CEU Press Reaches Target for Fifth Book Funded by Opening the Future Programme

Slated for release in January 2022, we’re pleased to announce the title of another monograph that will be published fully open access (OA) by CEU Press: Staged Otherness: Ethnic Shows in Central and Eastern Europe, 1850–1939, edited by Dagnos?aw Demski and Dominika Czarnecka.

Thanks to library support through our Opening the Future (OtF) model, this book is the fifth one to accrue enough funding to allow us to make it freely accessible, without paywalls. January will see several new CEU Press OA titles released, all funded by OtF.

National Library of Finland becomes new Opening the Future member

“CEU Press are pleased to announce that the National Library of Finland is a new member of their Opening the Future (OtF) programme. With roots stretching back to 1640 and to the establishment of the Academy of Turku, the National Library is a cultural heritage organisation that is open to all, providing nationwide services to citizens, scientific communities, and others.

The National Library has chosen to sign up to the Library Selection Package containing 50 books selected by an independent panel of librarians. This selection is a cross-section of the other three packages and represents those CEU Press titles that might be of interest to a library across a number of disciplines.

The Library’s membership fee allows CEU Press to make new books open in ways that do not burden authors that do not have research grants to pay book processing charges. The Press has already released its first OA book funded entirely by Opening the Future members, and has another 5 in the pipeline….”

First OA book published by OtF press | Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM)

COPIM and our partner presses hit a big milestone this week- the first book funded by our library membership programme is published today, with 5 more titles in the pipeline. You can read and download the book here: https://muse.jhu.edu/book/97875 

Central European University (CEU) Press announced today the publication of a new academic monograph for specialist and general readers. It is the first of their ‘open access’ books funded entirely by the university library members of the Opening the Future programme. This book is freely available worldwide to read and download from Project MUSE, and will also be on other open access platforms like OAPEN. (It’s also available to buy in print).

FREE UKSG webinar – Making Open Access Book Funding Work Fairly: Central European University Press and Opening the Future | UKSG

“Open access monograph publishing needs to be sustainable not just for publishers, but also for libraries. CEU Press’ collective library funding programme ‘Opening the Future’ was designed to be low-cost and simple, slotting into acquisitions budgets and existing library purchasing workflows. Several months into launch, we assess how this has fared and discuss how we can scale without increasing the administrative and decision-making burden already on collections and scholarly communications teams, who are already picking through a tangle of transformative agreements, pay-to-publish deals, author affiliations, and legacy subscriptions. The session will be set in context of the recent UKRI monograph policy announcement.”

Opening The Future: A new funding model for OA monographs | The Scholarly Tales @ KU Leuven’s Faculty of Arts

Opening the Future is a collective subscription model for OA books. Libraries can sign up for  its membership scheme, which implies that they grow their collections and support Open Access at the same time. The objective is to raise small contributions from a large number of academic libraries, so that no single institution bears a disproportionate burden.

How does it work?

A library subscribes to a backlist package of non-OA books offered by a publisher. The publisher makes this backlist package of non-OA books available to subscribers only (in other words: books in this package remain non-OA), but uses the subscription money to publish new books in OA. These new books are thus made available to everyone in OA, benefitting scholars and institutions around the world.

CEU Press’ Opening the Future programme hits funding target for 2nd and 3rd books

We are pleased to announce that Opening the Future at Central European University Press has already accrued enough library support to fund two more open access monographs, taking the total funded so far to three. This is hot on the heels of our June announcement on funding our first OA book; the programme is gaining momentum and already making a difference.

Opening the Future at CEU Press is a cost-effective way for libraries to increase their digital collections on the history and culture of Central and Eastern Europe and the former communist countries. Subscribing libraries get unlimited multi-user access to curated packages of books, with perpetual access after three years. The Press uses membership funds to produce new frontlist titles in open access (OA) format. All OA titles will be available via Project MUSE OAPEN, and DOAB. Today’s announcement sees the following two new OA titles funded by those subscriptions and forthcoming in November 2021:

Constructing Identities over Time: “Bad Gypsies” and “Good Roma” in Russia and Hungary, Jekatyerina Dunajeva

Everyday Life under Communism and After: Consumption and Lifestyle in Hungary, 1945–2000, Tibor Valuch

Author Jekatyerina Dunajeva said: 

“It is an honour to have my book published in Open Access. I frequently receive emails from scholars around the world asking if I might share my work, often citing prohibitive prices charged for publications. As a researcher of social inequalities, I believe equal access to knowledge is a necessary first step towards an equitable and democratic system of scholarship. Constructing Identities over Time will be part of a newly-launched book series in Critical Romani Studies at CEU Press and I hope that one day more books in the series might also be published OA.”

