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Meet the OAPEN & DOAB Ambassadors An interview with Ramazan Turgut DOAB Ambassador for Turkey

Ramazan Turgut is a publishing specialist and academic working at the intersection of open science, scholarly communication, and digital research infrastructure. He currently serves as Managing Editor at the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), where he supports the transition of journals to open access and promotes best practices in metadata, publication ethics, and editorial workflows.

What motivated you to join DOAB as an ambassador?

I have spent most of my career helping journals and books from Turkey become visible in international indexes, often starting from national infrastructures such as DergiPark for journals and local university presses for books, and I’ve seen first-hand how transformative that visibility can be for researchers, institutions, and local communities. DOAB plays a unique role in giving open access books a global reach while respecting bibliodiversity and local publishing traditions. For the Turkish open access community, DOAB feels like a natural complement to existing journal infrastructures, because it offers books the same kind of global visibility that many journals already enjoy through platforms like DergiPark. Becoming an ambassador felt like a very natural step: it allows me to bring together my work in DOAJ, my experience with metadata and infrastructure, my long-standing professional commitment to open, equitable access to knowledge and personal passion for books.

How do you plan to drive open access books publishing in your country/region through your work as a DOAB ambassador?

My first priority is to listen to publishers, editors, and librarians in Turkey and understand how to establish a bidirectional and mutually beneficial relationship with DOAB, to drive forward open access books publishing together. Many are interested in open access monographs, but may feel unsure about technical workflows, metadata, or quality criteria. I want to demystify the process: offering webinars and hands-on support in Turkish, helping publishers prepare high-quality metadata, and connecting them with the wider DOAB and OAPEN community. In parallel, I hope to build stronger bridges between institutional presses, university libraries, and global infrastructures such as DOAB, DOAJ, Crossref, and OpenAIRE, so that open access books from Turkey are properly indexed, trusted, and easily discoverable worldwide.

What or who inspires you in your role?

I am constantly inspired by small university presses, librarians, and editors who are committed to open access even when they work with very limited resources. In Turkey, I’ve seen teams build impressive journal and book programmes with almost no dedicated infrastructure, just a strong belief that knowledge should be shared. I’m also inspired by scholars who publish in languages like Turkish, Kurdish or Arabic and still want their work to be part of global conversations. Their efforts to balance local relevance with international visibility motivate me to work on better metadata, multilingual discovery, and more inclusive infrastructures.

What are the biggest challenges you see in advancing open access book publishing in your country/region?

One major challenge in Turkey is the lack of sustainable funding and policy frameworks for open access monographs. Many institutions support open access in principle, but concrete policies, budgets, and workflows for books are only just emerging. In Turkey, most open access journals benefit from the shared national platform DergiPark, but there is not yet a comparable common infrastructure for open access books. I know that TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM is exploring the idea of such a platform. If this materialises, it could be a real game-changer, especially for open access books produced by university presses. A national book platform, if realised, could fill this gap and make it much easier for university presses to publish open access books sustainably, especially in Turkish.

There is also some uncertainty and misunderstanding around quality: authors sometimes worry that publishing an open access book might be seen as “less serious” or “less prestigious”, which is, of course not true. Finally, technical capacity can be a barrier; things like persistent identifiers, XML or high-quality multilingual metadata can feel overwhelming. Part of my role as ambassador is to show that these challenges are solvable, and that infrastructures like DOAB exist precisely to support publishers on this journey.

Anything else you would like to add?

Beyond my ambassador role, I’m involved in a collaborative initiative called “Language Agnostic Knowledge”, which explores how AI and semantic technologies can make non-English research more visible in global infrastructures. For me, this is closely connected to the mission of DOAB: open access only becomes truly meaningful when books are not just free to read, but also easy to find, regardless of the language they are written in. I’m excited to contribute to a future where open access books from Turkey and the wider region are fully part of the international research conversation, on their own terms and in their own languages.

