To increase the discoverability and visibility for open books with richer and more interoperable metadata, ScienceOpen is happy to announce a new collaboration with Thoth, an open metadata management and dissemination platform. With this collaboration, open access book publishers and the entire book publishing ecosystem will benefit from a more interconnected digital publishing environment.
When we first started working with books and aggregating publicly available Crossref records via book DOIs to the ScienceOpen citation index, we quickly learned that the potential of Crossref records as actual metadata source was hardly recognized making for rather basic publicly availably records. Rich metadata was available mostly in ONIX , but while being the default format for distribution channels for book sellers and libraries, there tend to be data gaps in the ONIX information required for best practice usage in digital environments—speaking here esp. about persistent identifiers which are essential to keep records unified, connected and discoverable throughout the publication’s lifecycle.
Thanks to this new collaboration with Thoth, publishers will now be able to create a record on BookMetaHub, send it to Thoth for further enhancement, and then gain access to additional output formats for future export. We are also working on sending data created on Thoth to the BookMetaHub, so stay tuned!
In response to the current data gap in the book publishing landscape between rich publication records used by book vendors within their sales channels and commonly available data, we are putting together two innovative and complementing digital infrastructures that will support publishers to share their works even further throughout the entire ecosystem—by offering simple DIY-tools for the creation and maintenance of metadata that is openly available and easily aggregated via a variety of formats and inherently functional between platforms.
ScienceOpen has been helping book publishers stand out in the increasingly crowded digital publishing environment since 2013.
Explaining the new workflow
This new workflow will allow for an easy translation into a whole variety of additional formats and for a simplified data distribution from one system to the other, to offer a more holistic data service for publishers by supporting them with the creation of all relevant formats for book publishing.
Not least, the interconnection and free data sharing across different systems will make for a more robust and open publishing landscape!
We are excited to share with you a step-by-step guide on how to get the most out of this new workflow and overcome Metadata Disconnect!
- First step, make use of what is out there
- We developed a metadata hub where publishers can import available Crossref or ONIX records
- Enrich (or create) data according to requirements and best practice recommendations in digital environment
- Add persistent identifiers where possible (DOIs, ORCID IDs, FundRef and ROR IDs)
- Add multilingual translations for title + abstract to open up content to new audiences in support of a truly global research community
- Add more context data such as keywords, subject categories, affiliations, additional ISBNs and formats
- Allow for data export in formats most suitable for digital environments
- Crossref XML
- making sure publicly available data is as rich as can be
- BITS XML
- default XML format inherently well-suited as created for this purpose
- Open API for batch-export, or individual record export
- Create an account on Thoth
- Send us your imprint ID
- We will connect your workspace with yout Thoth account in the background
- After setup, there is a new -> Export to Thoth button
- After succesfull export, you will find -> Edit in Thoth button
- Send us your imprint ID
- Land on new record page on Thoth populated already with essential data
- We are still in the test phase, so more elements will be added along the line to reduce the need for repeated manual data input
- Continue with further format-specific enhancement to make valid records for output in ONIX, JSON, KBART, and more!
- Via a variety of different interfaces, you can add missing publication details about the book, chapters, and publication formats, enrich the publisher/imprint details or update the contributors
The interface and integration of Thoth’s platform with our BookMetaHub provides easy access to new channels for book publishers for greater discovery, visibility, and metadata interoperability!
Try it out and let us know!
As we look forward to seeing many of our customers getting the most out of the new workflow, we would really like to hear from you. Join BookMetaHub today, start adding and enhancing metadata and get back to us with your feedback for a more open and exciting digital publishing landscape.