November 3, 2023. Montclair, NJ. The Free Ebook Foundation and the OAPEN Foundation have unveiled a new website that is checking all the links in the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB). The website, open to for all to access at https://doab-check.ebookfoundation.org, checks each of over 68,000 links in DOAB approximately once a month.
"The Directory of Open Access Books is the world's most important catalog of open access scholarly books and book chapters. Scholars and librarians across the globe rely on DOAB for access and discovery of important work, both directly and indirectly, through library catalogs and discovery tools. Everything we can do to improve the DOAB's quality and reliability is a big win for us all." said Eric Hellman, President of the Free Ebook Foundation.
"DOAB works with over 700 publishers and currently lists over 75,000 titles. It is crucial that metadata is correct – especially on how to get the books from the publisher’s platforms. The DOAB-Check website is helping us strengthen our community infrastructure by improving the links that open access to these books." said Ronald Snijder, CTO and Head of Research at the OAPEN Foundation.
The DOAB-Check website presents lists of the checked links, organized by publisher, by the web host, and by they type of problem observed for the most recent check. The entire set of recent checks is available as a bulk download, and an API provide for programmatic access to link status for any DOAB identifier. As of the beginning of November, 68,765 links are being checked, and 5,667 of them have issues of some sort. Information about DOAB for publishers is at https://www.doabooks.org/en/publishers/documentation
About DOAB
The primary aim of the Directory of Open Access Books, DOAB, is to increase discoverability of open access books. The directory is open to all publishers who publish academic, peer reviewed books in open access and should contain as many books as possible, provided that these publications are in open access and meet academic standards. DOAB is at https://doabooks.org
The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) was established by OAPEN Foundation in 2012, in close cooperation with the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) & SemperTool.
The Directory of Open Access Books is a service of DOAB Foundation. DOAB Foundation is a non-profit legal entity under Dutch law (‘stichting’), established by OAPEN Foundation and OpenEdition in 2019. The Foundation is based at the National Library in The Hague.
Contact Lotte van Aalten (Publisher Relations Manager) at l.vanaalten@oapen.org or Ronald Snijder at r.snijder@oapen.org
About the Free Ebook Foundation.
The Free Ebook Foundation (https://ebookfoundation.org)is a 501(c)3 New Jersey non-profit corporation. The Free Ebook Foundation envisions a world where ebooks will be funded, distributed and maintained for the benefit of all, by coordinating the efforts and resources of many. For more information about the Foundation, email to info@ebookfoundation.org or join our mailing list.
Donating to the Free Ebook Foundation.
The Free Ebook Foundation is a US 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Our tax ID number is 61-1767266. Your gift is tax deductible to the full extent provided by the law.