Tom Mosterd, Community Manager Coordinator - DOAB Foundation, Open Access Books Network As Scholarly Communications is amidst a transition to Open Science – resulting in the more widespread availability of open content, data and infrastructure - the scientific community itself become increasingly adept at engaging with 'open'. Two examples of 'open infrastructure services' are the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) and the OAPEN Library – both running on an open source version of DSpace with its metadata freely available under CC 0. The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) indexes over 60,000 open access books, whereas the OAPEN Library provides a structured and premium hosting environment for over 25,000 OA books. In practice, how are these open infrastructures being used? What workflows, services and use-cases have been built on top of these open platforms by its community? In this Lighting Talk we will highlight several practical examples of workflows that have been established by librarians, service providers and other stakeholders that tap into this open service: how they use this to their local benefit, how having an open infrastructure service enables this, and invite others to think creatively about how to make the most use of these types of services – now and in future as they continue to grow

1. Leveraging an open infrastructure
and tapping into an open service
Examples of established
workflows and approaches
for open access books

2. Indexing open access books & open access book
publishers
Growing steadily
2018 -> 12,000 OA Books
2023 (today) -> 66,000+ OA Books
Open Source (DSpace) and all metadata is freely
available CC 0
Increasing discoverability and driving traffic for
open access books & publishers worldwide…
Directory of Open Access Books

3. 8,000+ organisation using open access books*
Including libraries, universities and research
institutes
Three examples and how these ‘tap into’ the DOAB:
1. Cataloguing - complementing print with OA
2. Database - is this a book or a journal article?
3. Database - OA books in the classroom
*Based on data from PSI:
https://theipregistry.org/
Reaching libraries & research institutions worldwide

4. Read more: https://blogs.loc.gov/thesignal/2020/03/more-open-ebooks-routinizing-open-access-ebook-workflows/
Explore the collection: https://www.loc.gov/collections/open-access-books/
Leveraging the DOAB to complement their curated print holdings with
digital (OA versions) for those same titles
● Acquisitions programme for openly available content
● Selection process for all books added by subject matter experts
● Matching DOAB records with titles for which LOC holds a print
version
● Making the collection more broadly accessible by adding a digital and
open version
● Including nearly 6,500 OA books to date
Library of Congress

5. OpenBPC
More information: https://github.com/OpenAPC/openapc-
de/wiki/schema#bpc-data-set
Leveraging the DOAB as a database for
open access books. Extracting metadata for
open access books
● A record is submitted to
OpenAPC/OpenBPC
● Is it a book or a journal article?
● Check with CrossRef based on
ISBN/DOI
● If a book -> check for inclusion in
DOAB
● Included in DOAB? Extract metadata
● Automatically add to OpenBPC
database: record = OA Book

6. OpenSyllabus
Leveraging the DOAB as a database for
open access books. Insights on the
inclusion of open access books on course
syllabi around the world.
● Includes 15.7 million syllabi from
around the world
● Including reading lists with
textbooks & monographs
● For all included books, crosscheck
with OpenTextBookLibrary
(textbooks) and DOAB
(monographs) for existence of OA
version
● If yes, metadata included in
OpenSyllabus
● Insights into OA book inclusion in
classrooms around the world

7. Visit the COPIM-booth at
stand 33!
Are there other interesting examples you
know?
How can these infrastructures be helpful
to you, today?
Imagining a future where we include
1,000,000 OA books, what more could
we do?
A future for open infrastructure
services?