Helda Open Books

Helda Open Books (HOB) is an open access publishing platform for books – the service provided by the University of Helsinki Library. HOB publishing is free of charge for researchers, teachers, students and staff of the University of Helsinki.

Helda Open Books is part of the University of Helsinki's Helda open access repository; HOB is one of Helda's collections. The HOB collection highlights a high-quality selection of open monographs and edited volumes by researchers and teachers at the University of Helsinki.

Helda Open Books is a publishing platform service that does not include a peer review service or professional layout. Books in the Helda Open Books collection undergo an editorial review and the author is responsible for the layout of the publication. A written contract for publication is signed between the author and the library.

On Helda Open Books, books are published under an open Creative Commons license and given a unique DOI identifier, which make publications more accessible and more visible online. The use of books will also be promoted through multi-channel marketing. HOB books can be found both through search engines and through the Helka library interface.

The processing time for book proposals at Helda Open Books is case-by-case due to factors such as available human resources, but we aim to publish works within a reasonable time.

Helda Open Books contains a wide range of books, all written or edited by researchers or teachers at the University of Helsinki. Helda Open Books can publish new or old books, for example, out-of-print books.

Helda Open Books publishes:

• literature related to research and teaching
• material for professional continuing education
• literature from various fields of science to lifelong learning
• literature concerning history, research history and teaching from various fields of science
• open access versions of textbooks

Supporting teaching at the University of Helsinki is one of Helda Open Books' key objectives. So if you are planning a textbook or course book, please contact us! Helda Open Books has published dozens of books for use in courses.

Please note: In the University of Helsinki's Helda repository, in its other collections, it is possible to publish also non-book material, such as publication series, reports or teaching materials.

Open access publishing in the Helda Open Books benefits you because:

• it gives the publication more visibility through permanent identifiers (DOI, Handle) and open licenses (Creative Commons)
• a book can have a "new life" as an open access publication if it is sold out in print – for example, classics in different disciplines can be made more accessible through HOB
• open access books are more accessible – it makes a book, for example a textbook, easily available to a wide range of readers
• disseminating open access books and tracking usage statistics is easy with Helda providing social media sharing links and download statistics
• HOB books can be found both through search engines and through the Helka library interface
• books are actively promoted through the university's various channels.

Helda Open Books offers:

• an open, fee-free and relatively fast publishing venue to interesting and topical works
• a stable storage for publications in the Helda repository
• support and advice throughout the publishing process
• high quality metadata to promote discoverability
• identifiers (ISBN, DOI, Handle) to increase the visibility of the publication
• good visibility in search engines through the Helda platform
• active marketing through different communication channels
• usage statistics – download statistics, page views, altmetrics
• book scanning with OCR, if necessary

The Helsinki University Library is interested in publishing your book as open access in the Helda Open Books if the following conditions are met:

• You have an affiliation with the University of Helsinki.
• You own the rights to your work. Copyright may also be owned by the layout artist, photographer, illustrator and translator. Anyone who wants to publish a book must first seek permission from the copyright holders.
• You are able to send us a pdf or epub file of the book ready for publication. We will include the license and DOI information. If required, we will also provide you with a Helda Open Books cover. Unfortunately, we cannot offer layout designing service.
• The book is published under an open Creative Commons license. Please note that if there are multiple authors or editors (e.g. a edited volume), permission must be obtained from all authors. In accordance with the University of Helsinki Principles of open publishing, we recommend CC BY, but any other CC license type is also possible. As publications are free of charge to the end user, no royalties are collected for books published openly under CC licenses. Copyright royalties refer to the various types of royalties paid through Kopiosto ry and Sanasto ry for copying, lending and use of e-books and e-audiobooks. From the beginning of 2024, authors will be compensated for the use of e-books and e-audiobooks in libraries.

Helda Open Books publishes both peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed works. The book's metadata will include information about peer review if the following conditions are met (see also TSV guidelines on peer review):

• The editor responsible for the publication has requested and received expert reviews of the manuscript from at least two persons invited to the review.
• The referees are external to the editorial office and independent of the manuscript under review, being doctoral researchers or other experts. Editorial review does not meet the conditions for peer review.
• The peer review has been carried out in accordance with established practices and quality criteria in the field.

The Digital Services Act (in Finnish) requires accessibility of online content and services provided by universities. Accessibility means that online services and content can be easily accessed by anyone. The library takes accessibility requirements into account when acquiring e-books and other digital materials.