OAPEN & DOAB Elçileriyle Tanışın: Türkiye DOAB Elçisi Ramazan Turgut ile Söyleşi

Ramazan Turgut, açık bilim, akademik iletişim ve dijital araştırma altyapılarının kesişim noktasında çalışan bir yayıncılık uzmanı ve akademisyendir. Hâlen Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)’da Yönetici Editör olarak görev yapmakta; bu kapsamda dergilerin açık erişime geçiş süreçlerini desteklemekte ve metadata, yayın etiği ile editoryal iş akışlarında iyi uygulamaların benimsenmesini teşvik etmektedir.

S1. DOAB’a elçi olarak katılma motivasyonunuz neydi?

Kariyerimin önemli bir bölümünü, Türkiye’de yayımlanan dergi ve kitapların uluslararası dizinlerde görünürlüğünü artırmaya adadım. Bu süreçte çoğu zaman dergiler için DergiPark gibi ulusal altyapılardan, kitaplar için ise üniversite yayınevlerinden yola çıkıldığını gördüm. Bu görünürlüğün araştırmacılar, kurumlar ve yerel topluluklar açısından ne kadar dönüştürücü olabildiğine birebir tanıklık ettim. DOAB, açık erişimli kitaplara küresel ölçekte erişim sağlarken bibliyoçeşitliliğe ve yerel yayıncılık geleneklerine saygı göstermesiyle benzersiz bir rol üstleniyor. Türkiye’deki açık erişim topluluğu açısından DOAB, mevcut dergi altyapılarını doğal bir şekilde tamamlayan bir yapı olarak öne çıkıyor; DOAJ gibi platformlar aracılığıyla dergilerin hâlihazırda sahip olduğu küresel görünürlüğü DOAB kitaplara kazandırıyor. Elçi olmak benim için son derece doğal bir adımdı: DOAJ’daki çalışmalarımı, metadata ve altyapı konusundaki deneyimimi, bilgiye açık ve adil erişime yönelik uzun soluklu mesleki bağlılığımı ve kitaplara duyduğum kişisel tutkuyu bir araya getirme imkânı sunuyor.

S2. DOAB elçisi olarak yürüttüğünüz çalışmalar aracılığıyla ülkenizde/bölgenizde açık erişimli kitap yayıncılığını nasıl geliştirmeyi planlıyorsunuz?

Öncelikli hedefim, Türkiye’deki yayıncıları, editörleri ve kütüphanecileri dinlemek ve DOAB ile çift yönlü, karşılıklı faydaya dayalı bir ilişkiyi nasıl kurabileceğimizi birlikte anlamak. Pek çok paydaş açık erişimli monografilere ilgi duyuyor; ancak teknik iş akışları, metadata ya da kalite kriterleri konusunda tereddüt yaşayabiliyor. Amacım süreci sadeleştirmek ve anlaşılır kılmak: Türkçe webinarlar ve uygulamalı destek sunmak, yayıncıların yüksek kaliteli metadata hazırlamalarına yardımcı olmak ve onları DOAB ve OAPEN topluluğuyla buluşturmak. Buna paralel olarak, kurumsal yayınevleri, üniversite kütüphaneleri ve DOAB, DOAJ, Crossref ve OpenAIRE gibi küresel altyapılar arasında daha güçlü köprüler kurmayı hedefliyorum. Böylece Türkiye’de yayımlanan açık erişimli kitapların doğru şekilde dizinlenmesi, güvenilir bulunması ve dünya genelinde kolayca keşfedilebilir olması mümkün olacaktır.

S3. Bu roldeki çalışmalarınızda size ilham veren kişi veya unsurlar nelerdir?

Sınırlı kaynaklarla çalışmalarına rağmen açık erişime güçlü bir bağlılık gösteren küçük üniversite yayınevleri, kütüphaneciler ve editörler beni sürekli olarak motive ediyor. Türkiye’de, neredeyse hiç özel altyapısı olmayan, ancak bilginin paylaşılması gerektiğine dair güçlü bir inançla etkileyici dergi ve kitap programları oluşturan ekipler gördüm. Ayrıca Türkçe, Kürtçe veya Arapça gibi dillerde yayın yapan ve buna rağmen çalışmalarının küresel akademik tartışmaların bir parçası olmasını isteyen araştırmacılardan da ilham alıyorum. Yerel bağlamı korurken uluslararası görünürlüğü sağlama yönündeki bu çabalar, daha iyi metadata, çok dilli keşif ve daha kapsayıcı altyapılar üzerine çalışmam için beni teşvik ediyor.

