Scholars, Librarians, and Publishers Join Independent Advisory
Group to Guide Development of New Open Access Publishing Model
NEW
YORK, May 15, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/
-- The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is pleased
to announce the establishment of the Path to Open Community
Advisory Committee. Engaged members of the scholar, library, and
publishing communities have been invited by ACLS to participate in
this independent group. The committee will work alongside JSTOR in
further developing Path to Open as a model for open access book
publication that centers bibliodiversity, equity, sustainability,
and transparency.
"Scholars want for their books to be read
and to matter; convening this advisory committee is a key step in
ensuring that various segments of the scholarly community are
working together in conscientious ways to make this happen."
Path to Open is a community-based pilot developed through
conversations and focus groups, convened by ACLS, with libraries,
presses, and scholars. Hosted by JSTOR, the pilot is designed to
test a new funding model for open access monographs. Path to Open
aims to make one thousand scholarly books—across humanistic
disciplines and from a diverse group of university presses—freely
available to readers around the world. The first 100 Path to Open
titles were released in October 2023,
and an additional 300 titles per year will be added to the
collection through 2026. Supporting libraries may access Path to
Open books immediately, and each title transitions to open access
after three years.
The Community Advisory Committee, formed with guidance from the
Educopia Institute, provides an important forum for dialogue and
problem-solving to benefit all participants in the open access book
ecosystem. Committee members will advise on priorities and goals
for Path to Open, engage with other open access initiatives to
encourage shared learning, and foster understanding among scholars
and administrators about the value of this model for open access
publishing. The committee welcomes input and will facilitate
conversations among the wider library, publishing, and scholarly
communities in the coming year.
"Scholarship in the humanities requires enormous investment:
from the scholars who spend years exploring questions of culture
and meaning, from the institutions of higher education who support
them, and from the wider society that subsidizes higher education
as a public good," said James
Shulman, ACLS Vice President and Chief Operating Officer.
"Path to Open helps to repay these investments by widening access
to humanistic knowledge. The pilot supports publishers while
reaching wide swaths of readers on JSTOR, and soon makes these
books free and open to anyone with internet access. Scholars want
for their books to be read and to matter; convening this advisory
committee is a key step in ensuring that various segments of the
scholarly community are working together in conscientious ways to
make this happen."
The 2024 committee is co-chaired by Sarah McKee, ACLS Project Manager, Amplifying
Humanistic Scholarship, and Holly
Mercer, Senior Associate Dean and Professor at the
University of Tennessee Libraries.
Inaugural committee members include:
- Alison Bradley, Director of
Strategic Initiatives, Partnership for Academic Library
Collaboration and Innovation (PALCI)
- Catherine Cocks, Director,
Syracuse University Press
- Danielle Fosler-Lussier,
Professor of Music, The Ohio State
University
- Kate McCready, Visiting Program
Officer, Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA)
- Tony Sanfilippo, Director, The
Ohio State University Press
- John Sherer, Spangler Family
Director, University of North Carolina
Press
Unlike other open access publishing models, Path to Open does
not require book processing fees or subventions from authors. It
provides publishers an immediate $5,000 per title to help offset publication costs
and offers an open access infrastructure on the JSTOR platform,
including reports on usage metrics. Libraries of all sizes can
participate via a sliding fee scale while also investing in open
humanistic scholarship from a range of university presses.
"Path to Open was developed in collaboration with publishers,
authors, and libraries to address the challenges that exist in
establishing a sustainable model to support open access e-book
publishing," says John Lenahan, Vice
President, Published Content at JSTOR. "The goal of Path to Open is
not just to support making a certain number of e-books open access,
but with the guidance of the community, establishing a new,
equitable, and sustainable model that changes how e-books are
acquired and accessed around the world."
Formed a century ago, the American Council of Learned Societies
(ACLS) is a nonprofit federation of 81 scholarly organizations. As
the leading representative of American scholarship in the
humanities and interpretive social sciences, ACLS upholds the core
principle that knowledge is a public good. In supporting its member
organizations, ACLS utilizes its endowment and $37 million annual operating budget to expand the
forms, content, and flow of scholarly knowledge, reflecting our
commitment to diversity of identity and experience. ACLS
collaborates with institutions, associations, and individuals to
strengthen the evolving infrastructure for scholarship. In all
aspects of our work, ACLS is committed to principles and practices
in support of racial and social justice.
JSTOR is a part of ITHAKA, a nonprofit organization with a
mission to improve access to knowledge and education for people
around the world. As a nonprofit that believes in the power of
knowledge to change the world for the better, JSTOR partners with
libraries, museums, and publishers to reduce costs, extend access,
and preserve scholarship for the future as affordably and
sustainably as possible. At JSTOR, we strengthen the depth and
quality of research by bringing together journals, books, images,
and primary sources on a platform with unique tools for teaching
and exploration. We do this because we believe in the power of
knowledge to change the world for the better.
Media Contact
Anna Polovick Waggy, American
Council of Learned Societies, 6468307661, awaggy@acls.org,
https://www.acls.org/
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SOURCE American Council of Learned Societies