Last week, around 20 people from a number of presses[1] gathered online to meet one another and discuss key areas of interest for small university presses publishing Open Access books—particularly those areas in which collaborative problem-solving, information-sharing, collective action or mutual support might be valuable.

We identified the following in particular:

  • Explaining new OA book funding models to libraries in a concise and clear way;
  • How to improve the accessibility of different digital book formats;
  • Metadata, and particularly the difficulty of getting accurate, rich metadata to libraries;
  • The Open Book Collective and other new platforms or models of financial support for OA books.

This is only an initial list, and more topics can be raised at future meetings.

Concrete outcomes from the meeting included a volunteer (thanks Tom!) to create an infographic that will concisely explain new OA book funding models to libraries, and we agreed to meet again on Thursday 10th February at 3pm UK time to focus on metadata, with a presentation from Tom Mosterd of OAPEN/DOAB. At this meeting there will also be more opportunities for discussion between attendees in breakout rooms, so we’ll use Zoom.

Meeting link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84953212380

We hope to see you there!

[1] Including Virginia Tech Publishing, University of London Press, Ubiquity Press, University of Westminster Press, Radboud University Press, Helsinki University Press, LSE Press, Central European University Press, Science Open, as well as Sussex University, OAPEN, COPIM, and an academic who has self-published his own work.