From Permission to Publication: Managing Third-Party Materials in Open Access Books | Open Access Books Network

By Silke Davison, Andrea Davidson and Lucy Barnes (OABN coordinators)

In November 2024, the Open Access Books Network (OABN) and the University of London Press co-organised the webinar ‘From Permission to Publication: Managing Third-Party Materials in Open Access Books’. 

The inclusion of third-party material in open access (OA) books is critical to the success of OA publishing in the arts, humanities, and social sciences (AHSS) disciplines. Books are the predominant format for sharing new research in these subjects, and in many cases images or text that were not created by the researcher—for example, artwork, maps, poetry—are essential to the arguments and analysis being made and must be included for the work to be intelligible.

The aim of this webinar was to provide attendees with a practical and solutions-focussed session on this critical issue, by inviting speakers with a variety of perspectives and experiences to reflect on the topic. As well as insightful contributions from our speakers—an author, a publisher, a legal expert and an OpenGLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) specialist—a number of useful resources and sources of information were shared, both by our speakers and by audience members (many of whom are themselves librarians, publishers, or authors). We have gathered these links and resources together in this post, and along with the recording we hope this will form a valuable resource on this essential topic.