This document serves as a collection of criteria that publishers participating in Thoth Dissemination services will need to accept.
Facilitation of metadata and file submission by Thoth Open Metadata on behalf of the publisher to any of the platforms listed below is governed by Thoth’s general Terms and Conditions for the provision of Thoth Dissemination Services.
OAPEN is dedicated to open access, peer-reviewed books. OAPEN operates two platforms, the OAPEN Library (www.oapen.org), a central repository for hosting and disseminating OA books, and in partnership with OpenEdition, the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB, www.doabooks.org), a discovery service for OA books.
OAPEN works with publishers to build a quality-controlled collection of open access books, and provide services for publishers, libraries and research funders in the areas of hosting, dissemination, quality assurance, deposit, and digital preservation.
Publishers can join OAPEN through Thoth if they publish academic, peer reviewed books that are made freely available, or published under an open license.
Please refer to https://oapen.org/publishers/2501042-join-publishers for the most up-to-date version of OAPEN’s criteria. For DOAB, please refer to https://www.doabooks.org/en/publishers/join-doab.
Acting on behalf of OAPEN, Thoth Open Metadata will require a description of the publisher’s peer review process(es). The publisher agrees to work with Thoth Open Metadata to provide such a description in a timely manner.
Publishers can choose to submit their OA titles to Project MUSE through Thoth if they meet Project MUSE’s platform inclusion criteria as defined by Project MUSE’s operator, Johns Hopkins University Press (JHUP). There is a mandatory hosting fee levied by Project MUSE; payment of that fee can be facilitated via Thoth Open Metadata (see below).
Peer-Reviewed Books: The publisher confirms that all books submitted to Project MUSE via Thoth undergo a quality assurance process that meets industry standards appropriate for the subject, genre, or field of the work.
Non-Profit Status: Johns Hopkins University Press (JHUP), as the operator of Project MUSE, requires assurance that the participating publisher, or their parent company, is classified as a nonprofit organisation, as defined by the publisher’s main country of business. JHUP reserves the right to decline a publisher’s participation based on its good-faith interpretation of the publisher’s non-profit status. Thoth Open Metadata will work with the publisher to confirm the publisher’s non-profit status. The publisher agrees to work with Thoth and provide further details upon request to document their nonprofit status to Thoth Open Metadata.
DOI registration offered by Project MUSE: Although Project MUSE does offer the registration of DOIs for the specific version of a publisher’s book deposited within Project MUSE, Thoth Open Metadata has opted out of such provision of secondary DOIs on behalf of publishers. Thoth believes in working towards re-centring the publisher-issued DOI as the main, authoritative persistent identifier of a given work.
Payment of fees: Project MUSE/JHUP generally charge a nominal per-book hosting fee for books to be included in Project MUSE’s platform. Thoth Open Metadata and JHUP have agreed on a special rate of USD 50.00/book (exc. VAT). Thoth Open Metadata will be invoicing the publisher for those additional per-book fees as part of the general invoicing setup described in the above Statement of Work.
Publishers can choose to submit their OA titles to JSTOR through Thoth if they meet JSTOR’s platform inclusion criteria as defined by JSTOR’s operator, ITHAKA. Details of JSTOR’s inclusion criteria are listed directly on JSTOR’s web pages, under “Open Access Submission Requirements”.
As agreed via the umbrella agreement between Thoth Open Metadata and JSTOR, individual publishers choosing to submit their eligible OA titles through Thoth will not have to sign a separate open access agreement (aka. “open access rider”) directly with ITHAKA/JSTOR.
Usage Data: JSTOR has an administration site for publishers that will allow them to schedule or run one-time usage reports. These reports include usage based on country, institution information, and number of item requests. Thoth, in its role as the main facilitator of that submission process to JSTOR, will have access to usage data of all publishers signing up to that submission route via Thoth. The publisher can either request for Thoth to provide regular usage reports to them, or to facilitate access to the publisher’s specific subset of usage data via the JSTOR portal.
