ScholarLed Presses Join the Open Book Collective

The Open Book Collective is delighted to welcome the ScholarLed presses as members!

ScholarLed is a collective of scholar-led, not-for-profit, Open Access (OA) book publishers currently comprised of African Minds, Mattering Press, mediastudies.press, meson press, Open Book Publishers, and punctum books. The ScholarLed presses publish award-winning titles in a wide range of subjects in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. Presses in the collective, while retaining their distinct identities, share a commitment to opening up scholarly research to diverse readerships, resisting the marketization of academic knowledge production, and working collaboratively rather than in competition.1

ScholarLed has also played a key role in the development of the Open Book Collective (OBC), which has been one of the outputs of the COPIM project. In this project, which launched in 2019 and is ending this April, several of the presses have taken key roles in building core open book publishing infrastructures, including both the OBC and Thoth, as well as implementing these into their workflows as early adopters. We are delighted that the ScholarLed presses now join the OBC as the first publisher members on the platform.

The OBC envisions the creation of a diverse and sustainable future for OA Books and publisher members are crucial to that. We believe in collectivism, non-competition, and the rejection of Book Processing Charges. The OBC gathers together a range of open access presses and publishing initiatives that fit our membership criteria, creating a trusted group of OA initiatives for libraries to support, and for authors and readers to explore. In this way, the OBC assists publishers in securing sustainable revenue streams to fund a fair and diverse future for OA books.

If you are a publisher working in line with our values and are interested in learning more and joining the OBC to strengthen the community of OA initiatives and access collective funding, feel free to contact our outreach team or apply directly.

If you are a library interested in finding out more about the Open Book Collective, get in touch with us at [email protected] We would love to hear from you!