S4. Ülkenizde/bölgenizde açık erişimli kitap yayıncılığının gelişmesindeki en büyük zorluklar nelerdir?

Türkiye’deki temel sorunlardan biri, açık erişimli monograflar için sürdürülebilir finansman ve politika çerçevelerinin eksikliğidir. Pek çok kurum açık erişimi ilkesel olarak desteklese de, kitaplara yönelik somut politikalar, bütçeler ve iş akışları henüz yeni yeni oluşmaktadır. Türkiye’de açık erişimli dergilerin büyük çoğunluğu, ulusal ölçekte paylaşılan DergiPark platformundan faydalanmaktadır; ancak açık erişimli kitaplar için henüz benzer bir ortak altyapı bulunmamaktadır. TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM’in bu yönde bir platform fikrini değerlendirdiğini biliyorum. Böyle bir girişimin hayata geçmesi, özellikle üniversite yayınevleri tarafından üretilen açık erişimli kitaplar için oyunun kurallarını değiştirebilir. Ulusal bir kitap platformu, bu boşluğu doldurarak üniversite yayınevlerinin, özellikle Türkçe yayınlar açısından, açık erişimli kitapları sürdürülebilir biçimde yayınlamasını önemli ölçüde kolaylaştırabilir.

Buna ek olarak, kalite konusuna dair bazı belirsizlikler ve yanlış algılar da mevcut. Yazarlar zaman zaman açık erişimli bir kitabın “daha az ciddi” ya da “daha az prestijli” algılanabileceğinden endişe edebiliyor; oysa bunun doğru olmadığı açıktır. Son olarak, teknik kapasite de bir engel oluşturabilmektedir; kalıcı tanımlayıcılar, XML ya da yüksek kaliteli çok dilli metadata gibi unsurlar göz korkutucu görünebilir. Elçi olarak rollerimden biri, bu zorlukların aşılabilir olduğunu ve DOAB gibi altyapıların yayıncıları tam da bu yolculukta desteklemek için var olduğunu göstermek.

S5. Eklemek istediğiniz başka bir husus var mı?

Elçilik rolümün yanı sıra, “Language Agnostic Knowledge” adlı işbirliğine dayalı bir girişimde yer alıyorum. Bu girişim, yapay zekâ ve anlamsal teknolojilerin İngilizce dışındaki araştırmaların küresel altyapılarda daha görünür hâle gelmesine nasıl katkı sağlayabileceğini inceliyor. Bu çalışma, benim için DOAB’ın misyonuyla doğrudan bağlantılıdır: Açık erişim, kitaplar yalnızca ücretsiz okunabilir olmakla kalmayıp, yazıldıkları dilden bağımsız olarak kolayca bulunabildiğinde gerçekten anlam kazanır. Türkiye’den ve daha geniş bölgeden gelen açık erişimli kitapların, kendi koşullarıyla ve kendi dillerinde uluslararası akademik diyaloğun tam anlamıyla bir parçası olduğu bir geleceğe katkı sunmaktan büyük heyecan duyuyorum.

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. 

Marking the 15th anniversary of the OAPEN Library 

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the OAPEN Library, which was launched at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2010.  At this year’s fair, we invite you to attend our half hour panel discussion on ‘The Evolution of Open Access Books’ to celebrate the occasion.  It’s happening on Thursday, 16 October from 12:00 to 12:30 CEST at the Innovation Stage (Hall 4.0, H106).   

An anniversary like this provides an excellent moment to reflect on the past, present, and future. Two years ago, I co-wrote the article ‘Open Access to Books – the Perspective of a Non-profit Infrastructure Provider’ (Journal of Electronic Publishing, 2023, https://doi.org/10.3998/jep.3303) that covered the history of OAPEN quite well. A couple of years prior to that, I shared a more personal account of the origins of OAPEN in ‘A brief saga about open access books’ (Nordic Perspectives on Open Science, 2021, https://doi.org/10.7557/11.5751). 

