OLH welcomes the University of Leeds as its first UK Platinum super-supporter

We are very pleased to announce that we have recently welcomed our first UK Platinum super-supporter to our library board, the University of Leeds. Founded in 1904, The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. The university is among the Russell Group of research-intensive universities and is one of the largest higher education institutions in the UK, renowned globally for the quality of its teaching and research.
 
The University of Leeds has been a regular supporter of the Open Library of Humanities for a number of years and has now decided to increase its membership rate to contribute to the expansion of our journal portfolio. There’s a growing momentum around journal flipping that we’d like to capitalise on, but this requires increased financial support from libraries. By keeping our basic membership rates low, we help libraries manage their costs. However, some universities choose to support us at a higher membership rate to expand diamond open access and convert more humanities journals to this equitable model. To facilitate this, we offer higher-tier membership options at bronze, silver, gold, and platinum levels for libraries with larger budgets dedicated to open access publishing.



The Open Library of Humanities is collectively funded by its member libraries and could not operate without their generous support. Redirecting funds to support scholar-led diamond OA initiatives is vital for the survival of not-for-profit platforms such as OLH. This support helps build an academic publishing ecosystem based on equity and a vision of academic research as a global public good.
 
"We are thrilled to extend our partnership with the University of Leeds and welcome them as our first UK Platinum member," said Paula Clemente Vega, Marketing Officer for the Open Library of Humanities. "By contributing at a higher level, institutions are instrumental in shaping the future of diamond open access publishing allowing us to continue flipping journals to OLH. We'd like to express our gratitude to our member libraries for making this vital work possible."
 
Jane Saunders, Associate Director: Content and Discovery at Leeds University Libraries commented: "The University of Leeds is proud to support the work of the Open Library of the Humanities.  Promoting open scholarship as a way to combat global inequality lies at the heart of the University's strategy: Universal Values, Global Change. The OLH is working to build a more equitable scholarly publishing ecosystem in the humanities and we are keen to support this work."
 
About OLH: The Open Library of Humanities is an award-winning, academic-led, diamond open-access publisher of 30 journals based at Birkbeck, University of London. With initial funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and subsequent support from Arcadia, a charitable fund, the platform covers its costs by payments from an international library consortium rather than any author fee. This funding mechanism enables equitable open access in the humanities disciplines, with charges neither to readers nor authors. 

If you like the work that the Open Library of Humanities is doing, please consider asking your institution to support us financially. We cannot operate without our library members. More details for libraries can be found on our signup page.