This document discusses the decline in sales of academic monographs and introduces OAPEN and DOAB as possible solutions. OAPEN aims to develop an open access business model for academic books by building a network and aggregating open access publications. The OAPEN Library currently contains over 1000 open access books from 30 publishers. DOAB is a new discovery service that provides metadata for peer-reviewed open access books, addressing the need for alternative models to support open access publishing.

1. OA academic book publishing –
OAPEN Library and DOAB
EIFL General Assembly
2 July 2012
Ronald Snijder

2. Agenda
• Introduction
• Monograph crisis
• OAPEN
– OAPEN as possible solution to monograph crisis?
– OAPEN library
– New project: DOAB

3. Introduction
Ronald Snijder
• Amsterdam University Press: projectmanager
digital publications
• OAPEN Foundation: technical coordinator

4. Monographs: declining sales
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’

5. Serials costs
Serial Expenditures
(+379%)

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

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

8. OAPEN: results
• OA model for academic books
– Awareness of need for alternative business model
– Involvement of stakeholders in Europe and beyond
• OAPEN Platform
– OAPEN Library: 30+ publishers; 1000+ OA books
– Tools and services to facilitate OA publishing
• Further activities
– Pilot projects: testing and developing model in national context
– Foundation to promote and expand OA book publishing

9. The OAPEN Library

10. Properties of the OAPEN Library
• Collection
– OA Monographs (several licenses)
• Free to read
• Free to share
– Quality assurance: peer review
• Search and browse, multilingual search
• Social media, export citation

11. OAPEN Library: connected
OAPEN Library as part of other networks
• Connected:
– WorldCat
– DOAB
• Integration:
– Academic libraries: metadata export
– Aggregators
– Search engines

12. Connecting the OAPEN Library

13. Integrating the OAPEN Library
Data
Aggregators
Academic Search
libraries engines

14. Integrating the OAPEN Library
• Search engines:
– Site map – based on www.sitemaps.org protocol
– www.schema.org model for books
• Data aggregators:
– Serials Solutions (ProQuest)
– Primo Central (ExLibris)
– EBSCO Discovery Service
• Academic Libraries:
– MARC XML and other metadata feeds
– OAI harvesting
– Examples:
• Union catalogue of the GVK-GBV, large library network in Germany
• Universiteitsbibliotheek Gent
• James Hardiman Library of the National University of Ireland

15. Integration through data feeds

16. Success?
Usage: visitors, visits and book downloads
60000
50000
40000
30000 Unique visitors
Visits
20000 Books downloaded
10000
0

17. Usage data
April 2011 – May 2012:
• Unique visitors: 236,665
• Books downloaded: 392,778
• Books per visitor: 1.65

18. Directory of Open Access Books

19. DOAB: New service by OAPEN
Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
• Discovery service for peer reviewed OA books
• Publishers provide – and maintain – metadata
• Full text books on OAPEN Library or publisher’s website
• Beta version, launched in April 2012
June 2012:
– 1098 monographs
– 27 publishers

20. DOAB: data from publishers and
OAPEN Library

21. Integrating DOAB
Academic Data
libraries Aggregators

22. DOAB and OAPEN Library
OAPEN Library DOAB
Contents • Full text Metadata only
• Metadata
License • Free to read Free to share only
• Free to share
Search • Full text • Metadata
• Metadata • Classification: LCC
• Classification: BIC

23. Integrating DOAB
DOAB as part of other networks:
• Academic Libraries:
– MARC XML and other metadata feed
– OAI harvesting
• Data aggregators:
– Primo Central (ExLibris)
– EBSCO Discovery Service

24. Conclusion
• Paper monographs are struggling
• Possible solution: OA publishing
– High availability may lead to higher impact
• OAPEN Foundation supports this
– Quality assurance (peer review)
– Connected platforms
– Working together

25. Thank you!
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@aup.nl
• Twitter: @Ronaldsnijder