Croatian Initiative for Open Scholarly Books

The Croatian Initiative for Open Scholarly Books is being launched by several academic institutional publishers, highlighting their recognition of the importance of a sustainable and future-oriented publication system for scholarly books. These institutions aim to ensure maximum national and global visibility for their own publications while emphasizing open access and compliance with internationally recognized quality standards in editorial procedures, as well as bibliographical and technological interoperability. Simultaneously, the initiative places equal emphasis on supporting the survival of scholarly books published by other Croatian publishers facing unique challenges in a small market with a limited audience. These challenges arise from the use of the Croatian language and a small number of scholars. The Initiative's goals encompass three key aspects. Firstly, it aims to create a community for the exchange of knowledge, experiences, and best professional, organizational, and technological practices. Secondly, it seeks to develop a common infrastructure and a central national access point for open access scholarly books published by all types of publishers in Croatia, including private companies, public organizations, and associations. This infrastructure would be open, non-profit, interoperable, and built upon existing successful academic infrastructures and organizational solutions. Its management will be transparently overseen by the academic community while facilitating the participation of the private publishing sector. Lastly, the initiative focuses on developing a system of financial support mechanisms to ensure the sustainability of book publishing within a small readership. These mechanisms would be implemented in both the public and private sectors while upholding open access principles