So, in this blog post I will shift focus from the past to where we are today and where we’re heading at OAPEN.  

A good place to begin is our Strategic Plan 2025-2028.  Released at the beginning of this year, the plan is the result of a thorough process involving our team, as well as our Supervisory and Advisory Boards. It sets a clear direction for the future and is defined by six strategic goals. It’s the implementation of the goals, however, that makes the difference. Our team has been working hard to materialise the strategy through concrete action. 

I know that walking through a strategic plan can be quite tedious, so I will keep it brief and share some highlights to give you a general idea of how we are steering OAPEN in times of rapid change. 

Our key stakeholders are libraries, publishers, and funders. Everything we do – and should do – is to address their needs. In this way, we can best serve the research community and thereby also the researchers. We are committed to ensuring that our existing services are available and reliable, that we are able to develop new services, and build capacity for our stakeholders. A central prerogative is to promote and ensure high quality standards, improve the user experience of OAPEN, explore and implement AI where relevant. We also want to build strong partnerships, support equity in the global distribution of open access (OA) books and professionalise our organisation. 

Here’s what we’ve been doing recently to achieve all the objectives:  

  • We have established a partnership with CERN and migrated our DSpace servers to the CERN Data Centre. This reinforces the reliability and robustness of our services.
  • We have commissioned a full technical review of our infrastructures, performed by the Curtin University Institute for Data Science. This review replicated and documented our code base and provided us with an extensive report including a set of recommendations for future developments. The review considered feedback from several partners provided via thorough interviews. Based on stakeholder and partner feedback, we have solidified our backend and defined a technical roadmap based on user needs. 
  • We have revisited and elaborated our evaluation criteria for the inclusion of book publishers and further professionalised our evaluation processes – described in this blog post.
  • We have updated our visual identity and redesigned our website – read more here.
  • We have started conversations with several partners about the ethical use of AI, with a focus on respecting the licensing terms of the works we host.
  • We have joined the newly established OPERAS AI Special Interest Group.
  • We have set up an Ambassador Programme to promote the values of OA in scholarly publishing globally.
  • We have been deeply engaged in international projects focused on strengthening openness, diversity, equity, and inclusion across scholarly disciplines and publishing practices in Europe, but also in other parts of the world, most recently in Latin America and Africa.
  • We have professionalised the organisation by introducing HR policies and support functions, a Jira ticketing system, CRM, and invoicing systems, and external annual financial audit controls.
  • We have expanded our team with exceptionally friendly, engaged, and skilled colleagues representing eight different nationalities.  

Many of these activities are ongoing and keep us all very busy. Constantly improving and fine-tuning our workflows and services requires a lot of effort. Additionally, new activities are in the pipeline, for example – based on the Curtin recommendations – the development of automated workflows for importing OA books into the OAPEN Library and upgrading the DSpace software to the next version. We also want to expand our engagement in the Middle East and Asia while maintaining strong connections to our existing community of libraries and publishers.  

All our services and work invested in them are only made possible through the generous financial support of more than 350 libraries around the world. We are extremely grateful to all those who support us and we invite other libraries to consider doing the same – more info here. Even if financial isn’t possible, there are other important ways to contribute. We encourage libraries to advocate for OA books whenever possible and integrate the OAPEN Library collection of over 40,000 peer-reviewed OA books into their library catalogues, making them immediately available to their patrons. It’s free of charge and there are multiple ways of doing it – see here.  

We also want to thank the hundreds of publishers who trust us to host their books. Without your content there would be no OAPEN Library. If you are a publisher considering joining OAPEN, here’s the info you need to know. 

We also want to extend our gratitude to the research funders we work with. We are immensely grateful for our collaboration and invite other research funding organisations to explore our collection services or consider becoming part of the Policy Forum on OA Books. 

We are fortunate to be part of a vibrant, amicable, and fast-developing community. Good colleagues are foundational to bringing progress and joy to work. This, alongside a strong drive to fulfil our mission and vision, is what personally helps me get up in the morning.  

