Category Archives: oa.d2o

Open Access: MIT Press to Expand its ‘Direct to Open’ Model

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“Continuing our news of research writings being made freely available through open-access initiatives today (August 17), we look at the MIT Press’ “Direct to Open” program’s announcement that it will make 82 monographs and edited collections available this year.

Having been inaugurated in 2022, the results this year mean that the program has 322 participating libraries and new consortium agreements, leading to more than 160 works being made available in those two years’ time. These numbers represent an increase of 33 percent, and an international expansion is very much a part of the growing levels of outcome.

MIT Press has entered into agreements with the Big Ten Academic Alliance—we covered its newly opened collection of works on gender and sexuality on Monday (August 14)—as well as the Konsortium der sächsischen Hochschulbibliotheken; the Council of Australian University Librarians; the Center for Research Libraries; the Greater Western Library Alliance; MOBIUS; Northeast Research Libraries; Jisc; the Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation; SCELC; and Lyrasis….”

MIT Press’s Direct to Open (D2O) achieves second year goal, opens access to eighty-two new books in 2023 – MIT Press

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“Thanks to the support of libraries participating in Direct to Open (D2O), the MIT Press will publish its full list (see below) of 2023 scholarly monographs and edited collections open access on the MIT Press Direct platform. 

Launched in 2021, D2O is a sustainable framework that harnesses the collective power of libraries to support open and equitable access to vital, leading scholarship. D2O moves scholarly books from a solely market-based, purchase model, where individuals and libraries buy single eBooks, to a collaborative, library-supported open access model. Instead of purchasing a title once for a single collection, libraries now have the opportunity to fund them one time for the world through participant fees….”

The MIT Press opens spring 2023 list of scholarly monographs via Direct to Open model with support from over 240 libraries worldwide

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“The MIT Press today announced that it will open its spring 2023 list of monographs via the Direct to Open (D2O) model. First launched in 2021, D2O harnesses the collective power of libraries to support open and equitable access to vital, leading scholarship.

So far this year, 240 libraries from around the world have signed on to participate in D2O. Institutions include Duke University Libraries, Rocky Mountain College, KU Leuven, EPFL Switzerland, Johns Hopkins University Libraries, University of Manchester, University of Toronto Libraries, Massey University Library, Southern Cross University and more. To allow for expanded library participation, the D2O commitment window has been extended through June 30, 2023. 

Thanks to these supporting institutions, over 40 scholarly monographs and edited collections from 2023 will now be freely accessible worldwide. These new works join the collection of 80 monographs made freely available during the first year of the D2O model. Titles published via D2O are always accessible on the MIT Press Direct platform….”

MIT Press Direct to Open books downloaded more than 176,312 times in ten months

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In 2021, the MIT Press launched Direct to Open (D2O), a bold, innovative model for open access (OA) to scholarship and knowledge. To date, about 50 of the 80 scholarly monographs and edited collections in the Direct to Open model in 2022 have been published and these works have been downloaded over 176,000 times. 

JHU Libraries supports open access books through MIT Direct to Open – The Sheridan Libraries & University Museums Blog

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“JHU Libraries is excited to support MIT Press’s Direct to Open initiative, which funds the open access publication of high-quality, peer-reviewed books through the collective contributions of libraries all over the world. MIT Press has announced they will be able to offer all 80 of their 2022 scholarly monographs and edited collections as open access for anyone to read….”

MIT Press opens full list of 2022 monographs via Direct to Open

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Thanks to the support of libraries participating in Direct to Open (D2O), the MIT Press will publish its full list of 2022 scholarly monographs and edited collections open access on the MIT Press Direct platform. Thirty-seven of the eighty works are already openly available to readers around the world, and a full list of titles included in the model this calendar year may be found at the end of this announcement.

WVU Libraries joins MIT Press Open Access Publishing Initiative

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“In March 2021, MIT Press announced the launch of its Direct-to-Open (D2O) framework. In this model, rather than purchasing licenses to eBook titles individually or through packages, libraries pay annual participation fees that support open access (OA) book publishing. Participating libraries gain access to new MIT Press titles—around 90 titles per year—as well as its eligible backlist of approximately 2,300 books. D2O features two non-overlapping collections of scholarly monographs and edited volumes: Humanities & Social Sciences and STEAM. Anyone can read the OA titles free of cost on the MIT Press website, regardless of institutional affiliation. 

The sustainability of the D2O model depends on reaching a set financial success threshold over three years. In November 2021, MIT reported that it had hit 50% of the threshold, and as of March 2022 more than 195 libraries and consortia have committed to supporting D2O. D2O’s tiered rates based on type and size of institution mean WVU Libraries will pay $6,000 per year for three years to participate. …”

Direct to Open Post-Launch: Refreshers, Partnerships, and Catching Up – Choice 360

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“In March 2021, MIT Press launched the library collective action model Direct to Open (D2O). By granting participating institutions access to backlist titles, D2O encourages libraries to aid in the notoriously difficult practice of opening up monographs. Since last year’s launch, over 150 institutions have signed on; due to this support, MIT Press will publish its entire spring 2022 catalogue of monographs and edited collections open access.

This month, MIT Press returns to The Authority File a year post-launch to discuss the milestones and future of D2O. Emily Farrell, Library Partnerships and Sales Lead at MIT Press, offers an inside look at library feedback and market forces. Curtis Brundy, Associate University Librarian at Iowa State University, shares his perspective on the value of open models and the continuing confluence of scholarly communication and collection development in the higher education ecosystem.

