Developing a Governance Model for the Experimental Publishing Compendium

The Open Book Futures (OBF) project, funded by Arcadia and the Research England Development (RED) Fund, was launched in May 2023 and will run until April 2026. OBF is led by Lancaster University and builds upon the pioneering work of the COPIM project (2019–2023) to initiate a step-change in the ambition, scope and impact of community-led and owned open access book publishing. Among its activities OBF will deepen and accelerate the work of the Experimental Publishing Compendium, a valuable guide, catalogue, and toolkit for scholars, publishers, developers, librarians and designers who want to challenge, push and redefine the shape, form and rationale of scholarly books. The Compendium presents a collection of tools, practices and experimental books to help and inspire authors and publishers to make experimental scholarly works. The Experimental Publishing Compendium was developed and is currently maintained by Copim’s Experimental Publishing Group (Janneke Adema, Simon Bowie, Rebekka Kiesewetter, and Julien McHardy), which is researching ways to more closely align existing software, tools and technologies, workflows and infrastructures for experimental publishing with the workflows of open access book publishers. This report discusses the process by which the Experimental Publishing Group is devising a governance model for the Experimental Publishing Compendium. This documentation will also feed back into the research and resources the Experimental Publishing Group is creating, including the Compendium and other toolkits that Copim maintains. This report is submitted in fulfillment of a Year 2 deliverable (D6.5) as part of the Copim Open Book Futures project, funded by the Research England Development (RED) Fund and Arcadia Fund.