As the prevalence of open access grows in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) book publishing, digital usage metrics become increasingly important for measuring impact. Publishers, scholars, and university administrators all have their own specific interest in being able to accurately assess impact. The challenges, however, in HSS book publishing are significantly different than those in scientific journal publishing. Whereas it is standard for an article to have one DOI that points to a single version of record (VOR), digital books typically live on multiple platforms (e.g. JSTOR, Project MUSE, OAPEN, IRs, etc.) with their own unique digital object identifier (DOI) and no real equivalent to a “VOR.” It’s also not uncommon for a platform provider to “chunk” books into their constituent chapters and assign chapter-specific DOIs. Again, each platform might assign its own DOIs, which means that a single book might have ten or more DOIs associated with it (not to mention 3 or 4 ISBNs, which publishers continue to assign to books for the trade). Further complicating the situation is the fact that there is no agreed-upon terminology for defining usage. Terms such as “downloads,” “views,” and “reads” can vary from one platform to the next. And while COUNTER has helped to rein in some of the terminological variation, there is still no consensus, especially among publishers, that achieving COUNTER compliance is the solution to all of the problems that OA books pose.
The goal of this event is to bring together representatives from across the OA book publishing sector (including publishers, aggregators, librarians, and platform providers) to engage in a robust, collective conversation, bringing all perspectives of the community. Through conversation and breakout activities, a map of the initial contours of a shared set of standards for OA eBook usage may emerge, preparing for a charted a path toward achieving such a set of standards.
