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Protecting Stability and Access: How We’re Safeguarding the OAPEN Library and DOAB Against Bot Traffic Surges 

We want to share an important update regarding the temporary access issues that some of our community may have recently experienced on our platforms. We are fully aware of the problem and are working tirelessly to resolve it. 

The Challenge: An Unprecedented Surge in Automated Traffic 

In recent weeks, we have observed a rapid, global increase in traffic generated by automated systems (so-called bots), particularly those associated with large AI language models (LLMs) that are “scraping” the web for content. While this traffic is a testament to the value of our resources, it has repeatedly overwhelmed our infrastructure, hosted by CERN, threatening the stability and availability of the platforms for all users. 

Our Response: Implementing Advanced Protective Measures 

To protect access for researchers, students, and all genuine users, our technical team, in collaboration with engineers at CERN, has deployed a sophisticated, multi-layered traffic management system. 

Part of this strategy involves controlled rate limiting. This means that some users may temporarily encounter a “429 Too Many Requests” error message. 

We want to reassure you: this error does not mean the platform is down or that you are doing anything wrong.  

It is an intentional, temporary defense mechanism to prevent the system from being completely overwhelmed. 

How You Can Help 

  • If you see a 429 error: Please be patient. Wait a short moment and try your request again. In most cases, this is all that is needed. 
  • If the problem is persistent: If you regularly experience this error in a way that hinders your work, please contact us. Your reports are invaluable – they help us fine-tune the security measures to minimize disruption for real users. 

Why This Matters 

The mission of OAPEN and DOAB is to support open science and provide unrestricted access to high-quality academic books. Addressing this technical challenge is crucial to fulfilling this mission. We cannot allow bots to deprive human users of access. 

Thank you for your understanding and support. We are deeply grateful for your patience as we continuously work to improve our infrastructure for the benefit of the entire open science community. 

Introducing Our New Head of Technology, Anna Wałek 

We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Anna Wałek has joined the OAPEN Foundation as our new Head of Technology. Anna brings a unique and powerful combination of strategic vision, deep expertise in open science infrastructure, and a proven ability to lead technological transformation in academia. Her appointment comes at a pivotal time as we move into the implementation phase of our 2025-2028 Strategic Plan, and she will be instrumental in ensuring our technology platform is secure, scalable, and aligned with our community’s needs. 

Anna is a recognised global leader, having recently served as the President of IATUL (International Association of University Libraries). Her extensive experience – from leading digital library transformations at the Gdańsk University of Technology and Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi to contributing to European initiatives such as the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) – provides her with a unique understanding of the challenges and opportunities in open scholarly communication. 

“I was drawn to OAPEN and DOAB because they are not just platforms; they are global public goods and pillars of trust for the open access book ecosystem,” says Anna. “Our strategic plan gives us a clear mandate to ensure our infrastructures are resilient, innovative, and directly support our core mission of promoting bibliodiversity and reducing inequalities. I am excited to collaborate with our team, our hosting partner CERN, other strategic our core partners within the OPERAS research infrastructure and innovative communities like COPIM, and our global community of publishers, libraries, funders and researchers to build a technological foundation that is both robust and transformative.” 

To welcome Anna, we asked her to share her vision for the technological future of OAPEN and DOAB. 

Interview: A Conversation with Dr Anna Wałek, the new Head of Technology at OAPEN and DOAB 

Welcome to the OAPEN and DOAB team! Can you tell us what attracted you most to working here? 

Thank you for the warm welcome! For years, I have admired OAPEN and DOAB. They are not simply platforms – they are fundamental components of the open science infrastructure, enjoying immense trust from the community. My decision to join stemmed from a sense that I could make a real contribution to the development of something that has such a concrete, positive impact on the world of science. Our technological work directly increases the visibility and accessibility of academic books, a mission very close to my heart. 

What are your main technological priorities for the coming months? 

My focus is on three key areas. Firstly, the successful execution of the planned modernisation of our core platform is crucial. This is a strategic investment in our future flexibility, performance, and security. Secondly, I am committed to working with our partners at CERN to enhance further the reliability and integrity of our data and assets. The goal is for our publishers and users to be able to rely entirely on the stability of our services. Thirdly, we will examine our processes, particularly on the deposit side, to identify opportunities to streamline and reduce unnecessary manual work for our publishers. 

Looking a bit further ahead to 2026, what is your technological plan for OAPEN and DOAB

2026 will be an efficient year for us, focused on the user. For OAPEN Library, this means leveraging the new platform’s potential to improve content discovery experiences further. We want navigation and search to be even more intuitive, and the platform itself to be even more user-friendly for readers and researchers worldwide. 

For DOAB, it’s a time to solidify its position as a global, trusted source of OA book metadata. We will focus on ensuring the highest quality and completeness of our data so that libraries and aggregators can use it unconditionally. We will also develop services that transparently communicate book quality, such as PRISM. Finally, we are keen to ensure the synergy between the OAPEN Library and the DOAB catalogue is even smoother and more efficient. A key part of this is deepening our technical collaboration within the OPERAS research infrastructure and with key community partners like OASPA and LIBER. We are stronger when our systems work seamlessly together. 

How do you intend to align technological development with the goals set out in the OAPEN 2025-2028 Strategy? 

In my view, technology and strategy are inextricably linked. The strategy sets our directions, such as supporting bibliodiversity or reducing inequalities in scholarly communication, and technology provides the tools to achieve these goals. 

