Introducing Thoth: Open Metadata Manager & Distribution Service for OA Books

This presentation will showcase Thoth Open Metadata (https://thoth.pub/), a non-profit open metadata management and dissemination service for OA books and book chapters. Using detailed case studies, it will demonstrate how library publishers may benefit from utilising Thoth for their own publishing programs.

The difficulties associated with book and chapter metadata are well recognised. Each distribution platform/service maintains its own metadata, which is not – or is only partially – shared between platforms, and is often not well equipped to incorporate metadata for open access content. This is particularly problematic for small publishers, who are required to submit metadata in multiple different formats, containing different information, to an array of different parties. Publishers then find that the transmission of this data across the book distribution system results in metadata being overwritten and/or degraded in the process. This is also problematic for third parties interested in creating services for users that rely on metadata records maintained across multiple platforms or publishers.

Several publishers have now adopted Thoth as their metadata manager to create and distribute metadata in multiple formats including ONIX and MARC, submit books and chapter metadata to CrossRef for DOI registration and archive content in university repositories. Third-party applications are also beginning to utilise Thoth's open APIs as a trusted and open source of book metadata to create novel content and services.

In this presentation we propose to showcase several users and use cases for Thoth, outline planned developments for the service over the coming three years, and demonstrate the advantages of utilising and supporting open source, non-profit and community owned infrastructures over commercial alternatives. This session will give attendees at the Library Publishing Coalition conference valuable insight into the growth and development of an important and trustworthy new player in the field of OA book metadata.