One of the best ways librarians can support open access publishing is by curating current open access publications and adding them to their local catalogues and knowledge bases used for discovery. It is always interesting to hear the argument that content is so readily available on the web that it does not need to be curated made by some librarians. While more and more commercial abstracting and indexing (A&I) services are including open access content within their subject silos, these are, in fact, subject silos which continues to limit the discoverability. Members of an academic library’s community benefit when open access content is provided alongside the commercial content because otherwise, they very well may not have come across the resource. By curating this content, librarians can also add weight to what is sanctioned and worthwhile open access content as opposed to some of predatory open access providers/scammers that appear to be offering resources readily.

The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) are good places to start for valuable content worth curating. In the past, DOAJ, in particular, was less discerning about the publishers it hosted within their directory. However, in the past year, DOAJ has analysed some of the content they host and is now encouraging all participating publishers to adhere to the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association Code of Conduct.

DOAB has not been around quite as long as the DOAJ but has been growing steadily in the past few years. The DOAB points to open access books that are both published by OAPEN and other OA books that may be found elsewhere. DOAB also provides libraries with the needed metadata to create load files for loading content into their local catalogues. Not all of the books in the directory are fully open, so librarians should be selective in the content they add.

Building on the success of the European open access monograph platform, OAPEN, there has been discussion in the UK about establishing a pilot to centralise all open access monographs published within the UK. The goal is to coordinate and facilitate a simpler transition to OA book publishing by providing infrastructure and services that are shared and supported by countries across the EU. This effort is in the very nascent phase but should provide a wealth of content if it takes off.

6.1 Addition of global OA Content to library catalogues & discovery systems
6.2 Participation in OAISter
6.3 Necessary Metadata
6.4 Exposure of local repository on Google
6.5 Indexing of gold OA journals and the need for OA designation
6.6 Usage data (PIRUS, IRUS-UK, COUNTER 4)

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