Judith Fathallah

OBC Collective Development Fund Grant Programme: 2026 Call & Guidance - Open Book Collective %%smart_desc%%

Please note: only applications made using the application form provided in the Call will be considered. This fund is not for BPCs. obc.copim.pub/obc-collecti...

OBC Collective Development Fund Grant Programme: 2026 Call & Guidance - Open Book Collective %%smart_desc%%

Just under a week left to apply to the #CollectiveDevelopmentFund 2026. This fund is to support projects building capacity for Open Access Books, including networks and infrastructure. Read and apply in English, Spanish, French or Portuguese.

A new open metadata system is needed to support Diamond OA, maintained by community stewardship not bought and sold by commerical intermediaries.

Thoth both repairs these blockages and offers alternative pipelines for metadata to flow through

Poor metadata has wide ranging negative effects on books. Even if the metadata is made open by the publisher, commercial intermediaries further down the chain can limit access.

The metadata pipeline for OA books. Sharing between stakeholders depends on their commercial or other relationships

As we found during the life of Copim, there is often a perception that OA books have lower quality metadata. One problem here is that the supply chain was not designed for OA titles (e.g. dealing with a 0 in the price field).

The next speaker is Emma Booth, Metadata Manager for Content Management at University of Manchester Library

A key finding so far is that there is poor use of DOIs, and non-standardised fields and spellings can be problematic. Tools are being developed to address these.

Metadata is critical to this process. The project data sources are both original and via bibliographic systems

Automating these processes would be a useful future development. The next speaker is Edgar Alejandro García Valencia, who is leading a project mapping the production of scholarly books in Ibero-America.

Levels of metadata provided depend on catalogue. Thoth is a robust example. But copying and pasting metadata across platforms is a lot of labour.

The press utilizes innovative and experimental publishing forms as well as more traditional monographs and textbooks, using Pressbooks. Metadata is then copied into Janeway and Crossref.

Day 2 of the #CopimConference 2026 opens with a panel on metadata, dissemination challenges & open community solutions for open access books. First, Harrison Inefuku introduces the history and work of the Iowa State University Digital Press.

The Copim perspective on Sustainability What might it mean to do scholarly publishing in a ‘sustainable’ way? In this post, we provide some insights on how Copim is thinking and working through this question.

I appreciate the conference focus on reducing plastic and paper and the fact no meat is served at the #CopimConference 2026. Sustainability is a complex idea- some time ago we drafted a short blog post on what the term means to us at Copim: copim.pubpub.org/pub/the-copi...

In 2025, the N8 Research Partnership of research-intensive institutions released a landmark statement calling for fundamental reform in scholarly publishing. This is important.

A principles-led decision making strategy for purchasing has been developed and applied across library contexts, providing greater clarity both for academics and for publishers and suppliers.

Finally, Sarah Thompson discussion University of York's commitment to Open Research, and founding of White Rose University Press.

She began with a proposal to support one institutionally relevant and values-aligned publisher, punctum books, as well as the Open Library of Humanities. She designed the proposal as an educational document and encouraged senior leaders to see the payment as an investment not a donation.

Now Jill Cirasella joins us from the City University of New York shares how she persuaded her institution to support Diamond OA publishing, including directing budget.

Next, Martina Benz discusses the work achieved at the University of Konstanz library in support of Diamond Open Access, including publishing infrastructure, financial support, information, capacity building and networking.

Finally, Jill Cirasella joins us from the City University of New York shares how she persuaded her institution to support Diamond OA publishing. This includes directing budget

Next, Martina Benz discusses the work achieved at the University of Konstanz library in support of Diamond Open Access, including publishing infrastructure, financial support, information, capacity building and networking.

Next, Martina Benz discusses the work achieved at University of Konstanz library in support of Diamond Open Access, including publishing infrastructure, financial support, information, capacity building and networking.

Next, Martina Benz discusses the work achieved at University of Konstanz library in support of Diamond Open Access, including publishing infraxtruture, financial support, infomation, capacity building and networking.

Update on CDF award: Fostering academic self-reliance in Nigeria through OA books - Open Book Collective %%smart_desc%%

Nigeria's publishing model is print centric and suffers constraints due to lack of a shared metadata strategy and shared infrastructure. The goal of Fatima and her collaborators' work has been to establish a co-ordinated intervention for shared publishing infrastructure.

As lead author and administrator of the scheme these projects are particularly meaningful for me to hear about.

The next talk is from University Librarian Fatimah Jibril Abduldayan, and covers some of the work she and her colleagues have accomplished with support from the #OpenBookCollective's Collective Development Fund.

A question from online: we talk about de-institutionalizing in terms of governance and publishing communities. How could this work in terms of funding? #OpenAccessBooks

This challenge needs to be addressed contextually, understanding national, local and disciplinary specifics.The discussion covers engaging authors and University management, and the ability of librarians to sometimes sit outside of disciplinary siloes.