Open Library of Humanities launches

A new project has launched with the aim of "building a low cost, sustainable, Open Access future for the humanities."


This inititative should be of great interest to those who attended the main event hosted by the University of St Andrews Library for Open Access Week 2012 - The humanities and open access: opportunities and challenges.

Details of the academic backing and plans for the project can be found at http://www.openlibhums.org

Open Library of Humanities (OLH) will be an open access “megajournal” in the style of the US-run Public Library of Science (PLOS) http://www.plos.org and http://www.plosone.org; which will publish thoroughly peer reviewed humanities and social science research under Open Access conditions at a financially fair rate.

The Open Library of Humanities aims to provide a platform for Open Access publishing that is:

• Reputable and respected through rigorous peer review 
• Sustainable Digitally preserved and safely archived in perpetuity 
• Non-profit 
• Open in both monetary and permission terms 
• Non-discriminatory (APCs are waiverable) 
• Technically innovative in response to the needs of scholars and librarians 
• A solution to the serials crisis

Transition to open access

Since the release of the Finch report in June 2012, open access has been high on the agenda for researchers, and many HEIs have been busy developing their support services to help navigate the changing landscape of scholarly publishing. Repository services in University of St Andrews Library currently provide support for deposit of full text ('Green' OA), advocacy for open access, advice on copyright and licensing, opportunities to start open access journals (through our journal hosting service), and co-ordination of open access payments for research outputs ('Gold' OA). The services are currently being developed to respond to the increase in demand for open access support, and in particular to help manage our compliance with the new RCUK policy on open access.

The University of St Andrews is one of the 30 research intensive Universities in the UK which is receiving a £10 million allocation of Government money to help with the exploration of and transition to open access publishing models. The University’s share of the fund totals £137k. The Library has contacted all Directors of Research to provide additional information about this funding and how we want to work with our academic community, so we can all gain a better understanding of the issues we will need to address in order to make this transition a success. This will help us prepare for the allocation of block grants from RCUK to pay for Article Processing Charges (APCs) for RCUK-funded outputs.

Our existing web pages about funders' open access policies will be updated, and members of the Library's Academic Liaison team will be consulting with researchers. We will operate two distinct phases:

• The initial “BIS funding” will allow us to investigate a range of open access options, seek feedback from our academic community and prepare for the transition towards open access
• Operation of the RCUK block grant to be received in April 2013, which will allow us to implement the new RCUK policy on open access and pay for ‘Gold’ open access

We welcome enquiries from St Andrews researchers:
Email open access support

Further information and contact details at http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/library/information/furtherhelp/researchsupport/researchoutputs/