Open Book Collective

@whitehorsepress.bsky.social @archumanities.bsky.social @lsepress.bsky.social @pkp.sfu.ca @leuvenup.bsky.social -- and of course @copim.bsky.social & @operaseu.bsky.social

And follow our members: @thoth-metadata.bsky.social @punctumbooks.bsky.social @uolpress.bsky.social @uniwestpress.bsky.social @matteringpress.bsky.social @openbookpublish.bsky.social @mediastudiespress.bsky.social @oapenbooks.bsky.social @doabooks.bsky.social @sidestone.bsky.social

Join us in building more open, sustainable future for #OABooks-- learn more and get involved here: openbookcollective.org/cms/fixed_pa...

YouTube video by Open Book Collective Open Book Collective in action: hear from our community

The OBC remains proudly community-governed, transparent, and collaborative.
Together, our Members, libraries, + supporters are reshaping how scholarly books are shared and sustained youtu.be/ev-O82zQmMU

Image showing logos of Leuven University Press, Sidestone Press, African Minds, University of Westminster Press, meson press, White Horse Press, mediastudies.press, University of London Press, Arc Humanities Press, Open Book Publishers, punctum books, Verlag Barbara Budrich, LSE Press, Thoth Open Metadata, OAPEN/DOAB, Mattering Press, PKP/OMP

We also welcomed five new Members—Arc Humanities Press, LSE Press, Sidestone Press, Verlag Barbara Budrich, and PKP. This brings to 17 the total number of OBC Publisher + Service Provider Members. We expect to continue to grow steadily in the next period.

OBC Collective Development Fund Grant Programme: 2025 Call & Guidance

Through our Collective Development Fund, we awarded grants to new + emerging open access initiatives in Canada, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe, helping to strengthen publishing capacity locally, nationally + globally & published our second call openbookcollective.pubpub.org/pub/obc-coll...

Around 16 books on a shelf of different heights, with multicoloured spines facing outwards

Our Members published over 300 new books, reaching new audiences through expanded metadata, accessibility, and distribution partnerships and supported by a deeper collaboration with @thoth-metadata.bsky.social.

By the end of April 2025, we achieved milestone of 83 supporting libraries across 12 countries—reflecting over 50% growth since last year. That number continues to rise + we now have close to 90 supporters worldwide.

A collage showing the OBC team at events and conferences

We shared our work at major conferences included the Charleston Conference, LIBER, and UKSG, helping grow awareness and collaboration around #OABooks.

The OBC made major progress toward financial independence this year. An independent review by @researchconsulting.bsky.social confirmed we’re on track for full sustainability by 2027.

Open Book Collective 2024-2025 annual report: A year of important progress The team provide an overview of the Open Book Collective's work, as well as the work of its Publisher and Publishing Service Provider Members

🧵 The Open Book Collective is pleased to share our 2024–2025 Annual Report: A Year of Important Progress. We’ve made big strides toward sustainability, expanded our collective + strengthened global partnerships for OA books. Read the full report: openbookcollective.pubpub.org/pub/open-boo...

Joe Deville at a podium, in front of a slide with a banner reading 'No open access without open infrastructure'

#NoOpenAccessWithoutOpenInfrastructure. OBC's @joedeville.bsky.social making the case for open, interoperable digital infrastructures for #OAbooks at the National Open Access Stakeholders
Summit in Nigeria. Presenting on 'Open access books: If not now, when'. Slides at doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

Hearing now (also streaming live) from our FUT Minna colleagues, talking about their @openbookcollective.bsky.social funded project #OAbooks

Collective Development Fund Update: Learning From Our Second Assessment Process In this update, we reflect on the decision-making process in the second round of Collective Development Fund, and the lessons we learned for next time.

The OBC shares some reflections on the assesment process for the 2025-26 round of our Collective Development Fund. Grant awardees will be announced on our blog in due course:
openbookcollective.pubpub.org/pub/collecti...

4/4 Our #CollectiveDevelopmentFund grants programme is funded in part through the support we receive from libraries and contributions from our publisher and service provider members. Supporting the @openbookcollective.bsky.social helps not only our members but the wider #OAbooks ecosystem

3/ The #OAbookshub platform is designed to empower Nigerian scholars & educators to produce and disseminate high-quality #OAbooks, as well as to foster new collaborations across Academic Publishing Centres in Nigeria's six geopolitical zones

Update on OBC's First Collective Development Fund award: Fostering Academic Self-Reliance in Nigeria through Open Access Books An update from Federal University of Technology, Minna

2/ The event is connected to a #CollectiveDevelopmentFund grant we awarded last year to the #OAbookshub project, led by Prof. Abdulsalami Kovo from the Federal University of Technology, Minna. Read the latest project update: openbookcollective.pubpub.org/pub/update-o...

