Imperial College London joins OLH LPS model

We are extremely pleased to announce that Imperial College London has joined the Open Library of Humanities’ Library Partnership Subsidy system. Imperial College London is a science-based university with an international reputation for excellence in teaching and research. Consistently rated amongst the world’s best universities, Imperial is committed to developing the next generation of researchers, scientists and academics through collaboration across disciplines.

The Open Library of Humanities is an academic-led, gold open-access publisher with no author-facing charges. With funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the platform covers its costs by payments from an international library consortium, rather than any kind of author fee.

Dr. Martin Paul Eve, a founder and academic project director of the OLH, welcomed Imperial: “When one thinks of Imperial, it is not the humanities that immediately spring to mind. An elite, scientific institution famed for its host of Nobel-prize-winning physicists, chemists and medics and its Fields-medal-winning mathematicians, it is science that sits at the heart of Imperial’s enterprise. And yet, the divisions that are stoked between our disciplinary spaces are often over-emphasized. We all seek answers to different questions about the world. Answers that are physical, chemical or mathematical need not be incompatible with those that are humanistic and cultural; the digital/computational humanities being one particular area where this crossover is most clear. With the help of institutions like Imperial we will build a model that will continue to allow the humanities to flourish in an online, open environment, continuing this inter-disciplinary dialogue.”

Chris Banks, Director of Library Services, added: “I’m delighted to be able add our support to the Open Library of Humanities. I’ve watched with interest as publishers have innovated, particularly since the publication of the UK’s “Finch Report”. I have welcomed the emergence of publishing models which make it possible for libraries to continue to support the publication of content whilst at the same time making it possible for those working in the humanities to publish immediate open access even where they have not been in receipt of funder support to do so. The Finch Group recommended a programme of action towards a fully open access environment and in one leap, the OLH demonstrates that such an objective can become a reality. Librarians are collaborators at heart and the OLH venture gives us the opportunity to collaborate at a global scale, for the good of open scholarship and at a price that is a fraction of the cost of a single Article Processing Charge with one of the big commercial scientific publishers.”

Journals wishing to join the platform should submit an initial enquiry to martin.eve@openlibhums.org. After the September launch of the OLH, applications will be be subject to the platform’s joining procedure. Libraries outside the US and UK interested in joining the OLH Library Partnership Subsidy model should contact Dr. Martin Paul Eve: martin.eve@openlibhums.org. UK-based libraries can join through Jisc Collections at http://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/Catalogue/Overview/Index/2120. US-based libraries can join through LYRASIS at https://lyrasis.openlibhums.org.