Open Data, Open Access, Open Source: Liberating Metadata for OA Books and Chapters

As open access (OA) becomes the dominant model for scholarly book publishing, the integration of open, standard-compliant metadata into publishing workflows, library systems, and preservation infrastructures has become increasingly urgent. This presentation reports on key findings from a recent metadata study (Steiner et. al. 2026) that reviewed international standards and requirements for OA books and chapters, with a particular focus on the needs of small-to-medium-sized, scholar-led and institutional Diamond OA publishers. The study identifies persistent challenges in discoverability, interoperability, and sustainability, and outlines practical approaches to improving open metadata management across the long-form publishing lifecycle. Building on this analysis, the talk introduces an extended, format-agnostic metadata framework aligned with established regional and national recommendations for OA publishing (e.g. NISO, NAG, AG Univerlage Quality Criteria, Diamond OA Standard). The framework is also compatible with open data principles such as that of the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information, and incorporates the requirements of major metadata aggregators in the scholarly book supply chain. Designed to be both robust and adaptable, it supports wide dissemination while remaining responsive to future policy and infrastructure developments. The presentation then demonstrates how Thoth Open Metadata operationalises this framework through a freely available, open-source metadata management platform. Drawing on examples from independent, library-based, and university presses across Europe, North America, Latin America, and Africa, we show how publishers retain control over fully open (CC0) and FAIR metadata, manage it centrally, and automatically export it in multiple industry-standard formats (including MARC, ONIX, KBART, and Crossref XML) via open APIs. Finally, we illustrate how Thoth enables seamless dissemination to major OA platforms, automated DOI registration, library integration, and transparent open archiving, while maintaining a format-agnostic upstream source for high-quality open metadata for OA books and chapters..