OLH welcomes the National Library of the Netherlands as a Silver super-supporter

We are very pleased to announce that we have recently welcomed the KB National Library of the Netherlands as a new Silver super-supporter. The National Library of the Netherlands (in Dutch: KB nationale bibliotheek) is based in The Hague and was founded in 1798. Its mission is to contribute to a smarter, more skilled and more creative Netherlands. The KB aims to make the Dutch National Library collection visible, usable and sustainable for everyone, both online and offline - now and in the future. 
 
The KB's repository in The Hague stores over 120 kilometres of written heritage, whilst its e-Depot contains some 40 million digital newspapers, books, magazines, e-books and websites. Researchers are aided with a vast amount of digital sources and datasets. Together with the public libraries, the KB is committed to promoting reading, digital inclusion and lifelong development.  
 
The National Library of the Netherlands 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 pleased to welcome the KB National Library of the Netherlands as Silver higher supporters of the Open Library of Humanities,” said Paula Clemente Vega, Marketing Officer at OLH. “Their support reflects the increasing commitment across Europe to sustainable, diamond open access publishing. By joining us at this level, the National Library of the Netherlands plays an essential role in helping us transition journals to diamond open access, making scholarly research freely available to all. We are deeply grateful to all our supporters for making this important work possible.”

“We are happy to support the Open Library of Humanities,” said Astrid van Wesenbeeck, open science advisor at the KB. “Especially these days when budget cuts are massive in Dutch higher education, a sustainable and open scholarly publishing culture is most relevant for the academic community and for society as a whole. With our focus on improving access to scholarly publications for users outside of academia, we applaud diamond publishing initiatives like Open Library of Humanities, that contribute to these principles of fairness, openness and sustainability."

About OLH: The Open Library of Humanities is an award-winning, academic-led, diamond open-access publisher of 33 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.