ASIANetwork Exchange: A Journal of Asian Studies for the Liberal Arts to join OLH

The Open Library of the Humanities is pleased to announce that the ASIANetwork Exchange: A Journal of Asian Studies for the Liberal Arts has joined its ranks for launch! The journal is the publication of ASIANetwork, a consortium of approximately 160 U.S.-based Liberal Arts Colleges with Asian Studies programs. The journal is a double-blind peer reviewed journal that publishes research and pedagogical essays, as well as book and media reviews twice a year.

Drs. Erin McCarthy (St. Lawrence University) and Lisa Trivedi (Hamilton College), the journal’s Co-Editors explained: “As we began thinking about increasingly the quality and position of the ASIANetwork Exchange and learned about the Open Access movement, it was clear that our organization should embrace this international effort more fully. ASIANetwork has been mindful of colleagues and students in Asia whose libraries do not possess the resources for them to gain easy access to our materials. Making sure that our articles can be easily identified, read, and used in Asia, as well as other parts of the globe, has been important to our organization. Our partnership with Open Library of the Humanities will allow our organization not only to reach more potential readers, but also to help grow an initiative that aims to facilitate a sustainable future to the creation and preservation of knowledge.”

Dr. Martin Paul Eve, a Senior Lecturer in Literature, Technology and Publishing at Birkbeck, University of London and a founder of the OLH, said: “it is absolutely fantastic that ASIANetwork Exchange has joined the Open Library of Humanities. Our mission is to create a world where humanities and social-scientific research is accessible to those who are interested, not just to those who can pay. This involves substantial thinking about the way we fund research publication but also drives to the heart of why we write and publish. ASIANetwork Exchange has been at the forefront of this thinking, independently carving its own open access path, doing the right thing but striking out alone. By uniting with our infrastructure and funding model (in which many libraries all pay a small amount so that we can make work freely available), however, we hope to cement the future of this journal while preserving its forward-thinking past. It is a meeting of minds to fulfil a common mission for the public good. It is a partnership that makes eminent sense.”

The Open Library of Humanities will formally launch in September 2015.

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.