Not by chance, “Tópicos em Virologia” is the first volume of the Bio collection, an innovative movement of Editora Fiocruz, welcoming the initiative of the biomedical community of Fiocruz and partners. The Bio collection is the bet of many collective layers. The proposal is to keep the content permanently updated – and online access is open. The themes aim to occupy niches hitherto lacking content in Portuguese. Milton Ozório Moraes, em>in memorian, a great enthusiast of collective initiatives and dissemination of knowledge, is one of the parents of this collection. Available in Portuguese only. … Read More →
A milestone for the open access book: 50,000 open access books in DOAB and counting
A milestone for open access – the Directory of Open Access Books now includes over 50,000 open access books published in 90 languages by 560 academic book publishers. The directory, representing scholarship from authors and publishers around the globe, is openly available to the scholarly community and the general public at large. … Read More →
SciELO Books 10 Years: Interview with the Vice-Rector of Culture and Open Science at the University of Coimbra, Delfim Ferreira Leão
As part of the ten years celebratory event, which is proposed as a forum for the recognition of advances, challenges, and debates on the future of the digital book in the light of open access and open science, we interviewed speakers and authorities from institutions linked to the development of SciELO. Delfim Leão, Vice-Rector of Culture and Open Science at the University of Coimbra, is the fourth interviewed.
… Read More →
SciELO Books 10 Years: Interview with the Brazilian Association of University Publishers (ABEU)
As part of the ten years celebratory event, which is proposed as a forum for the recognition of advances, challenges, and debates on the future of the digital book in the light of open access and open science, we interviewed speakers and authorities from institutions linked to the development of SciELO. Rita Argollo, director of ABEU, is our third interviewee. … Read More →
SciELO Books 10 Years: Interview with OAPEN Foundation director and DOAB Foundation co-director, Niels Stern
As part of the ten years celebration event, intended as a forum to recognize the advances and challenges, and to debate on the future of digital books in the light of open access and open science, we’ve interviewed speakers and officials from institutions directly linked to the development of SciELO. We continue this series of interviews with Niels Stern, director of the OAPEN Foundation and co-director of the DOAB Foundation. … Read More →
SciELO Books 10 Years: Interview with the Directors of the Founding Publishers
As part of the ten years celebratory event, intended as a forum to recognize the advances and challenges, and to debate on the future of digital books in the light of open access and open science, we’ve interviewed speakers and officials from institutions directly linked to the development of SciELO. We started the series with the directors of Fiocruz, UFBA and Fundação Editora Unesp Publishers. … Read More →
Guest Post — Building an Easier Path Toward Open Access Book Publishing: Support for Authors [Originally published in the Scholarly Kitchen in March/2021]
Christina Emery presents an updated overview of the open access books landscape and examines the challenges of open access book publishing according to feedback from authors and researchers, plus what support is available to them. … Read More →
The Holy Grail does not exist: OPERAS-P and OASPA’s workshops for publishers on innovative business models for books [Originally published in the OAPEN blog in July/2020]
In May 2021, OPERAS and OASPA hosted a series of three European workshops on business models for open access books targeted specifically at small and medium-sized academic book publishers.. As part of the OPERAS-P project work package 6 (Innovation) OPERAS was looking into innovative, non-BPC business models. The feedback gathered in the course of these three workshops informed a report The Future of scholarly communications, published at the end of June 2021.
“The discussion showed that while the Holy Grail of OA book publishing does not exist, what does exist however, is a strong will to experiment with various approaches, spearheaded by small and medium sized academic book publishers.” … Read More →
Bibliodiversity – What it is and why it is essential to creating situated knowledge [Originally published in the LSE Impact blog in December/2019]
Vibrant scholarly communities are sustained by publishing outlets that allow researchers to address diverse audiences. Whereas, attention is often focused on international publication, much of this work is supported by publications that address national and regional audiences in their own languages. In this post, Elea Giménez Toledo, Emanuel Kulczycki, Janne Pölönen and Gunnar Sivertsen explain the importance of bibliodiversity to sustaining knowledge ecosystems and argue that bibliodiversity is essential to ensuring that the transition to an open book future continues to support the creation of situated knowledge. … Read More →
SciELO Books and open access in epidemic times: More important than ever
The COVID-19 pandemic has spelled out the decisive role of open access (OA) to knowledge and scientific evidence. Globally, there is a temporary opening of collections of paid-for books and subscription journals to support overcoming the pandemic. SciELO Books permanently indexes, publishes and disseminates a collection of more than 700 books in OA, contributing to support public and professional policies, the expansion of the university, valuing the academic book, and the disciplines that make intensive use of the book. … Read More →
Books’ relevance in scholarly communication – The case of SciELO Books
Manuscripts were the first repositories of scholarly communication. Over the centuries and new technologies, science has been communicated by books, by personal correspondence between researchers, journals and paper books, until we came to electronic technologies and the Internet. Throughout the 20th century, journals became predominant as a means of communicating research results, with rapid adaptation to the features offered by technological changes. At the SciELO Network Meeting of the SciELO 20 Years Week, a working group will analyze and discuss the relevance of books in scholarly communication, focusing on the progress of academic publishers and, more specifically, the SciELO Books Program. … Read More →
Open-access books are downloaded, cited, and mentioned more than non-OA books [Originally published in LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog in November/2017]
Open-access journal articles have been found, to some extent, to be downloaded and cited more than non-OA articles. But could the same be true for books? Carrie Calder reports on recent research into how open access affects the usage of scholarly books, including the findings that OA books are, on average, downloaded seven times more, cited 50% more, and mentioned online ten times more. A number of accompanying interviews reveal that authors are choosing open access routes to publish their books not only because of wider dissemination and easier access but also for ethical reasons. … Read More →
Make sure your book is discoverable! Advice for the reader-oriented author [Originally published in LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog in November/2017]
Although academic book publishing remains dominated by print, the ability to reach readers is now hugely dependent on the online discoverability of scholarly books. Authors looking to connect with as wide a readership as possible should consider how to maximise the chances of their books and chapters being returned in readers’ online searches. Terry Clague offers some simple advice to the reader-oriented book author. … Read More →
eBooks – global market and trends – Part III – Final: The publication of printed and digital books in the global context
The e-book Global report shows that the traditional model based on large publishing houses was insufficient to incorporate the possibilities of technological advances. On the one hand, the new reading models through smartphones and subscription platforms and on the other hand, self-publishing of ebooks open opportunities to both individual authors and non-profit organizations in the educational field to produce and distribute their own works at low cost and minimal infrastructure requirements. … Read More →
eBooks – global market and trends – Part II: The publication of printed and digital books in the world context
The Global report on ebooks shows that after several years of growth, commercial companies find a decelerated market, where two lines of action strongly emerge: (a) the digitizing of educational books; and (b) books self-publishing initiatives. In this market stands out the ‘four horsemen’ initiatives that shape the digital ecology, integrated by Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook. … Read More →
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