For instance, by investing in modern, stable infrastructure, we build the trust necessary for publishers from around the world to collaborate with us long-term. By automating processes, we not only increase our efficiency but also lower barriers to entry for smaller publishers that may not have extensive administrative resources. This is a very concrete manifestation of our commitment to diversity. And by refining our APIs and metadata services, we actively support the global open science ecosystem, facilitating integration and content reuse. Our active participation in OPERAS and collaboration with global initiatives like SCOSS and IOI ensures our technical roadmap is informed by and contributes to the broader open science landscape. Every technical decision is thus evaluated based on its impact on our strategic objectives. 

Finally, what is your most significant source of inspiration in this new role? 

Without hesitation – the people and the shared mission. I am surrounded by a team full of passion and dedication, and our community of publishers and librarians truly believes in the purpose of what we do. The technology we develop serves a very human purpose: making high-quality knowledge accessible to anyone who needs it. 

To have a real, positive impact on the world of science, while working on such fundamental platforms – that is what gives deep meaning to my work. I am tremendously motivated by the vision of what we can achieve together for the benefit of the entire academic community. Knowing that we are part of a larger, collaborative effort with partners across Europe and beyond makes this work even more inspiring. 

OAPEN and DOAB at the Open Access Tage 2025

We were delighted to participate in the OA-Tage 2025 in Konstanz in September. The energy, commitment and level of engagement from everyone present was truly inspiring. Together with the German speaking open access community, we addressed the practical needs of publishers and how we can collectively improve the systems and practices of open scholarly communication.

We had the pleasure of connecting with colleagues from Verfassungsblog, SeDOA, the German Open Access Network, AG Universitätsverlage and many others. These conversations were rich in perspectives and ideas, offering fertile ground for collaboration and shared innovation to support open access book publishing.

The workshop we co-hosted with colleagues from Copim Open Book Futures and AG Universitätsverlage focused on scaling small through horizontal collaboration, rooted in open values and interoperable infrastructures. Together we examined workflows that support community-led OA book publishing – covering everything from collective funding schemes (Open Book Collective and Opening the Future) and open metadata (via Thoth) to discoverability and archiving (with DOAB and OAPEN). Thanks to all who supported the workshop – Marco Winkler, Maxi Kindling, Bernhard Schubert, Elisabeth Stadler, Oliver Krüger, Joe Deville, Kevin Sanders, Kira Hopkins and Toby Steiner – as well as the participants who brought such thoughtful reflections to it.

Exercise from the workshop

The keynote presentations distilled some of the central challenges and opportunities in the open access landscape. Pierre Mounier reminded us that we – the community – derive empowerment as agents in serving that very community. He argued against isolation from existing systems – and rather than adopting their logic, or merely mirror them, we should instead redirect them towards our shared goals. In this way, efficient, sustainable and equitable systems can be fostered and supported through community-led approaches.

In many talks and conversations across the days, including in the keynote by Marco Tullney,  it was stressed how there can be no open access without open infrastructure: It is important to build, support and sustainably fund community-governed open infrastructure to ensure that scholarly publishing becomes truly open, equitable and not least independent of commercial control. 

It was great to meet institutions who, despite increasing financial pressures, continue to support us and other open infrastructures, setting a clear example of the kind of shared responsibility and long-term vision that open access demands. Supporting open infrastructures is a commitment to a more equitable, transparent and credible scholarly communication system. We work daily to deepen our collaboration with open access communities around the world to ensure a more resilient and inclusive future for open access.

We are very grateful to all who helped make OA-Tage 2025 such a vibrant, meaningful event  – including the organisers and everyone who shared their ideas and time with us.

We look forward to continuing these conversations – and to seeing you all in Linz next year!

The Bodensee in Konstanz

OAPEN and DOAB at the Open Access Tage 2025

Wir haben uns sehr gefreut, letzte Woche an den OA-Tagen 2025 in Konstanz teilzunehmen. Die Energie, das Engagement und die Beteiligung aller Anwesenden waren wirklich inspirierend. Gemeinsam mit der deutschsprachigen Open-Access-Community haben wir uns mit den praktischen Bedürfnissen von Verlagen befasst und darüber diskutiert, wie wir gemeinsam die strukturellen Grundlagen der offenen, wissenschaftlichen Kommunikation in eine bessere Richtung bewegen können.

Es war uns eine Freude, uns mit Kolleg:innen von Verfassungsblog, SeDOA, dem Deutschen Open-Access-Netzwerk, der AG Universitätsverlage und vielen weiteren auszutauschen. Diese Gespräche waren reich an Perspektiven und Ideen und boten fruchtbaren Boden für Zusammenarbeit und gemeinsame Innovationen zur Unterstützung des Open-Access-Buchverlagswesens.

Der Workshop, den wir gemeinsam mit Kolleg:innen von Copim Open Book Futures und der AG Universitätsverlage veranstalteten, stand unter dem Motto „Scaling small through horizontal collaboration“, verankert in offenen Werten und interoperablen Infrastrukturen. Gemeinsam untersuchten wir Workflows, die gemeinschaftsgeleitetes Open-Access-Buchpublizieren unterstützen – von kollektiven Finanzierungsmodellen (Open Book Collective und Opening the Future) über offene Metadaten (via Thoth) bis hin zu Auffindbarkeit und Archivierung (mit DOAB und OAPEN). Unser Dank gilt allen, die den Workshop unterstützt haben – Marco Winkler, Maxi Kindling, Bernhard Schubert, Elisabeth Stadler, Oliver Krüger, Joe Deville, Kevin Sanders, Kira Hopkins und Toby Steiner – ebenso wie den Teilnehmenden, die so wertvolle Reflexionen eingebracht haben.

