11  Archiving

Finished a (first full version of) your Quarto book? Now it’s time to archive it!

11.1 Why archive the book?

In short, to make your book FAIR!

  • GitHub may be incredibly widely used, it’s still owned by a commercial company (Microsoft) which can change policies or go bankrupt. It is wise to not be fully dependent on Microsoft to keep your book available for the long-term.
  • GitHub was originally meant as a collaboration space, and not to keep all content in the air at all times.
  • GitHub cannot give your book a persistent identifier, but Zenodo can! That way, your book will always be available at that one persistent link.
  • Additionally, by archiving your book in Zenodo, you are publishing structured metadata, which makes your book a lot more findable for humans and machines.

11.2 How to obtain a DOI by archiving in Zenodo

Here is a short checklist. The checklist is more elaborate on the website of the Code Refinery.

  1. If you don’t have it already, create an ORCID.
  2. If you don’t have it already, create a Zenodo account with ORCID.
  3. Log into Zenodo (or Zenodo Sandbox).
  4. Link your Zenodo account your GitHub account.
  5. In Zenodo, go to Settings > GitHub, and “Flip the switch” of your to-be-archived repository so that it is available for archiving.
  6. In GitHub, create a Release of your repository.
  7. After some thinking, you get a DOI!
  8. If needed, you can edit the Zenodo metadata to make it more complete and/or accurate.
  9. Include the DOI in your GitHub repository ánd in your published textbook (so in one of the .qmd files).

11.3 Educational resource: Edusources

If your book is an educational resource, we recommend registering it as an Open Educational Resource in Edusources. This way, the book is even more findable by others and you contribute to the Open Education movement!

How? Edusources uses SURF Sharekit in the background. Find SURF Sharekit manuals here. Importantly, since you have already published your book, you don’t need to upload files to SURF Sharekit. Instead, you can provide a link (the DOI) to the materials!