Since beginning my career in scholarly book publishing in 2003, I have strived to ensure that high quality research published in book form can reach their audiences as far and wide as possible. Open access is the most effective means to ensure this, which is why the work we do at OAPEN is truly meaningful to me.  

Scholarly books that have undergone rigorous peer review and meticulous editorial work deserve to be available not only to scholars and students but also to readers across the globe. When I worked in publishing, I was always fascinated by the interest in research books by audiences far beyond academia. These books often open doors to new perspectives on well-known topics as well as insights into hidden or overlooked parts of humanity and the society we live in.  

Books carry weight and trust. In an increasingly polarised and fragmented society contaminated by misinformation and post-truth claims, scholarly books play a vital role. At a few recent conferences – including at the Open Science Fair 2025 and the UN Science Summit 2025 – I have addressed the work we do to promote and ensure trust in OA book publishing.  

Reflecting on the article “The Aspasia Project: Protecting and Repairing the Infrastructure of the Public Debate” by my good friend and colleague Pierre Mounier, I believe our work contributes to a larger effort of restoring the public knowledge infrastructure. Pierre underscores that this restoration is urgently needed to protect our liberal democracies from ruthless autocrats who want to dominate the world. In this sense, I feel that we – as part of a larger community – are part of an extremely important and existential mission to uphold our values and our way of life and build a better future for the next generations.  

I truly look forward to the next 15 years and to continuing this journey with our fantastic team to fulfil our mission in collaboration with libraries, publishers, funders, and our brilliant community partners across the world. 

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

Change of technical leadership at OAPEN and DOAB

Shortly after the launch of the OAPEN project back in 2008, I remember that the project coordinator, Eelco Ferwerda at Amsterdam University Press (AUP) introduced a new colleague to the project: Ronald Snijder. Ronald was the Project Supervisor Digital Publications at AUP and introduced to support the technical coordination of the OAPEN project.

After the launch of the OAPEN Library in 2010 and the subsequent establishment of the OAPEN Foundation, Ronald became the technical coordinator of OAPEN, however from 2014 until the end of 2019 only one day per week while working the remaining days of the week at the Employee Insurance Agency (UWV) in the Netherlands as a Data Architect. In 2020, Ronald came back full time to the OAPEN Library and the Directory of Open Access Books as Operations Manager and then later as CTO/Head of Research.

His impact on the infrastructures is immense and no one knows their way around the OAPEN Library as well as Ronald. He has been overseeing and with colleagues developed the technologies that enable OAPEN and DOAB to connect hundreds of publishers with thousands of libraries around the world. Wizarding intricate metadata conversion schemes has indeed been a hallmark of Ronald and colleagues and partners know and respect him for his expertise in this domain. But he is also known for his interest in the impact of publishing academic books open access which has led to many scholarly articles and papers and most notably his PhD dissertation from Leiden University in 2019 published by AUP and of course available in the OAPEN Library (http://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/25287).

Ronald has now decided to make a change in his working life. From October 2025 he will pursue a new role as Enterprise Architect at the National Health Care Institute in the Netherlands. While we regret that Ronald is leaving us, we wish him all the very best in his new role. We will miss him greatly for all his work, support, friendliness, and dry Dutch humour and indeed we thank him deeply for the time and effort he has devoted to OAPEN and DOAB. Ronald’s last working day at OAPEN Foundation will be 29 August 2025.

Ronald leaves OAPEN and DOAB in good shape. We have recently migrated our DSpace environments (the servers) to the CERN Data Centre in Geneva. Our DSpace specialist and programmer, Vaggelis Theodorakopoulos, has been working with us for almost two years and has become fully acquainted with the services and together with the rest of the Tech team, they will ensure that OAPEN and DOAB are in good hands.

Our strategic plans for the coming years (https://www.oapen.org/oapen/oapen-strategic-plan-2025-2028 and https://doabooks.org/en/doab/doab-strategic-plan-2025-2028) together with the recommendations of a report commissioned from the Institute for Data Science at Curtin University in Australia (performing an independent technical review and documentation exercise of the infrastructures) have given us a clear technical roadmap for OAPEN and DOAB.

