Open Book Publishers (OBP) is an independent open access
academic press, publishing rigorously peer-reviewed and prizewinning
monographs, edited collections, textbooks, critical translations and more. We are a non-profit social enterprise based in the UK and run by academics: our mission is
to make high-quality research freely available to every reader. We do not
charge authors a fee to publish with us, and our Library Membership
programme supports
this policy.
OBP has published over 300 books, all of which are open access. OBP publishes around 40 titles per
year in subjects that range across the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, as
well as a growing number of titles in STEM disciplines. While we do not have
a specialised focus, over time we have developed areas of strength including Eastern
European Studies (and particularly Russian literature, arts and culture), a
strong collection of Classics titles,
and outstanding series in Semitic Languages
and Cultures, and World Oral
Literature, among others.
We work closely with authors to present their research in the best way
possible, including innovative
techniques that take advantage of the possibilities of digital formats
where appropriate, such as embedded video and audio content, zooming functions
for images and manuscript reproductions, and updateable bibliographies on
Wikiversity.
By joining OBP’s Library Membership programme, you will be joining over 250
libraries all over the world who help to support what we do, as well as
receiving a number of benefits for your institution. All staff, students and
alumni of member libraries can freely access all of the digital editions of
every one of our titles (including formats they usually charge for), and
libraries will also receive a discount on any paper copies purchased. Member
libraries are entitled to an effective discount of 20% on any purchase made by
the university library itself. Member libraries can also upload any digital
edition of OBP’s titles to the library’s own digital repository or ebook collection
to keep permanently and will receive regular COUNTER-compliant usage statistics
for their institution, as well as high-quality metadata.
Mission
It is our
mission to ensure that high-quality academic research is freely
available to every reader. In order to do so, as well
as publishing our own open
access academic books we aim to foster a powerful,
resilient, and inclusive OA books landscape that is community-led and
collaborative in nature, and that is open in the way it operates as
well as the research it publishes.
Besides our book publishing division, we have two other areas of significant
activity: our software
development division, which is entirely grant-funded, and our outreach and
advocacy work, which we undertake alongside our publishing activity.
These are central to our mission to develop and expand equitable OA book
publishing so that high-quality academic research is freely available to
all. We have developed and released open source software related
to book production that is freely available for other presses to use and we have done significant work on book usage data with the HIRMEOS
project, resulting in the creation of the OPERAS Metrics Portal. We have
worked closely on the development of Thoth and
the OBC as a partner in the COPIM
Project, and we have released our new website as a
‘white label’ site for any publisher to use.
As part of our outreach and advocacy work we help to coordinate
the Open Access
Books Network and our staff are regularly invited to speak about OA
books, as well as being members of a number of advisory boards on
OA-book-related community projects and writing papers and posts on issues
related to OA publishing.
Values
- Equity: We
believe that high-quality, rigorously
peer-reviewed academic research should be freely available to read.
We also believe that authors should not have to pay to publish their work,
as this is fundamentally unequitable. We have devised
a business model that enables us not to charge our
authors to publish with us, and library support is central
to that model via our Library Membership Programme.
Libraries work with us to support our vision of a world in
which research is freely available to all.
- Innovation: We
believe in innovation in academic publishing, and we
support innovative projects by academics who want to develop new
ways of sharing their work, as well as creating high-quality
traditional monographs with care and rigour. As a scholar-led press, we
also believe in supporting our authors andin making sure they
have an excellent experience when publishing with us.
- Collaboration
and mutual support: We believe in the philosophy of ‘scaling
small’: of growing open access book publishing via collaborative
relationships and community projects, such as our Library
Membership Programme and the COPIM Project. Our involvement in
COPIM, and our open software development and advocacy work,
are concrete and daily contributions we make towards creating the
world we want to see.
- Openness: Finally,
we believe in openness in our working practices, as well as in our
published output. We share as much as we can about our work via
our website and blog, and our staff are always
happy to answer any questions about the press.
Governance
OBP was founded
in 2008 and is registered
in the United Kingdom as a Private Limited Company and
a Community
Interest Company (CIC).
Dr Alessandra Tosi and Dr Rupert Gatti are the two directors of the press.
They are supported by an Editorial Board and Advisory Panel who are listed on our
website.
Future Plans
We will continue to publish 40 books per year in a wide variety of subjects,
and to grow the number of series we produce. We will continue to seek
out ambitious and innovative book projects so that we challenge and change
the idea of what an academic book can be, while giving an excellent service to
all our authors. We will also continue to pursue our software development and
advocacy work with energy and commitment.
Over time we want to continue to grow our Library Membership Programme,
and consequently to reduce the level of grant income we
require. We currently ask authors, if they are able, to apply for grants to
defray the cost of publishing their book (although this is never a
condition of publication and we regularly publish books with no grants
attached). We would like to be able to fund our operations entirely from sales
revenue and our Library Membership Programme, so that any
additional revenue from grants enables us to do more than we
otherwise would without it – rather than grant income being necessary
for us to break even. We believe that the OBC will be important in
helping us to achieve this goal.
