Open Book Collective's recognition of CLACSO
Open Book Collective announced that it awarded one of its Collective Development Fund prizes for 2025-2026 to Latin American Council of Social Sciences to develop their project “Knowledge open to the community: CLACSO as a platform for the democratization of academic publishing in Latin America and the Caribbean”.
In its preamble, it stated: “Building on CLACSO’s track record in the research, implementation, and dissemination of Diamond Open Access, this project addresses the asymmetry among associated centers in Latin America regarding knowledge of open access (OA), both from a conceptual perspective and in terms of its technical implementation. This project will create structured training opportunities to provide essential conceptual and technical tools for Diamond Open Access and its implementation, and will build an infrastructure that enables the dissemination of knowledge through an easily accessible and sustainable virtual platform.”
He adds: “Open access to academic books is widespread in Latin America, but its development is uneven: for example, countries like Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia produce numerous books linked to public universities and supported by national legislation and various state institutions. However, most countries in the Andean region, Central America, and the Caribbean have not made significant progress in the production of open access books. Instead, there are isolated and fragmented projects, generated with scarce resources and limited visibility, based on the will of individual actors struggling against a lack of budget, training resources, and institutional interest. Therefore, this project aligns particularly well with OBC’s core values of bibliodiversity and equity in capacity building for open access books. The results will include a manual on best practices for Diamond Open Access and a set of open educational resources derived from the program.”
Open Book Collective (OBC), based in London, UK, is a membership organization focused on making open access (OA) book publishing sustainable. It aims to create a new ecosystem for open access books by connecting libraries, publishers, and infrastructure providers to support collaborative, non-profit publishing.
Its main objectives are:
-Sustainability: Ensuring new and more reliable sources of income for Open Access publishers (especially small and medium-sized ones) seeking to move away from Book Processing Charges (BPCs), which are considered unsustainable and inequitable.
-Access and Integration: Facilitating the integration of Open Access books into the catalogs and systems of libraries and institutions, making quality research accessible to a wider audience.
-Diversity and Cooperation: Supporting a variety of approaches to OA publishing and creating a space for cooperation, transparency and mutual support among publishers, service providers and libraries.
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