Opening the Future at Basler Afrika Bibliographien

The program funds scholarly presses to publish new OA monographs, while libraries that participate simultaneously benefit from access to closed content.

For a modest annual fee your library gets DRM-free, unlimited access to a closed-access selection of the press' backlist, with perpetual access after three years. The press uses the membership revenue solely to produce new OA monographs, moving towards an affordable, sustainable model for academic publishing and creating a collection of OA books that are open for the world.

Get in touch if you would like to know more about the program and how it can support your institutional purchasing strategy, and your teaching and research focus.

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Southern Africa & Namibia Studies

This package of 58 titles is drawn from across BAB’s different title lists. It offers a holistic and multi-faceted overview of Namibia and Southern Africa, covering its history, politics, and culture…

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OA Supporter Membership

Some institutions may not wish to sign up to a book package, or may not be able to. However they might still want to support, and help to fund, the frontlist of open access monographs that Basler Afr…

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About BAB

The Basler Afrika Bibliographien Publishing House is a scholarly publisher specialising in southern Africa, particularly Namibia. It was founded in 1971 as the publishing arm of Basler Afrika Bibliographien, a Swiss research library and centre of documentation and expertise on the region. 

We publish widely on humanities and social sciences, seeking to promote cultural exchange and engagement regarding important contemporary historical issues and, in particular, to provide African scholars with a platform. Our (cultural-)historical, political and anthropological publications are aimed at international academic audiences as well as engaged readers broadly interested in Africa.


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Why OA for books?

As a mission-driven society publisher, our core objective is to make our scholarly work as widely accessible as possible. This subscription membership model is a strategic initiative designed to support this aim, allowing us to publish our monographs open access without charging author fees.

This approach not only aligns with our foundational values but also addresses the significant barrier of exclusionary costs, thereby promoting greater equity in academic publishing.

We'll select titles for open access that we believe will be most relevant to our readers, focusing on topics that will benefit a broad audience by increasing accessibility and availability. We also take into account whether the author would like to publish their work open access, and also consider which of our authors may be facing unequal funding opportunities to do so.

Our backlist package

The package of 58 titles is drawn from across BAB’s different title lists. It offers a holistic and multi-faceted overview of Namibia and Southern Africa, covering its history, politics, and culture from the 19th century to the present, with a specific focus on 20th-century politics, colonialism, socio-cultural change, and Namibian identity. The collection primarily consists of monographs but includes diverse perspectives, from academic analysis to biographical accounts. It is a vital collection on southern Africa past and present and is further enriched by a dedicated African Studies series with a continental scope, featuring lectures by internationally recognised scholars such as Toyin Falola, Francis B. Nyamnjoh, and Mirjam de Bruijn. 

Seven additional already open access titles are included to complement and expand on the core themes of the collection.


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