Elections of Stewards at OBC's second Annual General Assembly of Custodians

On the 11th September 2024, the Open Book Collective held our second Annual General Assembly of Custodians (AGAC). This body plays a significant part in the governance of the Open Book Collective and provides a chance for representatives from our three member caucuses — libraries, publishers, and service providers — to feed into our work.

In this AGAC, a significant part of the agenda was the election for several roles on the Board of Stewards. Stewards act as the Trustees of the Open Book Collective and, as such, are ultimately responsible for its work. Each of the three caucuses is represented on the Board by two Stewards. These are joined by three ‘OA Expert’ Stewards. These Stewards are independent — that is to say, their institution is not a member of the OBC and, as such, they do not represent any caucus.

Due to a combination of circumstances, including some existing OA Experts reaching the end of their term, each of these three OA Expert roles were up for election. We had three candidates put themselves forward: Holly Limbert (University of Derby), Reggie Raju (University of Cape Town), and Amanda Ramalho (SciELO Books). Both Reggie and Amanda were standing for re-election. We are delighted to report that all three candidates were unanimously elected by majority. We did not receive any nominations for a fourth open position on the Board — representing the service provider caucus. We will re-open this position for nominations ahead of the next AGAC.

We would like to earnestly thank our outgoing stewards, Cheryl Ball (Wayne State University) and Andrea Hacker (University of Bern) for their significant contributions to the Open Book Collective through their tenure on our Board of Stewards. They have both helped to shape and prepare the Open Book Collective as a grounded organisation as we begin to mature.

We expect the next AGAC to take place in December 2025. Due to OBC’s registration as a charity in December 2023, the timing of our financial year changed. Having an AGAC meeting at the end of the year will more closely align with this schedule.

Header image: charlotte henard, Elections: https://www.flickr.com/photos/charlottehenard/53840817313/ (CC BY-SA 2.0)