Exercise from the workshop

Die Keynotes fassten einige der zentralen Herausforderungen und Chancen in der Open-Access-Landschaft zusammen. Pierre Mounier erinnerte uns daran, dass wir – die Community – unsere Stärke daraus ziehen, dieser Community als handelnde Akteur:innen zu dienen. Er sprach sich gegen eine Abschottung von bestehenden Systemen aus – und plädierte dafür, diese nicht einfach zu übernehmen oder zu spiegeln, sondern sie in Richtung unserer gemeinsamen Ziele umzulenken. Auf diese Weise können effiziente, nachhaltige und gerechte Systeme durch gemeinschaftsgeleitete Ansätze gefördert und unterstützt werden.

In einer weiteren Keynote machte Marco Tullney eindrücklich deutlich, dass es kein Open Access ohne offene Infrastrukturen geben kann: Die kritischen Infrastrukturen, die Open Access ermöglichen, müssen kontinuierlich und gemeinschaftlich unterstützt werden.

Besonders ermutigend war es, Institutionen zu treffen, die trotz steigender finanzieller Belastungen weiterhin uns und andere offene Infrastrukturen unterstützen – und damit ein klares Beispiel für die Art geteilter Verantwortung und langfristiger Perspektive setzen, die Open Access erfordert. Die Unterstützung offener Infrastrukturen ist ein Bekenntnis zu einem gerechteren, transparenteren und glaubwürdigeren System wissenschaftlicher Kommunikation. Wir arbeiten täglich daran, unsere Zusammenarbeit mit Open-Access-Communities weltweit zu vertiefen, um eine resilientere und inklusivere Zukunft für Open Access zu gewährleisten.

Wir sind allen sehr dankbar, die dazu beigetragen haben, dass die OA-Tage 2025 ein so lebendiges und bedeutungsvolles Ereignis waren – einschließlich der Organisator:innen und aller, die ihre Ideen und ihre Zeit mit uns geteilt haben.

Wir freuen uns darauf, diese Gespräche fortzusetzen – und Sie alle im nächsten Jahr in Linz wiederzusehen!

The Bodensee in Konstanz

OAPEN and Jisc collaborate on enhancing the open policy finder

Open access (OA) policy information is increasing, as more funders, publishers, and institutions continue to develop OA book specific policies. Two resources aggregating OA book policy information include the PALOMERA Knowledge Base and the Jisc open policy finder (formerly Sherpa services). The Knowledge Base includes policies focused on funder and institutional policies, whereas the open policy finder focuses mostly on publisher policies.   

For many years, OAPEN has hosted a ‘Funder compliant publishers’ webpage to help researchers identify publishers who are aligned with the OA requirements from funders, such as the European Research Council (ERC), Wellcome, the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).  

As Jisc is already collecting publisher policies, we decided to collaborate more closely with them on the open policy finder and share these policies we’ve collected over the years, to avoid duplication of efforts. As a result, we will be discontinuing the ‘Funder compliant publishers’ webpage from Friday 30 May

The open policy finder is an up-to-date resource for OA publisher policy information. This change reflects our shared commitment to improving the discoverability of OA book policies for the research community. The PALOMERA Knowledge Base continues to be the most comprehensive resource for funders and institutional policy OA books in the European Research Area where new policies are added on an ongoing basis.  

What will happen to the list of publishers on this webpage? 

All relevant policies from the original OAPEN webpage have already been added to the open policy finder and are discoverable in it. We have already contacted these publishers to inform them of this change.  

What should publishers do if they have a compliance policy for an OA funder? 

The open policy finder reflects policies as shared on publisher websites. 

  • Check your listing on the open policy finder to verify accuracy. 
  • If updates are needed, contact help@jisc.ac.uk with “open policy finder books” in the subject line. 
  • If your policy has not yet appeared, you can request its inclusion. 

We encourage all publishers with books listed in the OAPEN Library to ensure their open access policies are visible in the open policy finder. Doing so supports greater transparency and helps authors and institutions make informed decisions about publishing in open access. 

The open policy finder team also encourages you to join the publishers jiscmail group (sherpapublishers@jiscmail.ac.uk) to keep abreast of service updates. 

Are there other resources for OA book polices? 

The PALOMERA project, and 24-month EU-funded project looking at policy alignment for OA book policies in the European Research Area (ERA), delivered a list of recommendations for publishers to promote transparency and high standards in OA publishing. Recommendations are also available for other stakeholders, such as libraries, research performing organisations, research funding organisations, and more.  

The OAPEN OA Books Toolkit is another useful resource and as part of the PALOMERA project, was updated to include sections on OA book policies and OA book funding policies

About Jisc

Jisc is the UK digital, data and technology agency focused on tertiary education, research and innovation. They are a not-for-profit organisation and believe education and research improves lives and that technology improves education and research. They provide managed and brokered products and services, enhanced with expertise and intelligence to provide sector leadership and enable digital transformation. 

Launching our UKRI collection

On 6 December 2024, we announced that we entered a partnership collaboration with UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to provide a set of dedicated services for its funded open access (OA) books. 

Under the terms of this partnership collaboration, it was agreed that all OA books supported by UKRI are made available as a funded collection in the OAPEN Library from January 2025, alongside our other funded collections (including, DFG, FWF, NWO, SNSF, Wellcome, SCOAP3, Knowledge Unlatched, and the ERC). 

In the six months that have passed since this announcement, we’re pleased to report that 46 books and 5 chapters have already been added to the UKRI collection out of the 90 OA books they have supported so far. We are regularly adding to the collection as more titles are published and supported.