Reclaiming Academic Sovereignty — OAConference 2025 Nigeria’s National Open Access Stakeholders Conference — Oct 6–7, 2025 at NOUN, Abuja.

1/ Open Book Collective is proud to be supporting next week's conference in Abuja on 'Reclaiming Academic Sovereignty: Nigeria’s National Summit on Open Access Book Publishing', with OBC's @joedeville.bsky.social speaking alongside a number of @copim.bsky.social colleagues
oa-summit.bookhub.ng

Open Book Collective in action: hear from our community Hear from the Open Book Collective's members and partners about why we need a fairer and more sustainable future for scholarly books. The Open Book Collective is dedicated to advocating for the…

[VIDEO] Open Book Collective in action!

Hear from @openbookcollective.bsky.social members and partners about why we need a fairer and more sustainable future for scholarly books ⚖️

📽️

We're delighted to announce publication of Greta Semplici's 'Moving Deserts', examining resilience among Turkana herders through fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork. More info: www.whpress.co.uk/publications... #pastoralism. This book is #openaccess thanks to @openbookcollective.bsky.social!

News

The @openbookcollective.bsky.social has welcomed several new supporting members this month!

Find out more on the #OBC webpages 👇

🔗 buff.ly/drcUzu4

Thanks to support from our library members, the OBC is able to support a fairer and more bibliodiverse landscape for #OpenAccess publishers ⚖️

Collective Infrastructures for Publishing 4 October 2025, 12:30 to 18:00 BST: A hybrid symposium sharing insights gathered from the ongoing ‘ServPub’ experimental book pilot project. We will be discussing experimental tools, non-extractive…

EVENT Join our Experimental Publishing Group for a hybrid symposium sharing insights gathered from the ongoing ‘ServPub’ experimental book pilot project!

📆 4 October 2025
⏰ 12:30 to 18:00 BST
📍 Online and at Borough Road Gallery, London

More details 👉

Toby from @thoth-metadata.bsky.social will be at the @craft-oa.bsky.social conference next week

#Metadata #MetadataMatters #OpenInfrastructure #OABooks

Six recent blog posts from OBC around new supporting libraries

I love to see the continued growth of @openbookcollective.bsky.social <3

Huge thanks to all the @openbookcollective.bsky.social colleagues and partners for engaging around the substantive issues around emerging legislation for accessibility. It *is* important and a challenge; we are blessed to have @jofitz.bsky.social & @rupertgatti.bsky.social's experience and guidance!

#OASPA2025 folks, re: #OpenInfrastructure & imagining #ScholarlyPublishing futures conversations, especially if you wonder about #OpenBooks, this PKP interview w/ @joedeville.bsky.social might be of interest as you wind down the event experience ⤵️

@openbookcollective.bsky.social #OpenMonographPress

Open access from the bottom up: Three open access days Reflecting on OBC's and Copim's contributions to the Open Access Tage conference at the University of Konstanz

Open access from the bottom up: Three open access days

Reflecting on @openbookcollective.bsky.social & Copim's contributions to #OAT25 at the University of Konstanz

👉 buff.ly/r11osDN

#OpenAccess #OA #OABooks

Open Book Collective and Open Monograph Press: An Interview with Joe Deville - Public Knowledge Project Urooj Nizami interviews OBC’s Joe Deville. Explore OBC’s origins, purpose, and relationships, OMP, and the open book publishing landscape.

I am just reading @joedeville.bsky.social's interview with @pkp.sfu.ca: pkp.sfu.ca/2025/09/23/o.... The work of my colleagues at @openbookcollective.bsky.social & @copim.bsky.social is astonishing. In earnest, working with them is my career highlight. (I can only apologise to them for being a pain!)

One answer from the @openbookcollective.bsky.social is their Collective Development Fund: an optional 5% fee paid by the publishers & services in the collective. This creates a pot of money disbursed via grant payments to publishers & service providers for projects that build OA publishing capacity.

Woop woop! Great to hear @theblochian.bsky.social's endorsement of strong community-led governance structures for initiatives like @ojcollective.bsky.social, inc. executive powers for the community, & appreciate the nod to @copim.bsky.social & @openbookcollective.bsky.social as examples #OASPA2025