University of Birmingham joins OLH LPS model

Posted by Martin Paul Eve on 9 August 2016

University of Birmingham

We are extremely pleased to announce that the University of Birmingham has joined the Open Library of Humanities’ Library Partnership Subsidy system. Birmingham has been challenging and developing great minds for more than a century. Characterised by a tradition of innovation, research at the University has broken new ground, pushed forward the boundaries of knowledge and made an impact on people’s lives.

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.

Professor Martin Paul Eve, a founder and academic project director of the OLH, welcomed Birmingham: “It is fantastic to have the University of Birmingham on board our model for open access in the humanities. Indeed, a Birmingham academic was among the first to publish in the OLH Journal and, while we do not require membership from institutions in order for their authors to submit (hence our model does not infringe any academic freedoms or have any kind of ‘pay-to-publish’ element), it is wonderful that the University of Birmingham has stepped up here.”

Suzanne Atkins, Open Access and Research Publications Advisor at the University of Birmingham, added: “The University of Birmingham is delighted to support an initiative such as OLH that provides an innovative, high-quality, but low-cost publishing platform for research. The University is keen to support open access publishing opportunities for Social Sciences and Humanities, ensuring this research is available to both academic and wider audiences.”

Libraries outside the US, UK, EU or Canada interested in joining the OLH Library Partnership Subsidy model should contact Professor 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. European libraries can sign up at http://lps.openlibhums.org.