We also launched a dedicated webpage showcasing the UKRI collection. The webpage provides more information for publishers, researchers, and libraries, and on the UKRI open access policy

Other services included in the partnership collaboration are archiving of funded OA books in PORTICO, distribution to libraries globally through our metadata feeds and aggregators, reporting on COUNTER usage in the OAPEN library through a personalised dashboard, and additional discoverability through seamless integration of funded OA books in the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) through the DOAB Trusted Platform Network

We look forward to continuing this partnership collaboration with UKRI and working together to achieve an open future for academic monographs. 

Browse the UKRI collection in the OAPEN Library. 


About UKRI

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is the largest public funder of research in the UK. UKRI brings together the seven disciplinary research councils, Research England, which is responsible for supporting research and knowledge exchange at higher education institutions in England, and the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK. UKRI supports research across all disciplines through a large variety of grants, programmes, and investments. 

Two Years On: A Conversation with DFG on Supporting Open Access Books


It has been two years since OAPEN launched a dedicated collection of DFG-funded open access books. Part of this collection is supported by the DFG Open Access Publication Funding programme. To mark this occasion, OAPEN’s Funder Relations Manager, Laura Bandura-Morgan, interviewed Michael Geuenich, Programme Officer, Scientific Library Services and Information Systems, and Dr. Angela Holzer, Programme Director. Scientific Library Services and Information Systems, of the Deutsche Foreschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). 

Thank you for accepting our invitation for this interview.

1. To begin with, could you tell us a bit more about this funding programme? 

The “Open Access Publication Funding” programme is designed to grant a fixed allowance for the publication of research results via open access. Only research institutions, not individuals, may apply for this allowance – the institutions in turn can use the allowance to endow their Open Access publication funds to enable their researchers to publish their research results. This includes the publication of journal articles as well as open access books (monographs, edited volumes).

This funding programme highlights that open access plays a pivotal role in improving scientific communication and that its costs should be seen in relation to this aim. The aim of this funding programme is to create structural adjustment in financial flows, thus enabling the transformation of open access and improving transparency regarding the costs for open access publication of research results.

The funding of open access publication costs thus is firstly directed towards those research institutions that require it due to the transformation towards publication-based accounting. The provision of funds should secondly result in the formation and development of adequate structures at the institutions receiving funding, to enable them as far as possible to identify the costs of publications in an automated and standardised manner. Therefore, the programme aims to support institutions with the introduction and development of such structures by subsidising researchers’ fees for open access publications.

Open access transformation ultimately requires structural adaptations to the entire system for financing the costs of scholarly publishing. The third aim of the programme is therefore to create a transition to open access funding in which research funders assume financial responsibility for the publications arising from the research they fund.For all OA books funded under the funding programme, quality assurance is ensured by the requirement that the funded books meet the quality standards of AG Universitätsverlage (Association of University Presses in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and South Tyrol, https://ag-univerlage.de/?page_id=2563).

2. What has been DFG’s experience with it so far, and does it meet the expectations of the researchers it is designed to support?

Since the start of the programme in 2021, the DFG has approved funding for open access publications with a volume of 109.3 million euros. The success of the programme can be seen not least in the fact that the programme was ‘overbooked’ in all application years, i.e. a large number of successful proposals were approved, meaning that across-the-board cuts had to be made to the approved funds per publication.

Approximately 4% (4.5 million euros) of the 109.3 million have been approved for the funding of Open Access monographs resulting from DFG projects.

We and the funded libraries have observed that the funding has definitely resulted in a stronger boost in the area of monographs and has created more awareness also among researchers in the Humanities for the importance of Open Access.

We are also noticing an interesting development in the publication of books. The number of books actually funded remains still below the number applied for. One of the possible reasons for this is that the specific publication processes for books follow a different timescale. The publication of a monograph or an edited volume requires more time than the publication of journal articles, and therefore the development takes longer and the funds cannot be used immediately. 

3. Why did you choose to partner with OAPEN to host your funded OA books?

With regard to the books funded through the Open Access Publication Funding Programme, it seemed important to us to have a central place, a single point of contact for all books resulting from this funding. OAPEN is a reliable and community-oriented partner that has been doing valuable work for many years, and which itself emerged from a EU co-funded project. The close links with the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) also ensure the visibility of the funded open access monographs.

The current situation in science politics shows that ‘lots of copies keep stuff safe’; the decision to also deposit the monographs in the OAPEN Library as a repository therefore proved to be the right one. In addition, we have also included in the collection all publications that have been submitted by publishers cooperating with OAPEN and bear a reference to the DFG in the funding acknowledgement. This provides a valuable overview of a selection of the Open Access monographs funded by the DFG via research projects.

Of course, not all Open Access monographs resulting from DFG funding or DFG-funded projects are included in the collection yet. Those publications that were not funded through the “Open Access Publication Funding” programme or that have not been published by one of the publishers cooperating with OAPEN are not included. We would therefore like to see more scientific publishers seeking cooperation with OAPEN so that the OAPEN quality standards can be guaranteed for these publishers.

Since the launch of this programme in 2021, DFG has initiated several other initiatives related to funding open access books. One recent example is the National Service Point for Diamond Open Access (SeDOA), which is set to officially begin on May 1st.

4. Could you elaborate on the key objectives of SeDOA, especially those that are related to OA books?
(e.g. What initial steps will be taken to realize the project’s goals? How will the project support Diamond Open Access book publishing?)

SeDOA is the consortium of 15 institutions that won the ‘Fresh Momentum for Open Access’ call for proposals, which the DFG organised in 2024. The objective of this call was to boost the performance capacity of Diamond Open Access infrastructures located at publicly organised institutions in Germany or operated by non-commercial and non-profit actors in Germany.

SeDOA will act as a central hub for Diamond Open Access services – it will match journals, book series or individual publication projects with appropriate Diamond Open Access publishing services.

