Open Access Books Network becomes an OPERAS Special Interest Group
The Open Access Books Network (OABN) is pleased to share that it has become an OPERAS Special Interest Group (SIG), and as such it is now formally supported by OPERAS, the European Research Infrastructure supporting open scholarly communication in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in the European Research Area.
The OABN will continue to organise ourselves and plan our activities independently, but thanks to this affiliation with OPERAS we will receive administrative support to help us better serve our communities, and we will be able to form stronger links with people and organisations in the European open research landscape.
The OABN was officially launched in 2020 as a bottom-up initiative seeking to bring together a global open access book publishing community. It was begun by members of SPARC Europe, ScholarLed, OPERAS and the OAPEN Foundation and it is coordinated by Agata Morka (SPARC Europe), Lucy Barnes (ScholarLed) and Tom Mosterd (OAPEN).
The OABN runs a wide range of activities, including:
- our boOkmArks events exploring new developments in OA books;
- a workshop series examining policy options for OA books;
- OA Workouts Talks featuring authors discussing their OA publications;
- and discussion forums including our Humanities Commons boards and our Open Cafe events.
To date, the OABN has run these activities thanks to staff time donated by the founding organisations, the ingenuity and dedication of our coordinators who make it all happen without a budget, the infrastructural support of Humanities Commons, and the engagement, knowledge and enthusiasm of the international OA books community who take part in our activities. We hope that our participation in OPERAS as a SIG will enable us to access additional support and to develop new relationships with OPERAS members, as well as to take the time to think more deeply with the OABN community about how the network might develop over the coming years.
Although our coordinators and founding organisations are based mostly in the UK and Europe, the OABN has always seen itself as part of a global OA network and through our events and collaborations we have links with the United States, Brazil, South Africa and New Zealand. We aim to develop this international approach further as an OPERAS SIG, and look forward to broadening our global network while we also strengthen our relationships with our European colleagues.
The OABN Special Interest Group will meet once every 4 to 6 weeks. OPERAS members who are interested in joining this SIG are invited to do so. For non-OPERAS members interested in participating in the SIG, please get in touch with one of the coordinators at info@oabooksnetwork.org for details about how to do so.
For more news, follow us on Twitter: @oabooksnetwork.
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Karla Avanço (April 4, 2022). Open Access Books Network becomes an OPERAS Special Interest Group. OPERAS. Retrieved November 5, 2024 from https://doi.org/10.58079/sjog
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