Today a publisher-run Open Access online library filled with freely available academic books in the Humanities and Social Sciences from across Europe is officially launched at the Frankfurt Book Fair. And that’s not all – the same people who made this possible are busy developing an OA-publishing platform that can be used by academic publishers and research funding institutes, based on their respective needs. And, yes, you guess it, all was started at the request of the European Commission.
Finally some serious attention for researchers and publishers working in the social sciences and humanities. That is the first thing that came to my mind when I read about OAPEN, the project of the European Union that is facilitating all these developments.
The official website of the project reads: “OAPEN aims to achieve a sustainable publication model for academic books in Humanities and Social Sciences and to improve the visibility and usability of high quality academic re-search in Europe. OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) is the first inter-national Open Access project in the area of academic book publishing and is supported by the European Union.”
According to the project team, it is great for all stakeholders:
- For authors, it extends the reach of their work, by ensuring worldwide access and retrievability.
- Researchers benefit through direct access to publications, improved search mechanisms across collections and ease of use.
- Research funders can not only guarantee the publication of peer reviewed research results, but also ensure free and unrestricted access, thereby improving the return on their investment in research.
- Libraries can improve the service to their customers.
- For academic publishers Open Access publishing offers a more effective and sustain-able approach to the dissemination of scholarly knowledge, and the monograph more in specific.
The network includes impressive names and organizations among others the Association of American University Presses and Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition – SPARC Europe, and invites more stakeholders to join. When you do you will be informed about the project and its results, involved in the development of models and standards, and invited to take part in discussions.
More information:
European Commission project description
article in Dutch ‘Amsterdam University Launches European Open Access Library’
follow the developments via twitter.com/OAPENbooks or http://twitter.com/AmsterdamUP or http://twitter.com/ronaldsnijder
Eelco Ferwerda, coordinator of the OAPEN-project, receiving SURFshare Open Access Award
Peter Suber
October 7, 2010
Hi Fleur. Thanks for pulling all this info, and these links, together.
Celine Oehlenschlage
December 8, 2010
Hi, for some cause when i location your feed into google reader, it won?t operate. Are you able to give me the Rss website link simply to be positive I?m making use of the most suitable 1?
telfleur
December 9, 2010
Hi Celine,
Thanks for your question! You can subscribe and receive all posts directly in your mail box or use RSS via http://telfleur.wordpress.com/feed/
Best, Fleur