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Google Scholar and the OAPEN Library

Since October 2015, the contents of the OAPEN Library have been indexed by Google Scholar; which was proudly announced by Francis Pinter. Today, Google Scholar lists over 36,000 books and chapters that can be found in the OAPEN Library. In the last year alone, over 2,800 titles were added. This is a huge success.

This number is so large because Google Scholar not just indexes books, it also identifies separate chapters published in edited volumes in the OAPEN Library. For instance, clicking on the chapter “De-globalisation, value chains and reshoring” or clicking on the chapter “Transformative paths, multi-scalarity of knowledge bases and Industry 4.0” both link to the same book in the OAPEN Library: http://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/37355.

What have we done to optimize the OAPEN Library for Google Scholar? Starting November 2019 we had several discussions with colleagues at Google Scholar, resulting in updated specification for the metadata to be used in our new DSpace environment. Each landing page – which describes a book or a chapter – also contains machine-readable metadata. This metadata is read by the Google Scholar crawler. 

It’s nice to see how this has worked out. For example, in the last 7 days (8 to 14 May) almost 17,500 people visited the OAPEN Library through Google Scholar. A result we are very happy with, and we plan to continue working with Google Scholar to optimise indexing.

Next, we will focus on optimizing Google Scholar setups for monographs versus edited volumes, which are handled differently by the indexing system.

Think.Check.Submit – books

New resource for books added to Think. Check. Submit.

Further to their announcement in October, the Steering Committee of Think. Check. Submit. is delighted to announce a new addition to its resources: a checklist for authors wishing to verify the reliability and trustworthiness of a book or monograph publisher.

Drawing on existing expertise from within the group and from experiences of their newest partner, OAPEN, the checklist for books offers sound advice along the lines of the recommendations already offered by the journal checklist.

The rest of the Think. Check. Submit. website has also been updated to make it more relevant for both books and journals.

Eelco Ferwerda, Director of OAPEN, said: “It is clear that the same issues confronted by authors looking to publish in journals, also confront authors seeking to publish a book or a chapter. What should an author look for when considering the submission of a manuscript of a book or chapter? It is very common for a journal to have its own homepage whereas, for chapter publishing, more careful scrutiny is needed of the publishing entity producing the books. I am sure that the addition of this new checklist will provide a much needed and welcome resource to authors publishing this way.”

Sofie Wennström of LIBER said: “Librarians are often asked for advice about trustworthy publishing outlets. This extension of the Think. Check. Submit. checklist includes solid recommendations for how to choose a publisher for books. It is a welcome addition to the resources a librarian can use when giving advice as it is evident that the book publishing market may offer as many, if not more, pitfalls as journal publishing. We are happy that Think. Check. Submit. offers an opportunity to avoid some of those obstacles.”

About Think. Check. Submit.

Think. Check. Submit. helps researchers identify trusted journals and publishers for their research. Through a range of tools and practical resources, this international, cross-sector initiative aims to educate researchers, promote integrity, and build trust in credible research and publications.

Think. Check. Submit. provides a checklist that guides researchers through the process of deciding which journals and now books are best for their research. The process is intended to go beyond individual journal decisions to help researchers build up their journal evaluation skills. The checklist is now available in nearly 40 languages.

Think. Check. Submit. is run, and funded, by a coalition from across scholarly communications in response to discussions about deceptive publishing. Details of the organizations contributing can be found at https://thinkchecksubmit.org/about/. The current Think. Check. Submit. committee can be found at http://thinkchecksubmit.org/faq/committee/