Preservation in Portico: JSTOR preserves content submitted to JSTOR in the Portico digital preservation service. All fees otherwise payable by the publisher or Thoth Open Metadata in connection with the preservation of the Book(s) by Portico shall be waived during the term of the submission agreement between Thoth Open Metadata and JSTOR. Details of what Portico’s preservation service entails are available here:
DOI registration offered by JSTOR: Although JSTOR does offer the registration of DOIs for the specific version of a publisher’s book deposited within JSTOR, Thoth Open Metadata has opted out of such provision of secondary DOIs on behalf of publishers. Thoth believes in re-centring the focus on publisher-issued DOIs as the main, authoritative persistent identifier of a given work.
For Thoth Open Metadata to be able to submit content & metadata to Google Books on behalf of the publisher, the publisher needs to have an existing account with Google Books set up. Once that has been established, the publisher will need to add Thoth’s account info@thoth.pub as a ‘Partner Access user’ with edit permissions to the publisher’s Book Catalog. Details of this process are described on the Google Books page: “Manage additional Partner Center users”.
The publisher agrees to make their books and metadata available for submission to EBSCOhost ebooks and Knowledge Base platforms. No specific arrangements beyond the standard Thoth Dissemination Terms and Conditions apply.
The publisher agrees to make their books and metadata available for submission to ProQuest ebooks platform. No specific arrangements beyond the standard Thoth Dissemination Terms and Conditions apply.
The publisher agrees to make their books and metadata available for submission to OCLC Knowledge base. No specific arrangements beyond the standard Thoth Dissemination Terms and Conditions apply.
The Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) invites publishers to volunteer their books for inclusion in RNIB’s Bookshare programme. For books to be suitable to be added to Bookshare, they need to be made available in a structured way, with digital ePub files as the preferred formats. PDF and rtf files can also be submitted. For more, please refer to
The Thoth team will be able to provide further information regarding the RNIB submission process.
The publisher agrees to make their books and metadata available for submission to the Jisc National Bibliographic Knowledgebase (NBK). No specific arrangements beyond the standard Thoth Dissemination Terms and Conditions apply.
One key component for Thoth Open Metadata to be able to provide streamlined and scaleable dissemination workflows is the provision of Thoth File Hosting. The publisher agrees to have their book-related files hosted via Thoth File Hosting, with the file location automatically being added to a book’s metadata record.
The publisher can choose to set Thoth File Hosting to a publisher-controlled sub-/domain of their choice. Alternatively, Thoth will provide a generic file URL under books.thoth.pub.
Facilitation of metadata and file hosting and submission to external platforms by Thoth Open Metadata on behalf of the publisher is governed by Thoth’s general Terms and Conditions for the provision of Thoth Metadata Management (https://thoth.pub/docs/policies/terms-thoth-metadata), and those of Thoth Dissemination Services.
Please refer to Thoth’s Service Level Agreement (SLA) https://thoth.pub/policies/sla-thoth-file-hosting for details regarding uptime guarantee etc. as part of Thoth Hosting.
The publisher agrees to make their books and metadata available for submission to the Internet Archive. No specific arrangements beyond the standard Thoth Dissemination Terms and Conditions apply.
Thoth's Open Archiving workflows are currently being established in the context of Thoth’s participation in Open Book Futures. Working closely with the platforms and repositories involved, Thoth is striving to establish dissemination of publishers’ works to a minimum of three separate archive locations.
With the service still being under development, it needs to be noted that this cannot be guaranteed immediately, but will become standard as the Network matures. Up-to-date details about which platforms and repositories are contributing to Thoth's Open Archiving workflows can be found at https://thoth.pub/services/archiving
The publisher acknowledges the work-in-progress nature of this developing service, and agrees to work with Thoth Open Metadata in good faith.
Facilitation of metadata and file submission by Thoth Open Metadata on behalf of the publisher is governed by Thoth’s general Thoth Dissemination Terms and Conditions.
For Thoth Open Metadata to be able to submit content & metadata to Clarivate Web of Science Book Citation Index on behalf of the publisher, the publisher first needs to apply directly to Clarivate for inclusion of their books within WoS. The Thoth team will be able to provide further details about that process. Once Clarivate has confirmed that application, Thoth can then take on the actual dissemination task of sending books to Clarivate on behalf of the publisher.