Open Infrastructure for Open Access book publishing

Presentation delivered as part of a 2-day workshop at the 2nd Global Summit on Diamond Open Access: Centering Social Justice in Scholarly Communication to Advance Research as a Public Good (University of Cape Town, 8-14 December 2024). The second summit focused on integrating social justice into scholarly communication. It highlighted the necessity of making research a public good by ensuring equitable access and participation across diverse communities. The summit attracted over 1,100 participants from 73 countries and featured discussions on decolonization, inclusivity, and the role of language diversity in academic publishing.

The Open Monograph Publishing Workshop, hosted by Copim and the Association of African Universities (9-10 December 2024), explored strategies and mechanisms to move towards sustainable open access (OA) book publishing ecosystems in Global South contexts. The event brought together librarians, publishers and those developing open research strategies to collaboratively work towards new ways of supporting longform (book) Diamond OA publishing. Plenary sessions explored routes for securing bibliodiverse, equitable publishing futures, alongside case studies from librarians highlighting innovative local approaches, and from publishers highlighting new and experimental publishing practices while parallel sessions provided opportunities for hands-on skills building and collaboration.

The day 2 session 'Open infrastructures for OA book publishing' was chaired by Janneke Adema, and also featured presentations by Joe Deville (Lancaster University/Open Book Collective): New funding models for OA books; Niels Stern (DOAB & OAPEN): DOAB, OAPEN and OPERAS, and Vincent van Gerven Oei (punctum books/Thoth): Thoth Open Metadata. Presentations were followed by collective discussion on the opportunities for open infrastructures to support the funding of OA book publishing and applicability in African context.