To steer these developments, we are now hiring a new Head of Technology (see vacancy note) to bring OAPEN and DOAB into the future in close collaboration with a fast-growing and very exciting community around open access publishing of academic books. This marks a next phase for OAPEN and DOAB as we celebrate the 15 years anniversary of the OAPEN Library this year at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Much has happened in the OA books landscape since the launch of the OAPEN Library in 2010. And much has happened to the OAPEN Library. It began with six publishers adding their peer-reviewed OA books to a shared platform – now more than 400 publishers contribute over 40,000 books. New open services for academic books have emerged over the past few years that OAPEN and DOAB are interoperating with. Libraries, publishers, and research funders have new requests that we are responding to or in the process of finding solutions for. OAPEN is engaged in multiple international projects and new directions for OA book publishing, for example Diamond OA book publishing. Etc. etc. The landscape has certainly changed over the past 15 years!

We sometimes jokingly say that OAPEN is an old start-up that has now become a professional organisation. Building on Ronald’s comprehensive contributions over the years we are now taking even further steps to improve the resilience, efficiency, and scalability of OAPEN and DOAB. Exciting times are ahead of us and while we regret that Ronald has chosen not to be part of this journey, we wish him all the best on his new career path and truly thank him for his contributions over the years.

Ronald Snijder standing next to the OAPEN poster at the launch of the OAPEN Library in 2010 at the Frankfurt Book Fair (a rather blurry screen shot, unfortunately, of a recording with my iPhone 3).

Funnelling locusts – further reflections on the OAPEN Library and DOAB’s response time 

In my previous post on our less than optimal performance of the OAPEN Library and DOAB, I wrote about the effect of AI bots on our systems, and that it has become a common problem for many sites providing open access (OA) or open source software content. All of them – including the OAPEN Library and DOAB – see a new threat: not censorship or budget cuts, but bots. A new kind of digital swarm has arrived, and it’s putting serious pressure on our infrastructure, especially the OAPEN Library. In this blog, I will discuss in some detail our ongoing work to prevent us from being overrun by AI bots. 

Interacting with OAPEN and DOAB – a dialogue 

At its core, every interaction with the OAPEN Library is a dialogue between a user and our server. A request is made, we respond. This simple back-and-forth happens countless times a day. A user is either a person, or an automated system: a bot.  

Most of the time, these interactions are respectful. Many bots—like those from Google or CLOCKSS—identify themselves and behave in a predictable way. We welcome not just human users, but also automated systems – for instance for text and data mining – into the OAPEN Library; we aim to share a quality-controlled collection of open access books as widely as possible.  

But with the rise of AI tools—especially large language models (LLMs)—the nature of these conversations is changing. Many bots no longer introduce themselves. They mask their identities and arrive in droves, flooding the system with requests. 

OAPEN under attack: a swarm of locusts 

Under normal circumstances, we see less than 50 dialogues per second happening between a user and the OAPEN Library. However, when a swarm of AI bots starts hammering the OAPEN server, the number of interactions rises to over 10,000. As you can imagine, this is similar to undergoing a swarm of locusts. 

These swarms of AI bots are scraping content to feed LLMs. The impact? Our response time balloons from milliseconds to minutes, effectively making the OAPEN Library unusable. And it doesn’t stop. These surges can last for hours and sometimes occur multiple times a day. 

Figure 1: Line drawing of locusts, taken from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Diagrams_of_Locusts_which_swarmed_over_England_in_1748.jpg  

Our solutions to the problem 

Stopping this digital onslaught is far from simple. The attacks don’t come from a single source or follow an obvious pattern. As an open infrastructure serving a global audience, we cannot block entire countries, as some may have done as a solution. Our goal is to make sure that all genuine users of the OAPEN Library continue to have access, and to funnel the flood of AI bots. Together with our colleagues of the CERN Data Center we have been working on several countermeasures. 

What measures have we implemented? 

  1. Blocking known offenders 

We keep a list of bots that have repeatedly overwhelmed the system and block them. While many bots disguise themselves, some of them are still recognisable. 

