Publishing high-quality OA titles with a high impact
Liverpool University Press is delighted to announce its participation in a new Open Access (OA) monograph scheme, Path to Open, in partnership with JSTOR. Path to Open represents a new program developed by university press directors, librarians, and scholars. The model makes frontlist books available to supporting libraries exclusively through JSTOR, on an unlimited, multi-user, digital rights management-free basis. After three years of availability only to supporting institutions, the books become Open Access under Creative Commons licenses.
About Path to Open
More than 30 university presses and hundreds of authors (including LUP) are now part of Path to Open, a new program that supports the publishing of open access scholarly monographs. The first 100 books will be released on JSTOR in the autumn of 2023, with an additional 300 titles being published annually during the term of the pilot, 2024-2026.
The first 100 titles feature peer-reviewed monographs in disciplines across the humanities and social sciences, with an emphasis on works that bring forward diverse perspectives and ideas. To help in identifying titles that would be most impactful for libraries and scholars, titles were selected that were associated to disciplines with the highest overall usage and were associated to the highest used search terms on JSTOR.
This process allowed for titles to be published from 33 presses who submitted titles in 2023 and across 36 JSTOR disciplines. Path to Open books will be available DRM free with unlimited user access and integrated with other scholarly content on the JSTOR platform, including thousands of books, journals, and primary source collections.
“Liverpool University Press was one of the early supporters of Path to Open and their participation not only helps expand the global publisher participation in the program, but it also helps broaden the program’s subject coverage in cultural studies. We are honoured to have LUP participating in Path to Open and proud to be able to help support their path to getting more titles open access to the global community.”
John Lenahan, Vice President, Published Content ITHAKA
How it works
Now that over 30 university presses are participating (including LUP) we are working collaboratively to complete the following:
- Secure the first 100 library commitments by June 2023. Fees for unlimited exclusive access to the full set of titles are tiered according to the participating institution’s JSTOR classification.
- Launch Path to Open as a multi-year pilot after 150 libraries commit to participate by 1st October 2023.
- Release the first 100 titles in autumn 2023, with 300 new titles added each year starting in 2024.
- Make the books available Open Access three years after publication, benefitting readers worldwide.
“Liverpool University Press has been publishing Open Access books since 2010. Path to Open, LUP’s latest OA publishing partnership, combines the infrastructure and reach of JSTOR with the trusted imprimaturs of more than 30 university presses, and is set to establish a scalable solution for open monograph publishing that will benefit authors, readers and libraries.”
Anthony Cond, Liverpool University Press CEO
Which books are included from LUP?
- Womb Work: Womb-Centered Health Narratives as Reparative Praxis in Black Women’s Fiction by Belinda Monique Waller-Peterson. (Published in partnership with Clemson University Press)
- Imagining Musical Pasts: The Queer Literary Musicology of Vernon Lee, Rosa Newmarch, and Edward Prime-Stevenson by Kristin M. Franseen (Published in partnership with Clemson University Press)
- Faking It: Victorian Documentary Novels by Ellen Stockstill (Published in partnership with Clemson University Press)
- Cultural History of British Alternative Cabaret (1979-1991) by Ray Campbell
- Middlebrow 2.0 and the Digital Affect: Online Reading Communities of the New Nigerian Novel by Hannah Pardey
- Publishing Contemporary Foreign Poetry: Transnational Exchange in the Italian Publishing Field by Mila Milani.
- Reconstructive Memory Work: Trauma, Witnessing and the Imagination in Writing by Female Descendants of Harkis by Clíona Hensey.
Support for the initiative
‘I am pleased to announce that my book, Imagining Musical Pasts: The Queer Literary Musicology of Vernon Lee, Rosa Newmarch, and Edward Prime-Stevenson has been selected as one of the monographs for JISC’s Path to Open initiative, a program which supports cultural diversity in library acquisitions and a sustainable model of OA publishing. A publishing model that allows for increased access to current research is important to me as someone whose work focuses on interactions between musicology and popular literature, re-centring marginalized voices in the history of music research, and the spread of musical and historical knowledge outside of formal institutions. Being included in Path to Open will make some of the formerly obscure sources and people discussed in Imagining Musical Pasts accessible to a greater audience than ever before.’
Kristin Franseen, author of Imagining Musical Pasts: The Queer Literary Musicology of Vernon Lee, Rosa Newmarch, and Edward Prime-Stevenson
‘I am thrilled that my book, Faking It: Victorian Documentary Novels, has been selected as one of the monographs for JISC’s Path to Open initiative. Faking It’s inclusion will expand its readership and impact while also supporting libraries’ investments in sustainable OA solutions.’
Ellen Stocksgill, author of Faking It: Victorian Documentary Novels
Find out more
You can watch a discussion from Charles Watkinson, Emma Molls, James Shulman and Rebecca Seger from the CNI Spring Meeting summarising the initiative here.
For full details of all 100 titles included within the initiative and how to join, visit the Path to Open webpage.
Enjoyed this? You might be interested in: Open Access: Libraries’ Questions Answered
Follow us for more updates
Sign up to our mailing list
Twitter | Instagram
www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk
Liverpool University Press Blog 