Opening the Future is a monograph subscription model that makes library funds go further through its collective membership scheme: achieving the dual objectives of enhancing collections while also supporting open access. Members pay a small annual fee to get DRM-free, unlimited access to a closed selection of the well-regarded Basler Afrika Bibliographien backlist, with perpetual access after three years. The membership revenue is used only to produce new OA monographs, without forcing authors to find funding for book processing charges (BPCs).
Member libraries and institutions have unlimited, simultaneous access to all titles in the package they've subscribed to during the term of their three year membership. You get perpetual access to that package at the end of your three year membership. You may sign up for access to more than one package at any time - this membership and package access will also be for a minimum of three years. Packages are hosted by the ABC and come with MARC and KBART, and COUNTER-compliant statistics.
You can see the books on offer in the packages at: bab.openingthefuture.net/packages
Library and institutional members are banded according to their size, in line with the Carnegie Classification and as recognised by Lyrasis. Based on this, our annual membership fees for 2026 are as follows (see package pages for 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
Sign up for libraries is facilitated by Lyrasis, a trusted non-profit library organisation based in the USA. You can pledge your support via our simple sign up form using the button below, or you can simply email Lyrasis on membersupport@lyrasis.org
Sign up via LyrasisAll the revenue from the membership is used to fund the frontlist to be OA. Library membership fees pay for only those books that do not already have funding. If a proposal for a book comes to Basler Afrika Bibliographien with partial OA funding, the Press will use Opening the Future membership fees to share the production costs and publish the book OA.
The aim of this approach is to continue to yield a sustainable source of revenue for the Press while achieving the desired commitment to making more titles OA. Given ever-present budget pressures, a consortial model of funding promises a cost-effective solution for OA that means no single institution bears a disproportionate burden, while all benefit.
A three-year commitment to receive perpetual access to 58 titles and simultaneously fund new OA books is less than half an average BPC for a single book at many commercial publishers.
The Basler Afrika Bibliographien Publishing House is a scholarly publisher specialising in southern Africa, particularly Namibia. We were 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.
The backlist titles in the BAB OtF package are hosted on the African Books Collective platform. 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.
More about ABCThe ABC will provide the backlist hosting for BAB's OtF package, and will supply MARC records, KBART, and COUNTER statistics. ABC will retain 50% of the funds generated by OtF to pay for marketing the collection and providing BAB with the hosting as well as a range of other services and supporting their general mission in supporting African publishing.
Supported by the Copim Community
Copim is an international partnership of researchers, universities, librarians, publishers and infrastructure providers supported by the Research England Development Fund (REDFund) and by Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin.
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 second non-University Press to take up the model, opening the pathway still further 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 and we are pleased to see this happening at BAB.
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