Acquiring Open Access Children’s Books | The Signal | Library of Congress

"The Library of Congress’ Digital Collecting Plan, finalized in 2017, proposes to “Develop and implement an acquisitions program for openly available content.” To support this goal, the Library’s Digital Content Management section has been helping to pilot new procedures, including the acquisition of digital, open access children’s books. Many discussions of open access eBooks focus on the significant impact of openly licensed works in academic and scientific publishing, but beyond this, a broader community of authors and artists also share creative works. As part of the pilot effort, the Library of Congress acquired and made available 6 creative commons licensed books from Book Dash, a nonprofit organization founded in 2014 in Cape Town, South Africa. The founders organize “Book Dashes” — 12-hour book-making events that bring authors, editors, designers, and illustrators together to create new, born-digital children’s books that are openly licensed and made available on the web for free...."