The Helda Open Books service also takes accessibility into account in terms of the publishing platform, book files and book metadata. Authors of HOB books are therefore expected to take accessibility requirements into account.

Implementing accessibility in book files is relatively straightforward if it is taken into account well in advance when drafting the manuscript. Most HOB books are in pdf format. An accessible pdf file is usually created by converting the original file – made accessible by some word processor (e.g. Word) – into a PDF file. The Saavutettavasti.fi website provides information on file accessibility requirements and instructions for creating accessible Word and pdf files. There are specific guidelines for books in EPUB format.

Under copyright law, permission to publish must be requested from each author and from any other copyright holder of the publication, such as the layout designer, photographer, illustrator or translator. As the author or editor of the publication, you have the best contacts with the authors of the book, so please ask for permission for open access publishing under a Creative Commons license. If, in the case of a edited volume, you have agreed that the editors of the book will be responsible for publication, their permission is sufficient.

The following template can be used to request permission from authors to publish Helda Open Books. The text is a draft, intended to fit as many situations as possible. It can therefore be freely adapted to suit the given situation. Please note that the CC BY license is only a suggestion – other CC licenses can also be used for publishing on Helda Open Books.

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Permission to publish in the digital repository of University of Helsinki

We are publishing an online version of the publication X. According to our information, you are the copyright owner of the publication X, so we would like to ask your permission for publishing the work/article in the open digital repository Helda and especially in its Helda Open Books collection.

The name of the work/article:

Year of publication:

Open full texts, like articles, series, monographs and learning material are archived to Helda repository. Helsinki University Library is responsible for the long-term preservation of the material.

By granting the permission for publishing the material is archived and it can be freely used by everyone with a Creative Commons CC BY license (see license guide: https://libraryguides.helsinki.fi/oa/eng/license). The license defines the conditions for further use of the publication and increases its visibility. Copyright in CC licenses remains with the original author or rights holder.

You can give permission to publishing by answering this email.

For more information, please contact me (contact details below) or the Helda Open Books: heldaopenbooks@helsinki.fi.

Here is a brief summary of what to consider when planning to publish on Helda Open Books. For more information and help with the publication process, please contact heldaopenbooks@helsinki.fi.

• The book must be scientific. See publication criteria for more details.
• Publication on Helda Open Books is free of charge and you can publish your book in the language of your choice.
• At least one of the authors/editors of the book must be affiliated with the University of Helsinki. Emeritus status is fully adequate.
• Helda Open Books publishes both peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed books, but HOB does not organise peer-review. Peer-reviewed publications will be marked as peer-reviewed in the metadata if certain conditions are met.
• Books are published under a Creative Commons license. It is the responsibility of the author or editor to seek permission from all the copyright holders (text, images, layout etc.) for publishing with CC license. The authors/editors can choose which CC license to use.
• The author must provide the library with a pdf or epub file ready for publication. If the publisher is a public authority (e.g. a unit of the University of Helsinki), the file must be accessible in accordance with accessibility requirements. If the publisher is an individual or a learned society, we encourage accessibility to be taken into account as fully as possible. Implementing accessibility is not difficult if it is taken into account during the writing process – check out the guidelines for making an accessible publication.
• A publishing agreement is made between the library and the author/editor. Once the book is published in the Helda repository, the library adds it to the library's Helka database and promotes it through the library's social media channels. Authors should also actively promote their book using the DOI assigned to it.
• The HOB does not provide printing services, but authors can have copies of their work printed at their own expense by various printing services, such as BoD (Books on demand) or Punamusta.

Here we have chosen as an example the book Biologia eläväksi (2005), published as an e-book in the Helda Open Books collection without any changes to the book. PS-kustannus is the original publisher of the book.

APA

Eloranta, V., Jeronen, E., & Palmberg, I. (Eds.). (2005). Biologia eläväksi. Biologian didaktiikka. PS-kustannus. https://doi.org/10.31885/9789515150646

MLA

Eloranta, V., et al., editors. Biologia Eläväksi. Biologian Didaktiikka. Jyväskylä: PS-kustannus., 2005. Helda Open Books, https://doi.org/10.31885/9789515150646.

Harvard

Eloranta, V., Jeronen, E. and Palmberg, I. (eds.). (2005) Biologia eläväksi. Biologian didaktiikka. [ebook] Jyväskylä: PS-kustannus. Available at: <https://doi.org/10.31885/9789515150646&gt;.