Webinar: Making Space on the Shelves: Open Access Books in Open Science. July 8 2025, 1:00pm GST @ online | Forum for Open Research in MENA

The last ten years have witnessed an incredible surge in Open Access publishing, and now this transformative movement is making significant strides in the realm of books. This webinar will explore why the rise of Open Access books is so vital, particularly for amplifying the reach and impact of research in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences fields where monographs and edited collections remain extremely popular. Led by two experts from COPIM (Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs), the webinar will explore some of the unique considerations for Open Access in the book world (and how they differ from journal priorities), and trace the fascinating journey of the past and future development of the Open Access Book movement.

What will be covered:

• The role of Open Access books in a local and global Open Science ecosystem
• Funding Open Access books for libraries, publishers and authors
• Overview of tools available to scholarly publishers and scholarly libraries to enable Open Access book publishing for and with their scholarly communities

What you will learn:

This webinar will provide valuable insights for researchers and librarians in the Arab world regarding the following topics

• The role of books in the Open Access ecosystem
• The development of Open Access funding models, particularly those relating to books
• The contemporary global Open Access ecology
• The evolution and continued growth of open infrastructures for Open Access publishing
• The benefits and value of diamond and community-led open access models and operations

Experts:

Kevin Sanders, Open Book Collective Dr. Kira Hopkins, Opening the Future