Bethel University joins OLH library partnership model

Posted by Martin Paul Eve on 20 February 2015

Bethel
We're extremely pleased to announce that Bethel University has joined the Open Library of Humanities' Library Partnership Subsidy system. Bethel University is a top-ranked, evangelical Christian university based in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The Open Library of Humanities is a gold open-access publisher, led by academics and initially funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with an emphasis on peer review. Rather than achieving open access through author-facing charges, though, the OLH is designed with the humanities in mind. To this end, the costs of our publishing are paid for by a global library consortium so that authors never have to pay. This model gives the best of all worlds: no fees for authors and no incentive for us to accept sub-par work.

Dr. Martin Paul Eve, one of the founders and academic project directors of the OLH, welcomed Bethel: “I am delighted to welcome Bethel to the OLH LPS group. The response we've had so far has been brilliant and reflects the hunger among institutions for new models for open access that may work better in the humanities disciplines. With the help of institutions like Bethel, we will make this a reality.”

Rhonda Gilbraith, Associate Director and Collection Development Librarian, added: “We are pleased and honored to play a small role in supporting efforts like these to provide high quality open access resources to the scholarly community.”

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 will shortly be able to join through Jisc Collections. US-based libraries can join through LYRASIS at https://lyrasis.openlibhums.org.