Leveraging the power of open research information to foster open collaboration towards an equitable not-for-profit ecosystem for Open Access books

Within the context of Open Science, book publishing traditionally lags behind in the adoption of open data and corresponding practices. A number of not-for-profit infrastructures including the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB), OAPEN, Open Book Collective (OBC), Public Knowledge Project (PKP), and Thoth Open Metadata, that have all individually signed the Barcelona Declaration are now joining forces to collaboratively further develop open, community-led alternatives for publishers to assist them in the creation, discovery, distribution, archiving and financing of open access books. PKP offers an open source book production and title management system (Open Monograph Press (OMP)) which will shortly be integrated with Thoth and OAPEN/DOAB to provide a robust and extensive metadata management system for both OA and non-OA books. Interoperability between the collaborating infrastructures means publishers can be supported (by Thoth and OAPEN) in the distribution and archiving of OA book content and metadata to multiple channels (including Crossref, the Internet Archive and Portico); have their content and metadata hosted in internationally recognised discovery and hosting solutions (DOAB and OAPEN); access usage metrics solutions for their content across multiple platforms (via OAPEN's Book Analytics Service & the emerging Thoth Usage Statistics offer); and in creating and managing collective funding channels for OA books via the OBC, which is also providing a funding solution for the collective of infrastructure providers involved in this collaboration. Emerging from all of this is a collective effort to create an open, equitable ecosystem of interoperable not-for-profit services and platforms that fully embraces the benefits of open research information.