Open Book Collective now available through Jisc's Subscription Manager · OBC Information Hub

by Kevin Sanders

The Open Book Collective (OBC) is now available through the Jisc Licence Subscriptions Manager Service. This means that all of the OBC’s collective packages, as well as each individual initiative’s Supporter Programme, can be subscribed to through the platform, offering a new route for UK Higher Education Insitutions (HEIs) wishing to support our open access (OA) publishers and open infrastructure providers.

Having spoken with many librarians in the UK, we understand that having OBC available in Jisc’s catalogue is important, partly because it helps make their work easier. It can take time to add OBC as a new supplier, whereas Jisc is already a well known and trusted HEI partner. It is also sometimes quicker for libraries and university legal teams to approve Jisc licenses than custom agreements, such as OBC’s. Our new collaboration with Jisc therefore helps remove some practical obstacles libraries can sometimes face when supporting the OBC, making it more straightforward for them to participate in sustainable and equitable Diamond OA book publishing.

Some UK HEIs already support our members directly through Jisc, often because these members have longstanding library membership programmes that pre-existed the OBC. This includes publishers Open Book Publishers and punctum books, as well as publishing service provider OAPEN / Directory of Open Access Books. With the entirety of the OBC now available through Jisc’s interface, libraries can if they wish simply transfer existing memberships to the collective OBC offering on the Jisc catalogue. This allows supporting institutions to become part of our dynamic community, as well as adding new initiatives to their portfolio, and managing these in the same way that they manage other subscriptions.

There are also potential advantages for institutions already subscribing directly via the OBC to Supporter Programmes. Now, if they wish, they can use the Jisc platform to further harmonise their OA support. This can help make it easier for libraries to plan, manage, and demonstrate their strategic support of an innovative, inclusive, and sustainable open research environment for their parent institution.

[...]