, J. (2023). Call For Applications: Towards Sustainable Open Access Book Publishing in the African Context. OBC Information Hub. Retrieved from |
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https://openbookcollective.pubpub.org/pub/call-for-applications-towards-sustainable-open-access-book-publishing-in-the-african-context |
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Fathallah, J. (2023). Open Book Collective Development Fund: Scoping Survey. OBC Information Hub. |
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https://doi.org/10.21428/41ca814e.e5f289c6 |
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Events & conference papers |
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12 Dec 2023: Livy Snyder, Lidia Uziel, ‘Open Book Collective: Collective Paths Toward an Open and Sustainable Ecosystem for Monographs’, CNI Conference, Washington. |
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https://www.cni.org/topics/digital-libraries/open-book-collective-collective-paths-toward-an-open-and-sustainable-ecosystem-for-monographs |
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29 Nov 2023: Open Book Collective Development Fund Grant Scoping Workshop, with Continental Platform, Digital Preservation Coalition, Invest in Open Infrastructures, Knowledge Futures, Language Science Press, OpenEdition, Public Knowledge Project, SPARC EU |
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29 Nov 2023: Opening the Future and the Open Book Collective. Diamond Open Access for Books?, Open Access Network (Germany), University of Konstanz. |
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https://zenodo.org/records/10224942 |
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28 Nov 2023: COPIM Connects Librarians: OA books options and advice for your authors, Academic Libraries North (ALN) Network, with Manchester Met University, University of Oxford, University of Sheffield, Open Book Publishers, Lancaster University. |
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15 Nov 2023: Judith Fathallah, ‘Choosing Open Access for Books: Myths and Truths |
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26 Oct 2023: Joe Deville, Open Access Week Open Access Books Panel Discussion, with University of Derby University and University of Essex. https://libcal.derby.ac.uk/calendar/events/UoDOpenAccessWeek23OABooks |
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https://libcal.derby.ac.uk/calendar/events/UoDOpenAccessWeek23OABooks |
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24 Oct 2023: Joe Deville. Beyond BPCs: Towards fairer, more sustainable futures for Open Access books, Danish Network for Open Access. |
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https://openaccess.dk/oaw2023#programme-of-the-danish-open-access-week-2023 |
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20 Sep 2023: Judith Fathallah, ‘Equity and sustainability in Diamond OA publishing’, OASPA 2023 Conference, with IWA Publishing, Lyrasis, Open Library of Humanities, SciElo. |
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https://www.oaspa.org/events/oaspa-2023-conference-program/ |
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6 Sep 2023: Judith Fathallah, ‘The Open Book Collective: An Infrastructure for Equity and Diversity’, OAI13. |
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https://zenodo.org/records/8322034 |
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14 Jul 2023: Joe Deville,’ Open Book Futures: Working together to Build Community-owned Infrastructures for OA books’, SciELO 25 Years Seminar, with Opening the Future, Thoth. Event page: |
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https://25.scielo.org/en/seminars/copim/ |
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21 Jun 2023: Collective funding models for open access books #1: the Publisher perspective. With Opening the Future. |
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https://beta.jisc.ac.uk/events/collective-funding-models-for-open-access-books |
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23 Jun 2023: Judith Fathallah, ‘Sustainable futures for OA book publishing: Sheffield, St. Andrews and the Open Book Collective’, National Acquisitions Group Seminar 2023. |
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https://nag.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Abstracts-and-biosV1.pdf |
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Other outreach |
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30 May 2023: Joe Deville, Creating resilient publishing infrastructures, PubPub podcast interview, with Janneke Adema, Toby Steiner and Sarah Gulliford. |
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https://help.pubpub.org/pub/n5lqcqb4/release/2 |
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Grant funding & future priorities |
In the last financial year, the OBC was supported throughout by the COPIM project. However, this project ended on the 30th April 2023. Since then, the OBC’s work has been funded as a partner in the Open Book Futures project. This award was confirmed at the start of 2023 and publicly announced on the 30th March of the same year: |
https://copim.pubpub.org/pub/open-book-futures-announcement/release/1 |
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The Open Book Futures project, led by Lancaster University and with an overall budget of around £5.9million (across the 11 consortium members), includes full funding for the OBC’s work until the end of April 2026. A key aim is for the OBC to achieve full financial sustainability by the end of this period. Further priorities within the life of the project including engaging publishers and libraries beyond the Anglosphere and Global North, to increase the size and diversity of its Members. |
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We look forward to providing further updates about the development of the OBC in next year’s report. |
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Dr Joseph Deville |
OBC Managing Director and Trustee |
Approved by the board on 26 June 2024 |
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