  1. Rate limiting 

When a user is sending more than a certain number of requests per seconds, we temporary block them. Our OAPEN Library server does not respond with an answer or by sending a file but instead gives the message “429 Too Many Requests”. 

We are applying the following limitations to handle these instances: 

  • More than 40 requests in 10 seconds for a URL starting with /discover or /handle will lead to a time-out. 
  • More than 20 requests in 10 seconds for a URL starting with /bitstream will lead to a time-out.  

If this results in genuine users being blocked from using the OAPEN Library, such as large institutions, we will recosider changing the limits. 

  1. Separating file downloads from information requests 

The most important function of the OAPEN Library is providing access to OA book and chapter files. To ensure that they remain accessible, requests for files are now redirected to four separate servers to manage file downloads. This helps us deal with the large number of file requests, as there are now more servers to carry the load. 

  1. Continuous monitoring 

Additional to all the above measures, in collaboration with our colleagues from the CERN Data Center, we will continue to closely watch traffic to the OAPEN Library and adjust our responses as needed. 

Figure 2 An overview of response times of several aspects of the OAPEN Library 

Looking Ahead 

There is no silver bullet. Combating this problem requires significant time, technical resources, and coordination between our team and the CERN Data Center. On the horizon, a newer version of DSpace promises greater flexibility and tools to help manage these issues more effectively. Our current version of DSpace uses a relatively old version of the SOLR search engine and it is not possible to add an additional copy of the search engine to double the capacity. The latest versions of DSpace are using an updated version of SOLR, making it possible to add more capacity.  

Until then, we continue to do all we can to keep the OAPEN Library open and accessible – for humans and well-behaved bots alike – to avoid sincere users being harmed by these solutions. However, if you run into issues, please contact us

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.  

Computers gung ho? Responding to the OAPEN Library and DOAB’s response time 

The catchphrase ‘computer says no‘ is something most of us are familiar with; it’s frustrating when an digital system is not behaving the way we want. Lately, at OAPEN and the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) we are experiencing something else that might be described as ‘computers gung ho’.  

What was the problem? 

The OAPEN Library and DOAB received so many requests from automated systems that they drowned out genuine users. On Tuesday 25 March, the problem reached a tipping point for the OAPEN Library when we saw this happening for several hours. From 8:30 up until 12:00 the number of sessions on the OAPEN Library exploded from 15 per second to 1,500 per second. As a result, the average response time of the OAPEN Library dropped from 0.2 seconds to 1.2 minutes, rendering the service unusable. Thanks to the support of our hosting partner CERN, the system did not crash. 

A graph showing the averag number of session oand the average response time of OAPEn and DOAB

Image: A graph showing activity in the OAPEN Library (green line) and DOAB (yellow line) on Tuesday 25 March. Credit: Grafana Dashboard, provided by CERN. 

If you look closely at the graph, you can see that these peaks in sessions were not confined to one morning only. We now see this happening several times per day, but only for short periods. 

Why is this happening? 

The reason for these bursts is that AI systems are hoovering up the content in the OAPEN Library and DOAB. OAPEN and DOAB are not the only websites that need to deal with these type of visitors. Eric Hellman describes in his blog “AI bots are destroying Open Access” how this has become a problem for many providers of open access content. When your mission is to make knowledge as widely available as possible, blocking AI bots should not be a necessity. This leads to unintended consequences, for example, the Internet Archive can no longer save snapshots of MIT Press because of Cloudflare blocking. The problem is not confined to open access providers, but also those who work on open source software see the same thing happening

What can be done about it? 

Our goal is to continue providing unfettered access to a quality curated collection of open access books. There is no simple solution: the requests come from different addresses and mostly do not identify as bots. This makes it hard for us – and all others dealing with this issue – to distinguish between genuine users and AI tools ‘gung ho’.  

Together with our colleagues at CERN we are working on the resilience of our systems, to make sure they keep functioning. We are also investigating if there is a way to deal with the peaks in downloads in such a way that it will allow human readers to keep using the OAPEN Library and DOAB without interruptions.  

While we keep working on a solution, we thank you for your continued patience when our services are temporarily slower than usual.