Virginia Tech supports OLH model

We're extremely pleased to announce that Virginia Tech has signed up to financially support the Open Library of Humanities. Virginia Tech is known for taking a hands-on, engaging approach to education, preparing scholars to be leaders in their fields and communities. As the commonwealth’s most comprehensive university and its leading research institution, Virginia Tech offers 215 undergraduate and graduate degree programs to more than 30,000 students and manages a research portfolio of more than $450 million.

The Open Library of Humanities is an open-access, not-for-profit, academic-led publisher that works to share costs between libraries. This model is better for the humanities disciplines where funding is scarce and where authors are substantially deterred by fee-based models. In the OLH model, there are no author-facing charges.

Dr. Martin Paul Eve, one of the founders and academic project directors of the OLH, welcomed Virginia Tech: “It is wonderful to see support for the Open Library of Humanities from Virginia Tech. It is only by working together with libraries worldwide that we will broach the unique economic challenges for open access in the humanities. I am extremely pleased that Virginia Tech is part of this.”

Tyler Walters, Dean of the University Libraries, added “The Open Library of the Humanities is a real innovation for humanities publishing. We’re happy to support a model that benefits authors as well as readers not just here but anywhere in the world.”

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.