- The OAPEN Library aims to address the declining sales of monographs by providing open access to peer-reviewed academic books. It currently contains over 1,700 books across many subjects and languages. - Connecting the OAPEN Library to other databases and library systems is crucial. Usage data from 2012-2013 showed nearly 1 million downloads from almost 400,000 unique visitors, with most coming from academic institutions. - Providing open access to monographs through a collection like the OAPEN Library may be a promising solution to issues facing the traditional monograph publishing model.

1. Making monographs available:
OAPEN Library
The European Library Annual Meeting
17 September 2013
Ronald Snijder

2. • Monograph crisis
– OAPEN as possible solution to monograph crisis?
• OAPEN Library
– Collection
– Connections
– Users
Agenda

3. Sales of monographs is in decline since the 70’s:
• Greco & Wharton: library purchases
– 70’s: 1500
– Now: 200-300
• Thompson: print runs & sales
– 70’s: 2000-3000 (print runs)
– Now: 50% < 500 – majority < 750 (sales)
• Result of ‘serials crisis’
Monographs: declining sales

4. Serials costs
Serial Expenditures
(+379%)

5. Serials vs. monographs costs: a large
difference
Monographs Purchased
(5%)
Monograph Expenditures
(+73%)
Serial Expenditures
(+379%)

6. Goals of OAPEN:
• Developing an OA business model
• Building a network
• Aggregating a collection of OA books
2008 – EU funded project
2011 – OAPEN Foundation
OAPEN as possible solution

7. The OAPEN Library

8. • Selection:
– Monographs
– Open Access – full text available
– Quality assurance: peer review
• Multiple subjects
• Multiple languages
• Growing collection, now > 1,700
Collection of the OAPEN Library

9. Connecting the OAPEN Library
Academ ic
libraries
Search
engines
Data
Aggregators

10. • Connecting to partners:
– Europeana
– WorldCat
– BASE
– DOAB
• Integration with information systems:
– Academic libraries: metadata export
– Aggregators
– Search engines
Connecting the OAPEN Library

11. Success?
0
20000
40000
60000
80000
100000
120000
140000
Overview: August 2012 - July 2013
Unique visitors
Visits
Books downloaded

12. August 2012 – July 2013:
• Unique visitors: 396,640
• Books downloaded: 972,375
• Books per visitor: 2.43
Usage data

13. Who are our users? - Countries
18%
12%
12%
8%7%
5%
4%
2%
2%
2%
28%
Downloads, first half 2012
Germany
Netherlands
USA
Great Britain
Indonesia
Italy
Belgium
Pakistan
France
Singapore
Others

14. Who are our users? - Type
19%
3%
2%
25%
50%
1%
Downloads, first half 2012
Academic
Business
Government
ISP
"General public"
Non-profit

15. • OAPEN Library as possible solution to
monograph crisis
• Collection:
– Based on publication type, not on subject
– Quality assurance
• Connecting to other networks is crucial
Conclusion

16. • Adema, Janneke, & Rutten, P. (2010). Digital Monographs in the Humanities and Social Sciences: Report on User Needs. Social Sciences (p. 144).
Retrieved from http://project.oapen.org/images/documents/d315 user needs report.pdf
• Adema, Janneke, & Schmidt, B. (2010). From service providers to content producers: new opportunities for libraries in collaborative open access
book publishing. New Review of Academic Librarianship, 16(Suppl. 1), 28–43. doi:10.1080/13614533.2010.509542
• Bargheer, M. (2010). Discover the OAPEN Library. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/GgLZh6YwcTM
• Bargheer, M., & Schmidt, B. (2008). Göttingen University Press: Publishing services in an Open Access environment. Information Services and
Use, 28(2), 133–139.
• Collins, E., & Milloy, C. (2012). A snapshot of attitudes towards open access monograph publishing in the humanities and social sciences – part of the
OAPEN-UK project. Insights: the UKSG journal, 25(2), 192–197. doi:10.1629/2048-7754.25.2.192
• Howard, J. (2013). Open-Access Movement Makes Inroads Beyond Science - Publishing. The Chronicle of Higher Education, (25 july 2013). Retrieved
from http://chronicle.com/article/Open-Access-Movement-Makes/140549/#disqus_thread
• Kempf, J., Adema, J., Rutten, P., & OAPEN. (2010). Report on Best Practices and Recommendations. Retrieved from
http://project.oapen.org/images/D316_OAPEN_Best_practice_public_report.pdf
• Snijder, R. (2010). The profits of free books: an experiment to measure the impact of open access publishing. Learned Publishing, 23(4), 1–13.
doi:10.1087/20100403
• Snijder, R. (2013a). A higher impact for open access monographs: disseminating through OAPEN and DOAB at AUP. Insights: the UKSG
journal, 26(1), 55–59. doi:10.1629/2048-7754.26.1.55
• Snijder, R. (2013b, May 6). Measuring monographs: A quantitative method to assess scientific impact and societal relevance. First Monday.
doi:10.5210/fm.v18i5.4250
• Steele, C. (2008). Scholarly Monograph Publishing in the 21st Century: The Future More Than Ever Should Be an Open Book. Journal of Electronic
Publishing, 11(2). doi:10.3998/3336451.0011.201
• Svensson, A., & Eriksson, J. (2013). Monographs and Open Access. ScieCom Info, 9(1). Retrieved from
http://www.sciecom.org/ojs/index.php/sciecominfo/article/view/6126
• Williams, P., Stevenson, I., Nicholas, D., Watkinson, A., & Rowlands, I. (2009). The role and future of the monograph in arts and humanities research.
Aslib Proceedings: New Information Perspectives, 61(1), 67–82.
• Withey, L., Cohn, S., Faran, E., Jensen, M., Kiely, G., Underwood, W., … Keane, K. (2011). Sustaining Scholarly Publishing: New Business Models for
University Presses. Journal of Scholarly Publishing, 42(4), 397–441. doi:10.3138/jsp.42.4.397
Further reading

17. More on OAPEN:
• www.oapen.org
• www.oapen.nl
• www.oapen-uk.jiscebooks.org
• Twitter:@Oapenbooks
Directory of Open Access Books:
• www.doabooks.org
• Twitter: @Doabooks
Contact me:
• r.snijder@oapen.org
• Twitter: @Ronaldsnijder
Thank you!