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OAPEN Library

OAPEN Foundation
Netherlands
Website (Opens in new window) Pricing Info (Opens in new window)

About

Launched: 2010
Record Updated: Oct 19, 2026
Digital library, collection or exhibit platform
Digital preservation service
Discovery system
The OAPEN Library is a global digital library operated by the OAPEN Foundation. It hosts and disseminates scholarly, peer-reviewed open access (OA) books and is freely available to readers without registration.
Working with publishers worldwide, OAPEN maintains a quality-controlled collection of OA books and supports publishers, libraries, and research funders through services focused on deposit, quality assurance, dissemination, discoverability, and digital preservation.
Research Organization Registry (Opens in new window)

Domain Relevance

  • Agricultural biotechnology
  • Agriculture, forestry, and fisheries
  • Animal and dairy science
  • Arts (arts, history of arts, performing arts, music)
  • Basic medicine
  • Biological sciences
  • Chemical engineering
  • Chemical sciences
  • Civil engineering
  • Clinical medicine
  • Computer and information sciences
  • Earth and related environmental sciences
  • Economics and business
  • Educational sciences
  • Electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering
  • Environmental biotechnology
  • Environmental engineering
  • Generalist (no disciplinary-focus)
  • Health biotechnology
  • Health sciences
  • History and archaeology
  • Industrial biotechnology
  • Languages and literature
  • Law
  • Materials engineering
  • Mathematics
  • Mechanical engineering
  • Media and communications
  • Medical engineering
  • Nano technology
  • Other agricultural sciences
  • Other engineering and technologies
  • Other humanities
  • Other medical sciences
  • Other natural sciences
  • Other social sciences
  • Philosophy, ethics and religion
  • Physical sciences
  • Political science
  • Psychology
  • Social and economic geography
  • Sociology
  • Veterinary science

Mission

To sustain and evolve the OAPEN Library and related open infrastructure services for peer-reviewed books, by serving a diverse set of stakeholders including publishers, libraries, research funders, and researchers, with the ultimate goal of advancing open access for the public good.

Key Achievements

  • 2019: Selected for the second SCOSS funding cycle (jointly with DOAB).
  • 2020: Migration to DSpace (via the EU-funded OPERAS-P project).
  • 2024: Partnership with CERN to host DSpace server in their Data Center.
  • 2025: Celebrate 15th anniversary at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
  • 2026: Collection reaches over 50,000 OA books.

    • Technical Attributes

    Maintenance Status

    Actively Maintained

    Open Code Repository

    In Progress

    Technical Documentation

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Open API

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Open Data Statement

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Open Product Roadmap

    In Progress

    Technical Attribute Statements

    Technology Readiness Level

    • Actual system proven in operational environment

    Content Licensing

    • Creative commons licenses
    • Other
    Other:
    Content licences are applied by the publishers. Most licences (more than 90% of the books have a Creative Commons licence, around one third have a CC-BY licence).

    Standards

    Metadata

    • Atom
    • JSON
    • KBART
    • MARC
    • MARC XML
    • OAI-PMH
    • ONIX
    • REST
    • RIS

    Persistent Identifier

    • ORCiD

    Metrics

    • COUNTER 5

    Service Providers

    Integrations

    • COUNTER Code of Practice
    • Creative Commons Licenses
    • Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
    • DSpace
    • Fulcrum
    • Open Monograph Press (OMP)
    • OpenAlex
    • OpenEdition
    • Sherpa Services (Sherpa Romeo, Sherpa Juliet and OpenDOAR)
    • Zenodo
    • Other
    Other:
    See https://oapen.org/librarians/services-libraries.

    • Webscraping (for instance Google Scholar, Unpaywall, Unglue.it)
    • Harvesting (for instance BASE, CORE, OpenAIRE)
    • API (for instance OpenBCP, Open Syllabus)
    • Metadata feeds (for instance EBSCO, Exlibris/Clarivate, OCLC)

    Community Engagement

    Community Engagement

    Implemented

    Community Statements

    User Contribution Pathways

    • Contribute funds
    • Contribute to code
    • Contribute to working groups or interest groups

    Community Engagement Activities

    • Annual meetings
    • Blogs
    • Community calls
    • Conference participation
    • Interest, working, user, or advisory groups
    • Mailing lists and discussion forums (including Slack)
    • Social media
    • Staff roles with responsibility for community engagement
    • Volunteer or ambassador network
    • Webinars and training

    Engagement with Values Frameworks

    • Principles for Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI)
    • UN Sustainable Development Goals

    SCOSS Participation

    Yes

    More About Community Engagement

    Community Engagement Activities:

    OAPEN actively engages with the scholarly communication community through a range of governance, advisory, and outreach activities. These include organising an annual meeting for supporting libraries to share developments and gather feedback, managing a library working group, and coordinating a funder forum. OAPEN also contributes to sector-wide initiatives through leadership and advisory roles in organisations and committees such as OPERAS, the Open Book Collective, and Think. Check. Submit. In addition, OAPEN promotes open access (OA) books and open scholarly infrastructure through articles, blogs, conference presentations, webinars, and its commitment to the Principles for Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI).

    Policies & Governance

    Governance Summary

    The OAPEN Foundation is an independent not-for-profit Dutch foundation ('Stichting') that cannot be sold nor acquired. It is led by a Managing Director, who is accountable to the Supervisory Board. An Advisory Board provides the Supervisory Board with solicited and unsolicited advice on the business matters of OAPEN. The Advisory Board also has the right to render a binding nomination for one member of the OAPEN Supervisory Board.

    Policies

    Bylaws

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Commitment to Equity & Inclusion

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Privacy Policy

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Web Accessibility Statement

    Implemented
    Applies to Solution
    Applies to Website
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Governance Records

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Governance Structure & Processes

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Transparent Pricing and Cost Expectations

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Policy Statements

    Access Conditions

    • Open without restrictions

    Board Structure

    • Multi-board governance

    Community Governance

    • Formal

    Additional Information

    Organizational History

    The OAPEN Library was developed as a 30-month targeted project co-funded by the EU in its eContentplus-program (2008-2010). The goal of the project was to build a platform for peer-reviewed open access academic books and to explore publication and business models for open book publishing. After the close of the project, OAPEN continued its activities as a not-for-profit and independent foundation ("Stichting").

    Read the story of OAPEN here: https://doi.org/10.3998/jep.3303

    Organizational Structure

    Business or Ownership Model

    Non-profit organization

    Current Affiliations

    Funding

    Primary Funding Source

    • Contributions
    • Program service revenue

    Revenue Sources

    • Grants (public)
    • In-kind contributions
    • Individual memberships
    • Institutional memberships
    • Other
    Other:
    Publisher hosting fees and funded collections.

    Funding Needs

    OAPEN’s primary role is to ensure smooth distribution of books from publishers to readers, most often through academic libraries. Maintaining and developing this core part of the infrastructure to accommodate the needs of publishers and libraries is an increasingly more challenging task as more books are sent to the OAPEN Library and the demands among institutions increase. As research funders develop OA book policies, OAPEN's service provision to the funders also needs developing.

    Funding will help maintain existing open services and develop new services to enable seamless access to thousands of scholarly books for millions of readers worldwide. Additionally, funding will enable OAPEN to pursue equity for publishers worldwide by providing global distribution services to any publisher who fullfills the basic requirements of peer review and open access. OAPEN is proactively reaching out to publishers in all regions of the world to make them aware of these possibilities.
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