Our Mission

As a unique collaboration between the libraries and university presses of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, Big Ten Open Books is naturally committed to creating ebook collections that aspire to the highest standards of discoverability, accessibility, durability, and flexibility. Here is how the collection lives our shared values.

• Discoverability: MARC records for the books in Big Ten Open Books collections are prepared by Backstage Library Works and are made available when each collection is launched, along with KBART files, for direct download. Collections are also available for auto-loading via the services listed below. Books in the Big Ten Open Books collections are also distributed via JSTOR, Project MUSE, and OAPEN. They are indexed in the Directory of Open Access Books.
• Accessibility: All titles in Big Ten Open Books collections have been converted to reflowable EPUB3 files with alt-text and described-by text. The files are produced using a Benetech Certified Global Accessible workflow. The Fulcrum platform that delivers the version of record of the titles meets the latest WCAG 2AA Standards and reports its compliance with WCAG 2.0 and Section 508 through a regularly updated VPAT.
• Durability: Without an explicit commitment to digital preservation, it would be impossible for libraries and users to trust the stability of Big Ten Open Books. For this reasons, the titles are not only preserved in the collections of the University of Michigan, but also managed in the distributed frameworks provided by CLOCKSS and the Academic Preservation Trust.
• Flexibility: True open access requires that titles are not only readable for free, but also reusable in contexts such as open textbooks and text and data mining. While the choice of Creative Commons license is determined by individual publishers after consultation with their authors, the default is a [CC-BY NC license](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode).

Notice: MARC (.mrc) records for the collection are now available to download directly here. MARC and KBART files for titles in Big Ten Open Books collection are also being delivered to discovery services, listed below, who should be featuring the 2023 BTOB Collection: Gender and Sexuality Studies and will include the four upcoming collections as they are supported and unlocked.

Expected Summer 2025 collections:

• Indigenous North Americans

Expected Fall 2025 collections:

• African-, Asian, and Hispanic Americans
• Health Disparities and Disability Culture
• Human Environmental Impact

Published collections:

• Gender and Sexuality Studies (2023)

Download Title List

Funding and Support

Fund Reallocation to Enable Simultaneous Collection Development

To facilitate the creation of all four collections, BTAA proposes the following:

• Seed Funding: The Big Ten Academic Alliance will have already funded the opening of those books that were written by Big Ten-affiliated authors. At 120 titles, this amounts to approximately 30% of the total works.
• External Fundraising: Raise $980,000, or $245,000 per collection from external institutions.
• Reinvestment: If a collection exceeds its $350,000 target, surplus funds will replenish the seed capital for other collections.
• Fallback: If sufficient funds for a collection are not raised by the deadline, the collection will be published with the number of titles that have been funded. Future endeavors to build collections will include new titles to be added to any incomplete collections.

Funding Model: Author Affiliation + General Support Contributions

To create sustainable funding, BTAA has proposed a mixed model, which includes an author-affiliation model where institutions contribute based on their scholars’ participation in the collections as well as general support from interested, but institutions without affiliated authors. Specifically:

• Contribution Target: $3,800 per title for both models:
• Institutional Outreach: Libraries at institutions affiliated with authors of works in the collections will be asked to sponsor opening those titles. For example, Syracuse University, with five authors represented, would be asked to support opening those 5 works at a cost of $19,000. Sponsorship will be sought for 120 titles per collection but each collection will be capped at the first 100 books sponsored.
• General Support: Libraries without affiliated authors will also be invited to support the opening of individual titles. They would be able to either select an unsponsored individual title, or that would be done on their behalf. Consortia can combine funds in increments of $3,800 to open titles.

Mechanism for Funding Collections 

• Funding Support Collection via External Partner: Big Ten Open Books collections will be marketed and distributed through the University of Michigan’s Publishing Services unit, with funds collected via Lyrasis. This ensures streamlined administration and communication with institutions.
• Transparency: Real-time tracking of secured sponsorship funds will be available online to ensure transparency and encourage broad participation.

Activation: Collections will be published on a rolling basis as support is secured to open a specific title. Collections will be capped at 100 titles per theme area.

BTAA has several agreements to make titles more discoverable and to enable auto-loading of MARC records. Our agreements allow BTAA titles to be indexed in the following services.

Vendor	Product Type	Product Name
EBSCO	Discovery	EBSCO Discovery Service
EBSCO	Knowledge Base	Holdings & Linking Manager (HLM)
OCLC	Knowledge Base	Collection Manager
OCLC	Knowledge Base	WorldCat
OCLC	Knowledge Base	WorldShare
ProQuest / Ex Libris	Discovery	Primo (Central Discovery Index)
ProQuest / Ex Libris	Discovery	Summon (Central Discovery Index)
ProQuest / Ex Libris	Knowledge Base	360 (Client Center, Intota)
ProQuest / Ex Libris	Knowledge Base	Alma Community Zone
ProQuest / Ex Libris	Knowledge Base	SFX

For librarian general inquiries and questions, please contact:

Brandi M. Borkosky (she/they)

Product Marketing Specialist, Big Ten Open Books
bmbork@umich.edu