1. Official Launch of the Directory of Open Access Books
OA Monograph in HSS conference
1 July 2013, British Library, London
Eelco Ferwerda
Director of OAPEN Foundation

2. DOAB
• Discovery service for OA books
• Searchable index to peer reviewed
monographs
• Links back to Open Access
publication
• + links to webshop and vendors

3. DOAB development
• First conversations at COASP 2009, Lund
• Developed with Lars Björnshauge and
SemperTool (founders of DOAJ)
• Launched in beta version in April 2011
• Purpose of beta: find out about user
needs:
– Survey
– Online discussion

4. DOAB user needs
• Requirements and standards concerning quality
control are warmly welcomed
• Provide transparency about procedures used
(icon system?)
• As long as these standards remain flexible and
open to a variety of quality control mechanisms,
from editorial control to open peer review and
post publication review
• Focus should remain on the outcome, not on the
procedure used

5. DOAB requirements
Established by OAPEN in consultation with
OASPA:
• Academic books in DOAB shall be
available under an Open Access license
(such as a Creative Commons license)
• Academic books in DOAB shall be
subjected to independent and external
peer review prior to publication

7. DOAB dissemination
• Connecting with libraries
– OAI harvesting, DC, MARCXML, CC0 license
• Connecting with content aggregators
– WorldCat, Base, Serial Solutions, Europeana
• Search engine optimization
– Schema.org model for books
• Integration with OAPEN Library
– Automated import of CC-licensed books

8. Our goals
• Increase discoverability of OA books
• Provide authoritative list of OA book
publishers
• Support quality assurance and
standards
• Promote OA book publishing

9. DOAB support
DOAB will follow the example of DOAJ, sustaining
its activities through financial support from the
stakeholder community (libraries, consortia,
commercial aggregators and publishers)
– Contributors: ad hoc contributions
– Members: fixed yearly fee
– Publishers: voluntary fee based on # books
– Sponsors

10. Since launch in beta
• 22  49 publishers (10+ pending)
• 700  1450 OA books
Recognized by librarians:
• Best New Product (2012)
– Award sponsored by Charleston Advisor
• Best Free Reference Web Site (2013)
– Selected by Reference and User Services
Association (ALA)

11. Thank you!
www.doabooks.org
@DOABooks
Eelco Ferwerda
e.ferwerda@oapen.org