The work of SeDOA will not only focus on journals, but will also explicitly look at books. The participating institutions will contribute their expertise in scholar-led open access publishing for books. The consortium includes the University Library of Heidelberg with its Heidelberg University Publishing, the Technical University of Berlin with its university press (as part of Berlin Universities Publishing) and ZB MED in Cologne. Further institutions associated through AG Universitätsverlage contribute the expertise of many years of experience in support and development of services for OA Books. Furthermore, Bielefeld University Library was involved in the EU Horizon Europe project “PALOMERA” that sought to to accelerate the open access transformation of books by aligning OA book policies.

Besides other tasks SeDOA will offer workflow-related basic services like layout, writing environments, editorial software, hosting etc. and will also provide support for transitioning publications into the non-commercial open sector.

5. Do you anticipate that SeDOA will lead to any changes or adaptations in the existing Infrastructures for Scholarly Publishing programme—particularly in terms of financial support for open source publishing platforms, digital preservation services, or infrastructure development for books?

With the approval for SeDOA, the existing funding programme “Infrastructures for Scholarly Publishing” was also adapted. Since the end of last year, applicants have been required to first use the services of SeDOA if, for example, they are planning to establish a new Diamond Open Access publication.

Because SeDOA offers workflow-related basic services, it is now possible for editors of Diamond OA journals not to have to submit a specific funding application (with an uncertain outcome) for many works, but to use the services of SeDOA instead.

We expect that the balance will change for those applications in the funding programme that relate to the publication of papers: Basic services will be covered by SeDOA, but the further development of platforms, tools and business models will move more into the focus of funding.

At best, SeDOA and the projects funded in “Infrastructures for Scholarly Publishing” will complement each other, so that SeDOA can also help to disseminate the knowledge and progress gained in the projects to the entire Diamond Open Access community in Germany.

Lastly, how do you see funding for OA books developing in the future?

Open access books have a different speed of open access transition than journal articles or conference papers. This can be observed particularly in scientific disciplines such as the humanities and social sciences, which still publish monographs more than other disciplines. For subject areas like art history or architecture, for example, there are challenges that other areas do not face in the same way – for example, the (often impossible) open access licensing of image material. The removal of such barriers could potentially be a topic for the Policy Forum for Open Access Books that will take place the first time in May.

What are our strategic priorities in 2025? 

OAPEN, an open infrastructure for open access (OA) books, provides services to stakeholders in scholarly communications, namely, publishers, funders, libraries, and researchers. Our vision is for all scholarly books to be shared and distributed openly and fairly for the collective benefit of humanity. Our mission is to maintain and develop the OAPEN Library and related open infrastructure services for peer-reviewed scholarly books, open textbooks, and OER to our stakeholders for the benefit of the public at large.  

We want to share some of our strategic priorities for 2025 from the eight goals outlined in our 2025-2028 Strategic Plan and the most immediate next steps we will take towards achieving them. For easier reading, we have split the post into two different sections, ‘Community’ and ‘Technical’, which also reflects the internal focuses within the organisation.  

Community 

Several of our goals revolve around equity and diversity of distribution of OA books globally. We want to provide any OA book publisher (and therefore any researchers), no matter where they are located, with equal opportunity for their books to be discovered, downloaded, read, and cited, while maintaining the quality expected of the OAPEN Library and DOAB. This will primarily involve lots of outreach to publishers and libraries in new or less well-represented parts of the world, such as Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. 

DOAB in Africa, a small-scale internal project started in 2024, is one way we will continue to support African publishers to address their equitable access to OA distribution channels. Similarly, the ALMASI project (Aligning and Mutualizing Nonprofit Open Access Publishing Services Internationally) which we are also involved in and launched in January 2025 for a period of three years, goes further by spanning three regions: Africa, Europe, and Latin America.  The project’s aim is to understand the current landscape of nonprofit OA publishing and co-design and align measures for quality standards, training resources, and institutional and national policy development. 

As well as being involved in projects and doing our own outreach, an important part of achieving an equitable and diverse scholarly book publishing ecosystem will be to work closely with our current partners (OPERAS, Copim, PKP, CERN, the SCOSS network, and more)  while also forming new partnerships to support achieving these goals. The Forum for Open Research in the Middle East (FORM), is one such organisation, of whom we recently became an Open Science Supporter. We will be hosting a workshop for their members later in the year and plan to be present at their Annual Forum which always takes place in a different Arab state in October. 

OAPEN and DOAB are often present and speak at at relevant conferences throughout the year, and 2025 will be no different. View our post about in-person conference attendance for where to find us and make sure to check back for updates as the year progresses. 

As well as engaging partners and at conferences, we are starting an ambassador’s programme for DOAB to raise awareness of our services, OA books, for knowledge exchange, and to broaden our networks, as well as those of our ambassadors. We’re currently in talks with several candidates and hope to announce these very soon.  

While the PALOMERA (Policy Alignment of Open Access Monographs in the European Research Area) project formally ended in December 2024, its achievements remain relevant, and progress made throughout the project should not be discarded. Continuing to operate and promote the OAPEN OA Books Toolkit, as well as the Knowledge Base that developed alongside PALOMERA, will be a focal point for the year, and the Open Access Books Network (of which OAPEN is one of the three coordinators) and new OPERAS OA Books Special Interest Group (SIG), will be a partner in this. The Funder Forum will become the Policy Forum and is going to be hosted by Science Europe, with cOAlition S and OAPEN contributing, so stay tuned for more updates on this throughout the year. 

