Helda Open Books is collection of high quality open monographs and edited books by researchers and teachers at the University of Helsinki. Helda Open Books is a part of Helda, the open institutional repository of the University of Helsinki. The publications in the Helda Open Books collection receive a DOI, which increases their international visibility. In addition, the works are published under a Creative Commons license.

Helda Open Books is a publishing service provided by the Helsinki University Library. It does not include peer review or professional layout services, like Helsinki University Press, a scholarly open access publisher of peer-reviewed books and journals. The publications in the Helda Open Books collection go through an editorial evaluation and the author is responsible for the layout.

More information: heldaopenbooks@helsinki.fi.

For other material in Helda, see information on library's website.

Helsinki University Library is interested in publishing your book in the Helda Open Books collection if the following conditions are met:

• You have an affiliation to the University of Helsinki.
• You have the rights to your work. Please note that rights may also be held by the layout designer, photographer, illustrator, and translator. The author must seek permission from the persons concerned before publishing.
• You are able to send us a ready-to-publish pdf or epub file of the book. We will add license information and a DOI. If needed, the Helda Open Books cover is available to you (see an example). Unfortunately, we can't offer you the layout of the publications.
• The works will be published under a Creative Commons license. Please note that if there are multiple authors or editors (e.g. edited books), permission to use the CC license must be obtained from all authors. In accordance with the University of Helsinki's principles of open publishing, we recommend the CC BY license.
• Other things to consider:
  • Metadata enhances the discoverability of the publication. You can add keywords that describe your book, for example, by using vocabularies: we recommend YSO (General Finnish ontology).
  • Processing time for book proposals is case-specific, and it depends on e.g. available human resources. However, we strive to publish the works within a reasonable time.
  • Since the publications are free of charge for the end user, no copyright compensation accrues for a book openly published with CC licenses. Copyright compensation refers to various compensations paid through Kopiosto ry and Sanasto ry for copying, lending and using e-books and e-audiobooks. From the beginning of 2024, authors will be compensated for library use of e-books and e-audio books. Links: Kopiosto, Sanasto (in Finnish), Finnish Association for Scholarly Publishing (in Finnish).

When the above things are in order, we will do an editorial evaluation. If the work passes it, a written agreement on publication will be made between the author and the library. If the work does not pass the evaluation, but other things are in order, the work may be published in Helda's books collection. If the author's goal is to publish an international, peer-reviewed and professionally edited monograph, please contact Helsinki University Press.

Book proposals and inquiries: heldaopenbooks@helsinki.fi.

Helda Open Books includes a wide variety of publications. What the publications have in common is that they are written or edited by researchers or teachers at the University of Helsinki. The works can be published for the first time in the collection or they may be re-published, for example, when the the book if out of print. Helda Open Books publishes:

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

Are you planning a textbook or a book to be used in teaching? Dozens of books used in the courses have been published in Helda Open Books –  check them out in the updating blog article!

See also the HOB publication types (discipline classics, festschrift, research project publications, textbooks, university publication series) in the blog article series (in Finnish).

Note that we do not publish dissertations in Helda Open Books, whether or not they were originally published as printed or open access versions. If you want to open a printed dissertation, contact e-thesis@helsinki.fi

Helsinki University Library cannot offer printing service of titles in Helda Open Books, but we can recommend the following services in Finland (in alphabethical order) 

• Hansaprint
• PoD (Print on demand)
• Punamusta

You can browse Helda Open Books statistics with Simple Stats.

• Monthly download statistics (in alphabethical order) 

You can ask more about Helda Open Books or make an appointment to discuss with our team from heldaopenbooks@helsinki.fi

According to Finnish copyright law, publishing and use of compilation works requires a permission from all authors in the collection. Because in your role as an editor of such a work you have the best contacts to the authors, we would like you to ask the permissions to publish with a CC license from other authors. If the permission is not granted, we will add the information to the work itself. If you have agreed that the editors of the work are responsible for all the things to do with publishing of the work, the permission of the editors is sufficient.

The next model can be used as a blueprint for asking permissions from other writers as well as from cover artist and layout artist for Helda Open Books publication. The text is a draft, designed to apply to majority of cases. Therefore you can freely edit it to suit the case at hand. The CC BY licence is the default in the draft – in Helda Open Books you can also publish under other CC licences.

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 (4.0) license. The license allow to copy, share and present the work under copyright license and the enchanced versions of the work when the author and the changes made are mentioned. The copyright remains with the original author or copyright owner.

You can give permission to publishing by answering this email. Your permission is recorded in the publication agreement.

For more information, please contact me (contact details below) or the library's service address: heldaopenbooks@helsinki.fi

Within Helda Open Books-collection it is possible to search books within a certain field of science, for example, in the following way:

• Go to the collection-page of the Helda Open books
• Write the keyword in Finnish, english or other languages to search box. You can also try the same keyword in different languages (for example "philosophy" and "Philosophie" and use the truncation mark * where you can combine these (philosoph*)
• See that the collection chosen is "current collection"
• You can specify the search results from the options in the right column

• You can also choose the advanced search where you limit your search. Choose Helda Open Books as the current collection (see below

After the first search in basic search you can see a list of links in the right column where you further modify your search and choose according to timeline, keywords, languge and format. For example, you can choose only philosophy books from 2010 onwards.

The printed book Biologia eläväksi (2005), which has been published at HOB as an e-book without any changes to the original book, has been used as an example.

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>.