Meeting Report: “It’s a Movement, Not a Club”: TOME in the Growing Landscape of Open Monograph Publishing”

From an Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Blog Post by Judy Ruttenberg:

The Association of American Universities (AAU), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and the Association of University Presses (AUPresses) jointly hosted a meeting on July 22, 2019, in Washington, DC, of the TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem) community. TOME is a five-year pilot initiative of the three associations that supports the digital publication of peer-reviewed scholarly books by participating university presses, allowing the open-access (OA) publication of these works online and broadly improving access to these works by scholars and the public.

In this third year of the pilot, presenters reported on the initiative’s progress. Sixteen universities currently participate in TOME, providing baseline grants to publish open-access monographs. Sixty-two participating university presses have published 18 TOME books to date. Representatives of three participating presses and four participating universities related their perspectives on TOME. The meeting concluded with a discussion of actionable steps. The group agreed to highlight TOME’s connection to the larger conversation around sustainable scholarly infrastructure, including lowering the financial and time commitment for participating in TOME. Emphasizing that TOME is a movement not a club, the participants support and are engaged with other OA monograph initiatives.

Direct to Full Text Report
29 pages; PDF.

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Associations and Organizations, Funding, Libraries, News, Open Access, Publishing