Technical 

Our stakeholders and users are integral to our existence, and we want to continue to meet their needs and guarantee a first-class user experience. Alongside aesthetic changes such as a rebrand, we will be conducting a complete technical review of our services for the first time. The Curtain Institute for Data Science at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, will be performing this review and we hope to publish the results after it’s done. A technical audit is essential to ensure that we can maintain a robust and reliable service for all globally.  

As the migration to CERN is complete, we will be working closely with them to maintain our servers and deliver a reliable service to our users. Additionally, we will be expanding our existing suite of services, adding a privacy-friendly recommender tool to the OAPEN Library, integrating VIAF (Virtual International Authority File) into our metadata to provide author affiliation data, and upgrading to a new DSpace environment (the OAPEN Library and DOAB currently operate on DSpace 6).  

Finally, we will do another POSI update in May, reviewing our progress since we first conducted self-audits in May 2023 (when we first adopted POSI). POSI stands for the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure, and they serve as a guide for open infrastructures such as OAPEN to ensure they are run and sustained in a way that accountable to the community we serve and remain open and transparent about our operations.  

Feel free to get in touch with us if you have any questions or comments.  

Download and read the OAPEN Strategic Plan 2025 – 2028.

Read the DOAB Strategic Plan 2025 – 2028.  

Guest post: SCOAP3 for Books Program 2025

This is a guest post written by the SCOAP3 Team, mirrored on the SCOAP3 website.

The SCOAP3 for books program aims to support the open access (OA) publishing of new  (“born-OA”) scientific monographs and textbooks that are relevant to the discipline of high energy physics (i.e. in the field of Physics, Mathematics, Engineering, Instrumentation or Computer Science as related to the high-energy physics community). 

Supported by contributions from members of the SCOAP3 Consortium, the program has funded the Open Access publishing of almost 100 books to date (see the SCOAP3 Collection in the OAPEN Library)

SCOAP3 now launches the 2025 program and invites all interested scholarly publishers to participate. 

If you wish to participate in this program in 2025, we invite you to submit proposals for Open Access funding for books relevant to high energy physics that are planned to be published in the years 2025 and 2026, via the online form linked here.

Please fill one form per book, before May 15th, 2025. All the submitted books should already have been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication within the next 18 months, and should be accompanied with a significant amount of sample text (at least one chapter). 

In addition, it is mandatory that the prior consent of authors for OA publishing be obtained for each proposed title (using either CC-BY or CC-BY-NC license), together with their acknowledgement of the publication timelines required by the program (Publication should happen at the latest by December, 31st, 2026). 

Proposals will be subject to an evaluation by a panel of scientists in the field, who will make the final selection.. 

We aim to complete the selection process and inform publishers of the titles that have been successfully selected for funding by October 1st 2025. (Please note that books published before this date will not be eligible for SCOAP3 funding).In case of questions, or problems when filling the form, please contact us: scoap3@cern.ch.

About SCOAP3

SCOAP3 (The Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics: Enabling open dissemination of global research outputs in High-Energy Physics) is a global partnership—consisting of over three thousand libraries, key funding agencies and research centers from some 50 partnering countries and intergovernmental organisations—with a mission to enable barrier-free, equitable Open Access to research in High-Energy Physics.

OAPEN & SCOAP3

Since 2021, OAPEN has supported SCOAP³ for Books by providing services in the areas of hosting, dissemination, digital preservation, analytics as well as a branded collection. The SCOAP3 for Books collection consists of key textbooks and monographs in particle physics and neighboring fields which have been converted to Open Access through partnership with leading scientific publishers. SCOAP3 is funded through the generous support of members of over 200 members of the consortium. Learn more about SCOAP3 for Books.

Equitable and sustainable open access for scholarly books in East Africa: report from an online session

This is a guest post written by Malavika Legge, Program Manager at OASPA.

In October 2024, a collaborative online-session for publishers from East Africa was co-organised by the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) and OAPEN, along with the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA), and French research institutes in Africa (LAM and IFRA) supported by the  National Centre for Scientific Research in France (CNRS).

The session covered approaches towards equitable and sustainable open access (OA) for scholarly books, and this online event, held on 24 October 2024, was delivered in two parts: Part 1 was a webinar-style series of presentations exploring impacts, experiences, revenue models and other topics pertaining to OA book publishing. Part 2 was a workshop-style discussion for all present.

The co-organisers of this 2-part event are pleased to share this detailed report as well as a freely available video recording of the four presentations, outlined below. 

Part 1: General Session – Moderator: Mary Felix, General Manager, OAPEN
Watch Mary’s introduction and opening remarks at the start of the recording.

  1. Findings and experiences about publishing Open access books in African Studies
  • Bastien Miraucourt (CNRS, France) 
  • Watch Bastien’s presentation from minute 7 onwards in the recording
  1. About some successful open access books funding models
  • Judith Fathallah (Coventry University, Lancaster University, Open Book Collective, United Kingdom) 
  • Watch Judith from 23 minutes 30 seconds onwards in the recording
  1. Integrating digital outputs and open access in the business development of an academic book publisher in Africa
  • Andrew Joseph (Wits University Press, South Africa)
  • Watch Andrew from 34 minutes 15 seconds onwards on the recording
  1. Early results of an African institutional publisher’s global transition to Open Access
  • Jill Claassen (University of Cape Town, South Africa)
  • Watch Jill’s presentation from minute 47 onwards on the recording

Part 2 – workshop discussion

This section of the event was not recorded, and it gave space for audience Q&A, discussion and interactions. All who were present, including East African book publishers in attendance, were welcomed to share experiences and participate. 
Part 2 of the event was moderated by our guest facilitator – Juma Joseph Musakali of Moi University, Kenya. Some headlines emerging from the discussion are distilled in the ‘connections and conversations’ section of our full report.

