Open Library of the Humanities merges with Birkbeck
The Open Library of the Humanities, founded in 2015 by Martin Eve and Caroline Edwards, has merged with Birkbeck, University of London, extending an existing partnership between the two. The merger is intended to enable OLH to continue its open-access publishing activities, protecting its ‘academic-led’ and charitable status while removing the burden of running a full external charity; Birkbeck’s financial and accounting staff will also provide support with invoicing and payment processing.
Two more institutions have joined the OLH Library Partnership Subsidy system. Ontario Tech University, a Canadian public research university, and Stanford Libraries, an American network of more than 15 libraries, have taken the total of institutions supporting OLH beyond 300. The organisation has also renewed its existing agreement with Jisc, adding a new tiered membership scheme and reopening its journal flipping programme.
Transformative deals
Taylor & Francis has agreed three new transformative agreements. A three-year deal with Jisc, with an optional two-year extension, will maintain participating members’ existing access to subscription content while adding the ability to publish open access in T&F’s Open Select journals at no cost to the author, up to an agreed cap. Another three-year deal, this time with the Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries (CSAL) will give researchers from 26 participating institutions read access to journals across the T&F portfolio and the ability to publish APC-free in most Open Select and all full gold journals. A similar deal with the National Library of Luxembourg (BnL), also lasting three years, will apply to researchers at the University of Luxembourg, the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, and the Luxembourg Institute of Health. Taylor & Francis has also renewed its three-year deal with the national consortium of 14 Dutch universities, the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU).
Wiley has signed two new transformative deals. A four-year read-and-publish agreement with swissuniversities will provide members and customers of the Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries (CSAL) with unlimited read access to Wiley’s subscriptions journals; researchers at participating institutions will also be able to publish open access in the publisher’s almost 1400 hybrid journals. A similar one-year deal has been agreed with the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (Crue Universidades Españolas) and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), broadening an existing partnership between the parties.
In brief
Edinburgh University Press has appointed Jonathan Glasspool, formerly Managing Director of Bloomsbury’s non-consumer division, as a non-executive director, effective from 1 May.
Central European University Press (CEU Press) has announced the first success in its new Opening the Future library membership programme, run in partnership with the Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM). Funded by member subscriptions, Words in Space and Time: Historical Atlas of Language Politics in Modern Central Europe by Dr Tomasz Kamusella will be published this autumn.
Bristol University Press has announced that its first fully open-access journal, Global Social Challenges Journal, will be launching in 2022. The title will focus primarily on the social sciences but will also engage with research in the humanities, arts, and STEM, emphasising marginalised, minority and indigenous world views.
Knowledge Unlatched (KU) has announced its 2021 open access funding round, its eighth such programme since its launch in 2012. This year’s collection ranges from a collection of 20 new titles on climate change to a series of peer-reviewed blogposts in constitutional law and politics.
Open access linguistics publishing Language Science Press, a KU partner, has reached its crowd-funding goal and will continue for another three years as an APC-free publisher producing thirty titles each year.
Alastair Horne is a PhD student at the British Library and Bath Spa University.