What motivated you to join DOAB as an ambassador?
When I worked as librarian, I found it was difficult for the library to get sufficient budget to purchase printed books or subscribe to e-book platforms to enhance our library collections. Although many free e-books are available on the internet, the credibility of their authors and publishers can often be questionable. Thanks to the quality assurance mechanisms DOAB has in place, users around the world know that the scholarly content it aggregates and disseminates can be trusted.
How do you plan to drive open access books publishing in your country/region through your work as a DOAB ambassador?
By becoming a DOAB ambassador, I can help librarians in my region access reliable data on quality-assured OA books and encourage OA book publishers to improve the quality of their publications and metadata by supporting DOAB and at the same time benefitting from joining the Trusted Platform Network. In the long term, in partnership with DOAB, we can establish an OA books community that supports publishers in managing their publications according to recognised standards.
What or who inspires you in your role?
I would say that Dr. John Willinsky, the man behind the Open Journal Systems (OJS), has been the inspiration for me in this role. He began with a genuine vision to make knowledge freely accessible to the public and now OJS is the world’s most widely used journal management and publishing system. It was an honour to work with him on several projects over the past two years and has opened my eyes to the importance of committing to OA and consistently sharing knowledge with others.
What are the biggest challenges you see in advancing open access book publishing in your country/region?
Indonesia is the largest user of Open Journal Systems and many OA journals actively ‘compete’ to be recognised as qualified publications, aiming for national accreditation and visibility in international bibliographic databases such as DOAJ. However, I do not see the same level of effort on developing and promoting OA books. For this reason, I believe it is an opportunity for me to return to my roots and work closely with librarians and OA book publishers to raise awareness of the important works of DOAB and to promote best practices to support OA books publishing.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
My contribution may be only a small step, but with strong commitment and collective community effort, I hope Indonesia will one day become a leading publisher of open access books in the world.