In this first episode of the four-part series, Emily discusses the lessons learned through D2O’s partnerships with institutions. She also highlights the initial insights gleaned from the past year, summarized in the press’s recent white paper. In addition, Curtis expands on his role in MIT Press’s advisory board, and why the model proved an exciting and bold move in the current publishing landscape….”

Library perspective: balancing investments and sustainability in Open Access

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“The team at COPIM recently shared your CommonPlace blog post “Balancing Investments in Open Access: Sustainability and Innovation”. We found it really interesting to see evidence of libraries grappling with how to evaluate the proliferation of new OA models. What has the response been to your article?

One response was that Sharla Lair and Curtis Brundy edited a series of articles in CommonPlace, called “The Global Transition to Open.” It was gratifying to see that other libraries are also struggling with some of the issues I mentioned in my piece–how to keep up with all of the new open publishing models, and how to choose which initiatives to support. One potential way to combat this, as Marco Tullney and others noted, is to develop established workflows and evaluation criteria. I thought Alexia Hudson-Ward made a particularly compelling case that DEIA should be a core component of any such criteria. 

I’m also intrigued by the fact that some libraries seem to have dedicated, separate budget lines for supporting open scholarly initiatives. At the same time, I’m not convinced that having a dedicated budget line would really make the decision making process and administrative issues easier for us at Temple, as Demmy Verkebe says it does at KU Leuven. And honestly, I worry that separating open from the rest of collections might prevent us from seeing the big picture around how exactly this transition should happen. …”

Direct to Open | The MIT Press

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“Direct to Open (D2O) harnesses collective action to support open access to excellent scholarship. Developed over two years with the generous support of the Arcadia Fund, in close collaboration with the library community, the model will:

Open access to all new MIT Press scholarly monographs and edited collections from 2022 via recurring participation fees.
Provide participating libraries with term access to backlist/archives (~2,300 titles), which will otherwise remain gated. Participating libraries will receive access even if the model is not successful.
Cover partial direct costs for the publication of high-quality works that are also available for print purchase….”

We’ve Added 2,000 More Ebooks Thanks to a New Open Access Project : JMU Libraries

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“Explore over 2,000 ebooks from MIT Press: We are pleased to announce that the JMU community now has access to over 2,000 ebooks from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s MIT Press—and has helped facilitate opening the Spring 2022 title list to be open access! These ebooks are from across the arts, social sciences, humanities and sciences. They range from recent scholarly books to classic academic works.

You can find these ebooks in JMU’s Library Search by adding the phrase “MIT Press” to your search terms.

The project is a worldwide collaboration for open access led by MIT: To bring this incredible collection of ebooks to you, JMU Libraries joined with over 160 libraries worldwide to support an innovative, sustainable framework for open access books from MIT Press. This Direct to Open (D2O) project facilitates a collaborative, library-supported, and open access approach to publishing professional and scholarly books….”

UMass Libraries Invest in New Publishing Models: Open Access Initiatives Deliver Thousands of New Book Titles to Patrons and the Public | UMass Amherst

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“The UMass Amherst Libraries have invested in three open access book publishing programs to bring thousands of new titles to patrons and the public at no cost to them. With the support of institutions like UMass Amherst, MIT Press Direct to Open (D2O) University of Michigan Press Fund to Mission (F2M), and Open Book Publishers will release at least 155 new books in 2022, which will be openly accessible to readers. With these investments, the campus community gains access to an additional 4,900 books published by MIT Press and the University of Michigan Press….”

MIT Press plans to release much of spring slate open access

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“The MIT Press, one of the world’s largest university presses, plans to publish its entire slate of spring 2022 monographs and edited collections on an open-access basis. The move is a major development for the larger open-access movement and a model that scholars and librarians say could be revolutionary for cash-strapped libraries, university presses and a dwindling number of humanities scholars.

The plan relies on commitments from more than 160 libraries and consortia whose pledges allowed MIT Press to reach 50 percent of the participation threshold it set against its three-year target. The press has extended a deadline for further commitments from additional institutions to June 30, 2022. MIT Press leaders say enthusiasm for its Direct to Open (D2O) effort, launched in April, has been so strong that they intend to share a white paper in January describing how the model works so other university presses can replicate it.

Amy Brand, director of MIT Press, calls D2O a much-needed alternative to traditional market-based scholarly business models. Monograph sales today are typically in the range of 300 to 500 units, down from 1,500 to 1,700 units per title in the 1990s, meaning that publishing now demands internal subsidies from institutions or philanthropies. Much of this downward trend in purchasing was driven by the increase in scientific journals and the high percentage of acquisition budgets they now account for, Brand said. The desire among librarians to buy digital copies of monographs has only further eroded the sales numbers….”

Direct to Open Enables the MIT Press to Publish Its Full List of Spring 2022 Monographs and Edited Collections Open Access

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The MIT Press today announced that it has reached the fifty percent threshold for participation in the Direct to Open (D2O) initiative, an innovative sustainable framework for open access monographs. Thanks to the early support of participating institutions, the full list of spring 2022 scholarly monographs and edited collections from the MIT Press will now be published open access. The D2O commitment window has also been extended through June 30, 2022.