Birkbeck, University of London joins OLH LPS model

We are extremely pleased to announce that Birkbeck, University of London has joined the Open Library of Humanities' Library Partnership Subsidy system. Birkbeck is a world-class research and teaching institution, a vibrant centre of academic excellence and London’s only specialist provider of evening higher education. In addition, both directors of the Open Library of Humanities are academics at Birkbeck.

The Open Library of Humanities is an academic-led, gold open-access publisher with no author-facing charges. With initial 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 Birkbeck: “It is fantastic to have our home institution's support for the Open Library of Humanities now that we have opened in the UK. Birkbeck has long had a social mission to extend the benefits of higher education to as many people across as diverse a spectrum as possible. Open access can help us in this mission but it must be handled correctly in different disciplinary spheres. This is what we aim to achieve with the OLH.”

Robert Atkinson, Director of Library Services, added: “The Library is very pleased to be able to support this exciting and innovative project in support of Open Access and we are proud to be associated with it”.

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.