James Kessenides
James Kessenides is the Kaplanoff Librarian for American History at the Yale University Library. He received his B.A. from Columbia University, Ph.D. from Yale University, and M.L.I.S from Rutgers University. He has served on the ACRL Publications in Librarianship Editorial Board and Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation Web Collecting Advisory Committee.
Statement of interest.
“My practical interest in open access in the humanities springs from earlier experiences at the Southern Methodist University (SMU) Libraries, managing its institutional repository while primarily serving as humanities research librarian. Major projects included launch of the SMU Law Review on the Digital Commons platform and preliminary conversations around rights reversion for a member of the history faculty. The latter eventuated in OA publication of the author’s monograph on the SMU IR after my departure for the Yale University Library. In more recent years, I have watched growing interest in OA on the part of historians and other humanists. While open access in the humanities is of later and more gradual emergence than OA in the sciences and social sciences, I feel it will only continue to grow more urgent. Particularly important to me is the Open Library of Humanities’ focus on scholarly journals, whereas much discussion among historians up to now has focused on the distinct matter of digitized historical materials (primary source databases). The OLH places scholarly output in the enduring format of the journal article at the center of the conversation. This work deserves more attention. It’s a privilege to contribute to it through service on the OLH Library Board.”