Migrating the OAPEN Library and DOAB to CERN

This week, we will be migrating the OAPEN Library and Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) servers from their current provider to CERN’s Data Center (as announced earlier this year). This move will improve the operational reliability and efficiency of services for the OAPEN Library and DOAB. 

At the same time, we are removing the EGI authentication for publishers from DOAB. As a result, participating publishers will need to request a new password when logging into DOAB.  

Timeline of events for the migration

  • On Tuesday 10 December, we will restrict updating access for publishers on DOAB, and we will pause adding new titles to the OAPEN Library. 
  • From Wednesday 11 December until Friday 13 December, we will be migrating the OAPEN Library and DOAB to the CERN Data Center. During this time, there might be a short disruption of availability to these services.  
    • We will copy the remaining data from the old to the new environment.
    • Once this operation has been completed, we will perform a final check.  
    • When the inspection proves to be successful, the web addresses https://library.oapen.org and https://directory.doabooks.org will be redirected to the new environments at the CERN Data Center. 
  • From Friday 13 December onwards, the OAPEN Library and DOAB will once again become available for updates. 

DOAB: removal of the EGI authentication 

Removing the EGI authentication service from DOAB will simplify our login process for participating publishers. Instead of the EGI authentication, publisher access to DOAB will be based on a combination of email address and password. A one-time update of the password will be required. This can be done by simply requesting a new password when logging into DOAB.

What does this mean for publishers hosting titles on OAPEN and/or participating in DOAB? 

If you are a publisher, you will not be able to add new titles or update existing titles to the OAPEN Library or DOAB between 11 December and 13 December. For those publishers participating in DOAB, they will need to request a new password when logging in as the EGI authentication will be removed.

For everyone else, you can continue to use the OAPEN Library and DOAB as usual but there may be some periods of time when the services are unavailable. We will try to keep these periods of unavailability as short as possible. 


We thank you for your continued patience with us while we navigate to our new service provider and look forward to completing migration. Please contact us with any questions.  

Strong Foundations for The Palace Project: A collaboration between OAPEN and Lyrasis

OAPEN and Lyrasis build greater access to digital content using the Open Publication Distribution System (OPDS) standard to create interoperability between content providers and reading applications.

The Hague, Netherlands, 9 December 2024 – OAPEN and Lyrasis are happy to announce the implementation and integration of the OAPEN Library collection with The Palace Project. Through this joint effort, more than 22,000 open access books have been made available through OAPEN’s Metadata Export Module for Open Access books (MEMO). This open source metadata management and integration tool by OAPEN invests in the principle of open and interoperable community owned infrastructure and is built on open standards and licensing of content. 

Ronald Snijder, CTO and Head of Research at OAPEN says, “I am very happy that our collection of peer-reviewed open access books is also available to The Palace Project users. We think it is important that our collection can be accessed through a platform like the Palace eReader App that is open and easy to use and that also reaches audiences beyond academia.”

Using OPDS, content providers have a simple and easy-to-implement tool to open discovery and access to other applications and reading systems. Because The Palace Project makes extensive use of OPDS with commercially licensed and openly licensed providers, OAPEN joins a growing global network of content providers invested in creating seamless access to content to readers, researchers, and scholars.   

“NYU Libraries is thrilled that OAPEN is now offering OPDS feeds through their MEMO service,” Nancy Lin, Senior Data Project Strategist at NYU Libraries tells us, “Using this open standard feed, Lyrasis was able to instantly integrate over 22,000 open access ebooks into NYU’s Palace eReader App.” 

James English, Director of Business Development at Lyrasis says, “We are excited to partner with OAPEN to expand access to their ebook collections and publisher content via the Palace App. We hope to broaden adoption and use of this valuable collection of knowledge and information in support of the open access publishing movement as The Palace Project and Lyrasis. I am particularly excited about OAPEN’s use of the OPDS standard in this integration as part of a growing movement toward creating an open and interoperable infrastructure for digital content in libraries.”

Libraries interested in learning more about this integration and how they can improve access to Open Access ebooks can reach out to info@thepalaceproject.org or info@oapen.org

Libraries interested in learning more about this integration and how they can improve access to Open Access ebooks can reach out to info@thepalaceproject.org or info@oapen.org

About Lyrasis

Lyrasis is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization whose mission is to support enduring access to the world’s shared academic, scientific and cultural heritage through leadership in open technologies, content services, digital solutions and collaboration with archives, libraries, museums and knowledge communities worldwide.The Palace Project is a program of Lyrasis working in strategic partnership with Digital Public Library of America (DPLA).

About The Palace Project

The Palace Project is a suite of content, applications and services for the delivery of ebooks, audiobooks, and other digital media to benefit libraries and their patrons. The Palace Project operates out of the Ebooks and Community Engagement Division of Lyrasis.   

About OAPEN

The OAPEN Foundation is an independent, not-for-profit organisation dedicated to peer-reviewed open access books. OAPEN operates three platforms: the OAPEN Library, the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB, in partnership with OpenEdition) and the OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit. OAPEN promotes and supports the global transition to open access for academic books by providing open infrastructure services to stakeholders in scholarly communication.

An Interview with the University of Oxford, Bodleian Libraries

The Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford recently became a premium OAPEN Library and DOAB supporter. Silke Davison, Community Manager, interviewed David Watson, the Bodleian’s open monograph project officer about their engagement with OA books and why they chose to become one of our supporters. Read on to find out what they had to say below!

You recently became a premium OAPEN Library and DOAB supporter, can you tell us your motivations behind this decision? 

