Category Archives: oa.u.michigan_press

University of Michigan Press Hits 2022 Open Access Books Target; Ready to Expand Open Access in 2023

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“The 2023 Michigan Ebook Collection marks the third year of University of Michigan of Press’s renewed commitment to open access through its Fund to Mission program. This OA monograph model has allowed UMP to better align with our mission of sustainably distributing scholarship to the broadest possible audience, reflecting our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. 

Fund to Mission has received resounding support from over 100 libraries, many individual funders, and our provost. With their help, we plan to make at least 75% of our frontlist monographs open access in the 2023 Michigan Ebook Collection. This builds on our success in 2022 where we made 50% of our monographs open access….”

Guest Post – The Monograph and the Mission: University of Michigan Pledges $1.2 Million to Fund Open Access Book Publishing – The Scholarly Kitchen

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“This week the University of Michigan Press announced through our partner LYRASIS that we have reached our target of converting 50% of our 2022 monograph program to open access, without ever requiring any author to pay to publish. We will increase this percentage to 75% in 2023 and anticipate being able to sustain a majority open access monograph program that produces at least 60 new books a year. These open-access titles are now available on our open-source publishing platform, Fulcrum, and through multiple other distribution channels.

To sustain our output, we have developed a financial model, Fund to Mission, that matches investments in our ebook collection from over 100 libraries with subventions for individual titles, and support from our parent institution. In July, the Press was honored to receive a multiyear, $1.2 million investment from the University of Michigan Provost’s Office and an invitation to apply for continuing funding within the next three years. 

While we acknowledge the privilege of being at a leading and well-resourced US public university, we hope that the commitment Michigan’s academic leadership is making to open access for humanities books will be duplicated by Provosts at other North American institutions. As the name of our initiative suggests, such support allows university presses to pursue their core mission; to maximize global access to humanistic knowledge at a time when the need for rigorously vetted, boldly-expressed, high-quality information has never been greater. We also hope that even more libraries will be attracted to partner in achieving our shared mission….”

Thank You! Over 100 Libraries Now Support Open Access with Michigan Fund to Mission

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“In spring 2021, University of Michigan of Press began to adjust our publishing program to better align with our mission of sustainably distributing scholarship to the broadest possible audience, reflecting our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. This project resulted in the development of the open access monograph model that we call Fund to Mission.

 
Over the past year and a half, Fund to Mission has received resounding support from the library community, individual funders, and our provost. Through them, we have been able to make over 50% of our frontlist monographs open access for 2022 and are well on our way to making at least 75% of our frontlist monographs open access by the end of 2023 without any author ever having to pay.

Our success has been a community effort with over 100 libraries signing on to Fund to Mission. This engagement highlights how much scholars and libraries value open access, and as a result, our Provost has renewed their commitment to provide another three years of financial support for the Fund to Mission program….”

Affordable Learning with Fund to Mission, University of Michigan Presss Open Access Monograph Model

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“Launched in 2021, Fund to Mission–the University of Michigan Press’s open access monograph model–aims to support teaching and learning. Join us next Thursday, April 14th, from 1:00 – 2:00 pm ET to learn more about how open access U-M Press content–made possible by Fund to Mission–is aiding in libraries’ efforts to expand affordable learning initiatives. Attendees will hear from a UMP author and staff on how they are using both OA content and the Fulcrum platform in their classrooms. Folks will also learn more about the model and progress, as well investment options.

 

Fund to Mission is an inclusive, values-based model that seeks to encourage and enable participation for all institutions regardless of their size. We want to ensure that everyone has a chance to be a part of building an open future.”

Read and Annotate with UM Press – University of Michigan Press Blog

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“The University of Michigan Press is launching a new social annotation project: UM Press Annotates. With UM Press Annotates, we are inviting readers to share their digital marginalia to engage in new scholarly conversations.

Our ebook platform Fulcrum uses Hypothesis, a tool for social annotation across the web, to allow readers to write public and private annotations on our more than 250 open-access titles. With our Fund-To-Mission initiative, the number of open-access titles grows each season….”

Audiobooks Expand Specialist Monograph Accessibility and Use | Michigan Publishing

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“The Google Text to Speech (TTS) program allows UMP to inexpensively create natural-sounding machine-read audiobooks in-house and distribute them both through the Google Play store and as a benefit to libraries that purchase the University of Michigan Press Ebook Collection. Over 250 UMP authors have already opted into the program, including some with open access titles. Coronavirus Politics is read by “Jill”, Gaming the Stage by “Mary”, and Just Vibrations by “Mike.” An ever-increasing number of U-M Press titles are available for purchase through the Google Play Store….”