Further titles will be announced soon and advance notice will be given to avoid any double-dipping. And we are recording our progress along with our plans for OA books in 2021-2022 on the website at https://ceup.openingthefuture.net/forthcoming/.

If you would like to know more about becoming a member of Opening the Future, you can read more about the programme and benefits on the website, or contact Frances Pinter, CEU Press Executive Chair, on pinterf@press.ceu.edu

Opening the Future welcomes newest library supporter, Portland State University | OtF News

CEU Press and COPIM are pleased to announce that the library at Portland State University (PSU) is the latest subscriber member to Opening the Future (OtF). Founded in 1946, PSU in Oregon grew into a diverse public research university and now has 26,000 students and more than 200 degree programs in subjects ranging from Accounting to World History.

PSU is one of the first libraries to choose an ‘OA Supporter Membership’ with OtF. Some institutions may not wish to sign up to one of our book packages, or may not be able to, but they still want to support the Open Access mission and monographs that CEU Press publishes. For these institutions we created the OA Supporter Membership. With this choice there are no backlist books to incorporate into the library’s catalogue but their membership fee allows CEU Press to make new books open in ways that do not burden authors without research grants to pay book processing charges. 

[…]

ALPSP blog: at the heart of scholarly publishing: Spotlight on Opening the Future, CEU Press / COPIM

This year, the judges have selected a shortlist of six for the ALPSP Awards for Innovation in Publishing. Each finalist will be invited to showcase their innovation to industry peers at the ALPSP Awards session on Wednesday 15 September at the opening of the ALPSP Virtual Conference & Awards 2021. The winners will be announced on the final day of the Conference on Friday 17 September. 

In this series, we learn more about each of the finalists.

 

COPIM is an international partnership of researchers, universities, librarians, publishers and infrastructure providers working on bringing about a new OA publishing ecosystem. Their remit is to build a revenue infrastructure, and examine production workflows and metadata, experimental publishing and archiving. The project is working with colleagues across the sector to document existing, and open up new, ways of funding open access monographs.

CEU Press was established in 1993 to reflect the intellectual strengths and values of its parent institution, the Central European University, and is a leading publisher in the history of the region, communism and transitions to democracy. It is widely recognised as the foremost English-language university press dedicated to research on Central and Eastern Europe and the former communist countries. With a new Executive Chair on board in 2020 and a new Director in 2021, CEU Press enthusiastically took up the challenge to work with COPIM to help shape and pilot a new funding model, aiming to convert the Press to a fully open access monograph frontlist publisher over three years.

 

Open for business! Opening the Future goes live. · COPIM

“COPIM Work Package 3, in partnership with Central European University (CEU) Press is pleased to announce that our Opening the Future platform is now fully live, and member access to the programme’s curated backlist of books is available from Tuesday 19th January, through Project MUSE.

Opening the Future gives member libraries subscription access to portions of the Press’s highly-regarded backlist and uses the revenue to fund future/new publications in an Open Access (OA) format. We’ve been working hard with our platform partner, Project MUSE, to set up a simple sign-up and payment process, and technical access to the books. We’re pleased to say that this is all ready to go and already accepting memberships….”

Opening the Future: A New Model for Open Access Books

“CEU Press is going Open Access.

CEU Press welcomes members as we aim to convert to a fully OA monograph frontlist. In return, you will receive access to some of the most popular titles from CEUP’s extensive backlist. By purchasing access to the backlist, you can fund CEU Press’s future to be open access….”

Roll Out of First Open Access Books Fully Funded by Opening the Future | Central European University

“Central European University Press (CEU Press), in partnership with the Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM), and in collaboration with early supporters of the Opening the Future library membership programme, has reached the threshold needed to begin funding its first titles in open access.

The Opening the Future platform is a CEU Press and COPIM initiative, launched earlier this year to facilitate transitioning the entire monograph program of CEU Press into open access together with its partners Project MUSE, LYRASIS and Jisc. Within the model, which is a first of its kind, CEU Press provides access to portions of their highly-regarded backlist, to which members subscribe. The revenue from these subscriptions is allocated entirely to allow the frontlist to be OA from the date of publication….”