Our decision to become a premium supporter of OAPEN Library and DOAB was driven by our commitment to the open access (OA) movement and our desire to ensure the widest possible sustainable access to research outputs including longform works. The Bodleian Libraries have a long history of supporting academic research, and we believe that open access is a vital component in the future of academic publishing. By partnering with OAPEN and DOAB, we hope to contribute to the growth and sustainability of open access publishing, particularly in the area of academic books. 

What are you looking forward to most about this collaboration? 

We are particularly excited about the opportunities this collaboration offers for enhancing the discoverability of OA books. Through our support, we hope to assist OAPEN and DOAB in expanding their platforms, making it easier for researchers and the public to access high-quality scholarly content. Additionally, we look forward to engaging with the broader OA community, sharing best practices, and contributing to the ongoing dialogue about the future of open access. This partnership also aligns with our goals of fostering innovation in research and ensuring that research is accessible to a global audience. 

How do you see this collaboration benefiting your institution? 

We see multiple benefits stemming from this collaboration. For the Bodleian Libraries, it strengthens our role in the open access movement, demonstrating our commitment to ensuring the widest possible access to research outputs. For our researchers and students, this partnership enhances access to a broader range of high-quality OA books, which is particularly valuable in an era where digital resources are increasingly vital for academic success. The OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit (https://www.oabooks-toolkit.org/) is an extremely helpful resource for authors looking at publishing their books OA – which is a task we know can be daunting and confusing. 

How have the Bodleian Libraries responded to the rise of open monograph publication?

The Bodleian has recognized the significant impact that the rise of open monograph publication will have on Oxford’s academics and researchers, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. It also acknowledges the financial implications that the libraries must address. In response, the Bodleian Libraries launched the Sustainable Open Monograph Project to explore how best to navigate these changes, especially in light of the UKRI’s longform policy. The project has examined Oxford’s publishing landscape for OA books, raised awareness among academics about relevant policies, created an Open Book Collection within the institutional repository – ORA (Oxford University Research Archive), and supported OA book schemes, publishers, and infrastructure, all with the goal of fostering sustainable open access and promoting bibliodiversity.

A key focus of our efforts has been improving the availability of information about OA books to our academic community, helping to dispel misconceptions and build confidence in OA publishing. We have published several case studies featuring Oxford authors who have successfully published OA books, each highlighting different aspects of the OA publishing experience. In addition, we developed an author checklist that outlines the OA publishing process, offering practical guidance to authors considering open access for their monographs.

How do you see OA books developing in the next five years? 

In the next five years, we anticipate significant growth in the adoption and production of OA books.  As academic institutions, funders, and publishers increasingly recognize the value of open access – and with an open access requirement for submission of longform outputs confirmed for the REF exercise after REF 2029, we expect to see a broader range of disciplines embracing OA book publishing, especially in the humanities. Sustainable OA infrastructure will likely play a key role in this evolution, with improved platforms and tools making it easier to publish, discover, and interact with OA books. We also expect greater collaboration between libraries, publishers, and OA initiatives, with yet more innovative funding models and schemes. Ultimately, we believe that OA books will become a standard part of the academic publishing landscape – though there will be many within academia who will need to be convinced that OA is an opportunity, and not simply a burden. 

About the Bodleian Libraries

The Bodleian Libraries is the library service supporting the University of Oxford.

The mission of the Bodleian Libraries is to provide an excellent service to support the learning, teaching and research objectives of the University of Oxford; and to develop and maintain access to Oxford’s unique collections for the benefit of scholarship and society.

Libraries in the Bodleian Libraries group include the principal University library – the Bodleian Library – which has been a library of legal deposit for 400 years; as well as 25 other libraries across Oxford, including major research libraries and faculty, department and institute libraries.

The Bodleian Libraries is now the largest academic library service in the UK and one of the largest library services in Europe. The Bodleian Libraries administer the University of Oxford’s institutional repository, ORA (Oxford University Research Archive), preserving and making accessible OA research produced by the members of Oxford University, including articles, research data, research theses, and longform works.

Together, the Libraries hold more than 13 million printed items, over 80,000 e-journals and outstanding special collections including rare books and manuscripts, classical papyri, maps, music, art and printed ephemera.

About OAPEN and DOAB

The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) is a globally used, community-driven and open directory that indexes high quality peer-reviewed open access books. The primary mission of DOAB is to increase discoverability of open access books and increase trust in open access book publishing. All DOAB services are free of charge and all data is freely available.

The OAPEN Foundation is an independent, not-for-profit organisation dedicated to peer-reviewed open access books. OAPEN operates three platforms: the OAPEN Library, the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB, in partnership with OpenEdition), and the OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit. OAPEN promotes and supports the global transition to open access for academic books by providing open infrastructure services to stakeholders in scholarly communication.

Addressing the recent issues with DOAB

The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) is an independent, not-for-profit index of  peer-reviewed open access books. Our current collection consists of 86,000+ titles from 750+ publishers and in 100+ languages.  

Lately, we have received feedback on a disruption to DOAB, noticing the website takes a while to load, times out, or even crashes. We apologise to anyone who has experienced any inconvenience. This is due to a server capacity overload. Put simply: DOAB is too large for the environment it currently runs on.  

To solve this more structural issue and provide you with an improved service, we have struck an exciting partnership with the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN), see the announcement from March, and we currently are in the process of migrating our services  to the CERN Data Center. We hope to finalise this move by the end of September. 

We value our community of stakeholders and users and share in your frustration. We thank you for your continued patience with us as we navigate this challenge and move the entire DOAB (and OAPEN) environment to CERN’s Data Center.