Click the headings below to expand (and contract) the FAQs and answers
We see participating in Opening the Future as a natural route into participating in collective funding routes - allowing us to fund more titles in a selection of our lists. Opening the Future enables us to continue diversifying and strengthening the paths available to our authors to publish their work open access.
The model is designed to service different types of libraries.
If you already have most or all of our backlist books it is likely that you would continue to buy our books in the future, but the more we can make OA the fewer books you would need to purchase. On the other hand, if you want a smaller selection of titles for a very economic price, then buying our backlist packages is for you. All the proceeds go to funding the OA frontlist and again this will broaden the range of books for your readers.
You can either purchase the backlist package(s) if your procurement policies require content in exchange for payment, or you can pay through your OA funds. And we offer an 'OA membership' option which comes with no backlist titles but which still helps to fund our open access efforts on the frontlist.
Either way, we are seeing a shift to supporting OA models from acquisitions budgets and we are hoping that this will be the source of support for OA, not only for us, but for all OA initiatives for books. Otherwise it will be impossible to move from pilots to regular practice. Regular revenue like this will greatly ease the way for new initiatives to become established and reliable funding for publishing activities.
Whether you're interested in acquiring additional backlist titles, or if you have them all already and want to support the frontlist going OA, the cost of our programme is very attractive. Our members are banded according to the Carnegie Classification, as recognised by Lyrasis, and a three-year subscription for even the highest band library is equivalent to less than an industry average single BPC.
Nothing less than to show a route to sustainable OA books for the foundational publications of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
We understand that as a small/medium-sized publisher we cannot change the world alone and that the next few years will require adjustments all along the supply chain including the role of intermediaries and aggregators. We are working closely with others to play an active part in this transition.
No, the model is not based on the support of individual titles. If anything it's more like a 'Subscribe to Open' offer. Participating libraries get unlimited, DRM-free access to curated selections of backlist eBooks at a much cheaper price than buying them in print one at a time. The subscription fees are then used to publish new, frontlist books in OA format. It's that simple. There are no BPCs charged. Authors at participating libraries do not get 'preferential' or 'discounted' publishing deals: OA books are chosen on merit, through the normal editorial proposal process and are rigorously peer reviewed. The cost of producing OA books is paid for by the collected library subscription fees: so the more libraries sign up, the more books can be published as OA. If we can get to a fully open frontlist then any authors, including those based at subscribing member institutions, will be able to publish openly with us.
We believe that with the documented success of Opening the Future we have a model that could lead to the widespread transition of university and mission-driven presses worldwide to OA. Others, including the Copim Community and the Open Book Collective, are working on reducing the friction of OA publishing through managing and selling funding schemes to libraries. Any publishers interested in launching an OtF program of their own can contact Project MUSE, or Fulcrum at Michigan Publishing Services, or the African Book Collective to discuss how it might work for them.
All new frontlist titles are at first planned as traditionally-sold 'closed' books. But as soon as we have accrued enough library support to fund a book, after we identify a good candidate, we change the metadata before any sales are made and our distributors move the book to an OA status. This happens well before the book is published: so far, we've estimated between 2-3 months. In this way we hope to avoid libraries buying books because their OA status was announced too late.
You can keep track of our OA publishing progress by clicking the button below:
Yes. We are in discussion with some library consortia already and are pleased to hear from any others. We aim to pass on any savings in administration costs to libraries.
Our policy is to first seek funding from other sources and only if that is not available (which it is still not in most cases) would we apply the funds raised from this project to make books open.
We examine which books would most benefit the Press' audience by being openly accessible: which books would have the most reach, the most relevant topics, and what scholarship should definitely be made available openly.
We then determine with the author whether they would like their work published openly, and whether they have access to other (e.g. institutional) funds to achieve this.
Books funded via Opening the Future revenue go through the same editorial and peer review processes as our books funded via other means.
Revenue targets can be reached as more libraries join up. The model is incremental by design and this is one of its USPs, with a low flipping threshold that makes it quick for members to see positive results of their investment. If subscription revenue exceeds the costs spent on publishing OA frontlist in any given year we will discuss with our members on how best to spend that, for example by publishing more books OA; reducing fees for members; or re-investing the surplus money into open infrastructures. We have several relevant criteria regarding what titles to make available OA through OtF funding; primarily that the authors want (or need) to publish their monographs OA, and that there is no other funding available. After that, we assign titles in order of publication date, with as much notice to the libraries as possible through our metadata distributions to ensure they are aware of the status change to OA.
Members receive access to 58 titles from BAB's backlist on Southern Africa & Namibia Studies.
Library and institutional members are banded according to Carnegie Classification, as recognised by Lyrasis. Based on this, our annual membership fees at 2026 are as follows (see Package pages for details of prices beyond 2026):
$2690 / £2000 GBP / €2300 euro high tier, per year
$1700 / £1270 GBP/ €1450 euro medium tier, per year
$995 / £750 GBP / €850 euro lower tier, per year
Membership is for a minimum of three years.
Member libraries and institutions will have unlimited concurrent/simultaneous access to all titles in the package they've subscribed to during the term of their three year membership. They will be entitled to perpetual access to that package at the end of their three year membership.
