[Open-access] Fwd: [open-humanities] A new service for Open Access Monographs: the Directory of Open Access Books

Sun Mar 4 16:22:57 UTC 2012

This came into the Open Humanities List.

I thought it may be of interest to some of you on this list.

Sam

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Janneke Adema <ademaj at uni.coventry.ac.uk>
Date: Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 2:08 PM
Subject: [open-humanities] A new service for Open Access Monographs: the
Directory of Open Access Books
To: "open-humanities at lists.okfn.org" <open-humanities at lists.okfn.org>

 This might be of interest to some of the list members.

Press release

The Hague, February 29, 2012

A new service for Open Access Monographs: the Directory of Open Access
Books.

OAPEN is pleased to announce a new service for Open Access monographs: the
Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB). DOAB will provide a searchable index
to peer-reviewed monographs and edited volumes published under an Open
Access business model, with links to the full texts of the publications at
the publisher’s website or repository. The beta version of the service will
contain publications of a selected number of academic publishers. The beta
version will be made public early spring 2012.

The primary aim of DOAB is to increase discoverability of Open Access
books. Academic publishers will be invited to provide the metadata of their
Open Access books to the DOAB. Metadata will be harvestable in order to
maximize dissemination, visibility and impact. Aggregators can integrate
the records in their commercial services and libraries can integrate the
directory into their online catalogues, thereby helping scholars, students
and the general public to discover the books. The directory will be open to
all academic publishers and should contain as many books as possible,
provided that these books are peer reviewed and published in Open Access.
DOAB will determine requirements for publishers to qualify as Open Access
academic book publishers and will maintain a certification procedure.

A number of academic publishers have already expressed their interest in
taking part in the further development of the service; among them are
members of the OAPEN Library such as Amsterdam University Press and
Göttingen University Press, and other well-known Open Access publishers
such as Open Book Publishers, Open Humanities Press, MPublishing and
Athabasca University Press. OpenEdition, a portal dedicated to electronic
resources in the humanities (www.openedition.org), will also take part in
the beta phase of DOAB.

DOAB will be launched by the OAPEN Foundation <http://www.oapen.org/home>.
The idea for DOAB has been developed with Lars Bjørnshauge and Salam Baker
Shanawa (director of SemperTool <http://www.sempertool.dk/>), who were also
responsible for the development of the Directory of Open Access Journals (
DOAJ <http://www.doaj.org/>). Both will be involved in the further
development of DOAB.

OAPEN will manage the service and approach publishers to provide the
metadata of their Open Access books. OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in
European Networks, www.oapen.org) started in 2008 as an EU-funded project
coordinated by Amsterdam University Press. The OAPEN Foundation is an
international initiative dedicated to Open Access monograph publishing,
based at the National Library in The Hague. OAPEN develops Open Access
models for books and works with academic publishers and research institutes
to build a collection of Open Access books through the OAPEN Library. OAPEN
is currently involved in two pilot projects in the Netherlands and the UK
experimenting with Open Access monograph publishing.

SemperTool will develop and maintain the service. SemperTool (
www.sempertool.dk) is a software development company specializing in
building digital library technologies, as well as providing hosting and
consulting services. Salam Baker Shanawa, director of SemperTool, was in
charge of development of DOAJ while employed at Lund University, and for
the past two years SemperTool has been responsible for further development
and maintenance of DOAJ.  SemperTool offers a range of reliable and
cost-effective software solutions for digital libraries, and serves more
than 100 universities in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Lars Bjørnshauge will be involved in the further development of DOAB and
its business model. Lars founded and managed DOAJ during his service as
Director of Libraries at Lund University, Sweden. Currently Lars is SPARC’s
Director of European Library relations and Senior Advisor to the National
Library of Sweden.

For more information, please contact Eelco Ferwerda, director of the OAPEN
Foundation, e.ferwerda at oapen.org, +31(0)629565168.

 Janneke Adema | Email: ademaj at uni.coventry.ac.uk | Mobile: ++447808738388 |
www.openreflections.wordpress.com <http://openreflections.wordpress.com/> |
http://twitter.com/Openreflections

_______________________________________________
open-humanities mailing list
open-humanities at lists.okfn.org
http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-humanities

-- 
Sam Leon
Community Coordinator
Open Knowledge Foundation
http://okfn.org/
Skype: samedleon
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/open-access/attachments/20120304/ce5c5eef/attachment.html>