Funding OA Book Publishing: New Initiatives at Cambridge, Michigan, and MIT

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“Finding sustainable ways to fund open access scholarly book publishing is not easy. Over the last few years, university presses have been experimenting with different business models which would enable them to publish monographs without charging authors thousands of dollars in processing charges. This panel brings together representatives from three well known university presses – Cambridge, Michigan, and MIT – which have each launched such an innovative initiative. While each of the three models has its own unique features, they share the strategy of utilizing library collection budgets to fund OA book publishing. Please join us to learn more about them and the future of openly published scholarly monographs.”

UMP Fund-to-Mission Flyer.pdf – Google Drive

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“The University of Michigan Press has been taking steps to develop a publishing program that aligns with our mission and commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. This is why the Press is transitioning to an open access monograph model we term “Fund to Mission.”

Fund to Mission demonstrates a return to the origins of the university press movement and moves toward a more open, sustainable infrastructure for the humanities and social sciences.

The FUNDING MODEL

The Press is seeking a total of $250,000 in annual funding from the library community as it transitions to open. This amount acts as a match to internal funding from the University of Michigan. After extensive consultation with libraries, we have adopted a simple approach to reach our annual funding goal. Libraries are invited to continue to participate in the University of Michigan Press Ebook Collection (UMP EBC) by way of our current fair pricing. However, rather than only funding a paywalled collection, an increasing percentage of titles become open access. By committing to purchase one of the UMP EBC packages, libraries:

• Support the conversion to open access of at least half (~45) of University of Michigan Press scholarly monographs in 2022. (We will expand this percentage if we realize our full goal, and will build on it in succeeding years);

• Receive perpetual access to the remaining restricted frontlist titles and term access to the backlist (~1,500 titles), which will otherwise remain closed to non-purchasers;

• Support authors’ ability to publish innovative, digital scholarship leveraging the next-generation, open-source Fulcrum platform….”

University of Michigan Press authors receive prestigious NEH Fellowships Open Book Program Grants – University of Michigan Press Blog

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“The Fellowships Open Book Program from the National Endowment for the Humanities is a limited competition designed to make outstanding humanities books available to a wide audience. By taking advantage of low-cost “ebook” technology, the program allows teachers, students, scholars, and the public to read humanities books that can be downloaded or redistributed for no charge.  The Program supports the conversion of recently published books written by NEH fellows into eBooks that are freely available online….”

U-M Press Dialogues in Democracy: Core titles in politics and public policy now “free-to-read” – University of Michigan Press Blog

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“The University of Michigan Press is pleased to announce the launch of “Dialogues in Democracy,” a collection of at least 25 free-to-read books contextualized by multimedia resources including author podcasts and videos. Ideal for students and the engaged voter alike, these resources illustrate the core tensions in American political culture—tensions that erupt every four years during the presidential election and are particularly apparent during these unusual times….”

Michigan Asian Studies Open Access Books Collection Launches – University of Michigan Press Blog

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“The University of Michigan Press in collaboration with the Centers for Chinese, Japanese, South Asian and Southeast Asian Studies is pleased to announce the launch of the Michigan Asian Studies Open Access Books Collection. Jointly sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Humanities Open Book Program has made outstanding out-of-print and hard-to-find humanities books available to a wide audience. Under this program, the University has made 100 significant books about Asia published under its auspices freely and publicly available online. …”

FREE UKSG webinar – Digital Scholarship and the Future of the Book | UKSG

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“Scholarly authors are increasingly using digital tools. They want to produce enhanced ebooks and interactive scholarly works, but these tend not to fit into existing publisher and librarian workflows. Fulcrum is a platform developed at the University of Michigan that supports authors who want to push the boundaries of the book. The University of Michigan Press Ebook Collection (UMP EBC) includes an increasing number of enhanced titles and takes full advantage of the rich features on the Fulcrum platform. Thanks to the support of purchasing libraries, UMP EBC is able to sustain the publication of new forms of scholarship, including open access titles, and sustain the open-source, community-based scholarly infrastructure. In this webinar attendees will learn about this new form of scholarship, including how it is being sustained by the community via UMP EBC and Fulcrum, and walk away with inspired to sustain this burgeoning community.”

University of Michigan Press extends free-to-read ebook access and requests library support – University of Michigan Press Blog

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“University of Michigan Press (UMP) will extend temporary free-to-read access to the UMP Ebook Collection (UMP EBC) until the end of June 2020, strengthening its support of students, librarians, and professors who need ebook access throughout the entire spring semester. Any user globally can simply access, read, and enjoy. No registration or IP-validation is required….”