The simplest way to sign up is through Lyrasis, by emailing them on membersupport@lyrasis.org. Or you can pledge your support via our simple sign up form using the button below.
Member libraries and institutions have unlimited concurrent/simultaneous access to all titles in the package you've subscribed to during the term of your three-year membership. You will be entitled to perpetual access to the package(s) at the end of your three year membership. There is no 'bait and switch' and packages won't suddenly change after you have joined.
The books in the subscription package are hosted on the ABC in their standard DRM-free, unlimited-use model for ebooks. Content is delivered in PDF format. Text searching is available within individual titles and across title-level metadata via an AI tool called Book Buddy. The ABC supports authentication via IP range, OpenAthens ID, and EZprozy. Participating libraries will be able to access MARC records and KBART files customised to their holdings, and to retrieve COUNTER 5-compliant usage statistics.
The ABC collaborates with major library discovery vendors and will ensure the packages are set up as collections to be activated in all pertinent discovery services. Books on the ABC platform are preserved through CLOCKSS.
The ABC is committed to the accessibility of content and aims to meet the latest WCAG 2AA Standards (currently WCAG 2.2 AA).
We currently only have one backlist package. However, there is an additional OA supporter package, without content, which you can also subscribe to to support the Press’ frontlist.
Yes, absolutely. Funds from any budget are accepted. In fact, we are hoping that as libraries see this to be a cheaper way of building collections they will pay for this type of offer through their acquisitions budgets.
Joining takes about 1 minute by filling in a form with your details and the package you wish to have access to. We will initiate membership and billing when we receive your details.
The simplest way to sign up is through Lyrasis, by emailing them on membersupport@lyrasis.org. Or you can pledge your support via our simple sign up form using the button below.
Our package represents a cross-section of the Press’ publications on the history, politics, and culture of Namibia and Southern Africa from the 19th century to the present.
No, all backlist package titles that you are subscribed to will be DRM-free and accessible by multiple users simultaneously.
The new titles funded by the program to be published open access will be available in PDF format with CC BY NC ND licences. The ABC supports open access books with MARC records, KBART files, and metadata sharing with major library vendors, to ensure that OA content is widely discoverable through library systems.
We update our progress page on the website, and issue news items on bab.openingthefuture.net/forthcoming/ as well as send details through listservs. We also include a note of new OA titles in our librarian newsletter, which you should receive as a confirmed customer. All titles get distributed to as wide a network as possible, this includes JSTOR, OAPEN, DOAB, EBSCO and ProQuest - this way, if you are set up to receive catalogue data from any of these services, you will get details of our OA titles as well wherever you choose to make them available.
You can keep track of our OA publishing progress at:
Yes. All OA titles are available to purchase in print form. Print books can be bought through the normal channels.
Yes. We appreciate that 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 open access monographs that BAB publishes. For these institutions we have created an 'OA Supporter Membership'. It is simple and quick to join: just fill in the sign up form with your details and we'll do the rest, or email Lyrasis on membersupport@lyrasis.org. No further action is required from you once we have processed the payment.
This collaboration on the OtF programme aligns with BAB’s commitment to expanding open access publishing in a sustainable way, ensuring that more high-quality content can be made accessible globally. The backlist books are hosted on the African Book Collective (ABC) platform - seamlessly delivering accessible content into library catalogues. The program is supported by the trusted non-profit library consortium Lyrasis based in the USA and membership is open to libraries worldwide. OA books are made available on JSTOR, OAPEN, DOAB, EBSCO, ProQuest and other platforms.
Transitioning to open access is hard and we're in the midst of a transition where we need to accommodate the needs of libraries. We understand that libraries need to comsider all investment decisions carefully and sometimes need to build a 'case for support' internally. We don't have the resources to talk to every librarian, so we rely on trusted library partners like Lyrasis who are already communicating with librarians every day.
The backlist books are hosted on the African Book Collective platform - seamlessly delivering accessible content into library catalogues. The programme is supported by the trusted non-profit library consortium Lyrasis based in the USA, and membership is open to libraries worldwide.
The African Books Collective was established in 1989 to provide infrastructure for African publishers who were finding it difficult to disseminate their books to buyers and libraries in other regions. Since this time, they have responded to the evolving needs of publishers and now distribute and market eBooks, undertake production work, and provide marketing services. They remain a vital infrastructure for over 150 academic and trade publishers in the region, leveraging economies of scale on their behalf to ensure their eBooks are available on major global platforms.
Lyrasis is a community-supported membership organization whose mission is to support enduring access to the world’s shared academic, scientific and cultural heritage through leadership in open technologies, content services, digital solutions and collaboration with archives, libraries, museums and knowledge communities worldwide.
The OtF model was originally devised and launched by the Copim team in 2021 and was shortlisted for an ALPSP Innovation in Publishing Award soon afterwards. BAB are the first scholarly society to take up the model, opening the pathway for other mission-driven, scholarly publishers. When we first launched this program as a pilot with one press in 2021 we always hoped that other scholarly publishers would take it up and use OtF to fund more OA books. This partnership between the ABC, Lyrasis and BAB is an important step in sustaining and normalizing the model beyond the original project start-up phase. You can find out more about the Copim Community and its other open infrastructures at copim.ac.uk/.