Press Release: Lyrasis Supports Open Book Futures Project to Expand Open Access Infrastructures

Starting May 1 this year, a new project, Open Book Futures (OBF), will develop and support organizations, tools and practices to enable both academics and the wider public to make more and better use of open access books. Lyrasis is excited to be one of the project’s supporting institutions.

Funded by Arcadia and the Research England Development (RED) Fund with £5.8 million (US$7.2 million), the OBF project marks a shift in the ambition, scope and impact of community-owned open access book publishing, aiming to significantly increase and improve the quantity, discoverability, preservation and accessibility of academic content freely and easily available to all.

Among its activities, OBF will deepen and accelerate the work of:

• the recently launched Open Book Collective, which makes it easier for academic libraries to provide direct financial support to small- and medium-sized OA publishing initiatives;
• the Thoth metadata management and dissemination platform;
• the Opening the Future revenue model;
• the forthcoming Experimental Publishing Compendium;
• the forthcoming Thoth Archiving Network.

Open Book Futures builds on the pioneering work of the Community-Led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM) project. COPIM, a strategic international partnership led by Coventry University, began the work of establishing open, community-led solutions to address the barriers to the wider impact of open access books. COPIM was also jointly funded by Arcadia and the RED Fund. A particular aim of the Open Book Futures project is to expand COPIM’s long-term impact and to make sure a wide range of voices have the opportunity to shape the future of open access book publishing.

Lancaster University in the United Kingdom is leading the new OBF project. Partners joining Lancaster University as a consortium include:

• Birkbeck, University of London
• Coventry University
• Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
• Jisc
• Loughborough University
• Open Book Collective (OBC)
• Open Book Publishers (OBP)
• punctum books
• Thoth
• Trinity College, Cambridge University

Additional supporting partners include:

• Continental Platform/University of Cape Town
• Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI)
• Digital Preservation Coalition
• Educopia Institute
• Knowledge Futures
• Lancaster University Library
• Lyrasis
• OPERAS
• Public Knowledge Project (PKP)
• Research Libraries UK (RLUK) 
• SciELO Books
• Scottish Universities Press/SCURL
• SPARC Europe

For more details on the project, visit the COPIM website.

About the funders

Arcadia is a charitable foundation that works to protect nature, preserve cultural heritage and promote open access to knowledge. Since 2002 Arcadia has awarded more than $1 billion to organizations around the world.

RED supports innovation in research and knowledge exchange in higher education that offers significant public benefits.