Open Access Books: an opportunity for libraries to collaborate

"Knowledge Unlatched believe that by working together libraries can create a sustainable route to Open Access for scholarly books and secure long-term cost savings for their own institutions by sharing the costs of making HSS monographs available on a Creative Commons license. The KU Pilot is intended to serve as proof of concept for a highly original approach to funding Open Access publishing: sharing the cost across many libraries, globally. The model is based on libraries from around the world sharing the payment of a single ‘Title Fee’ to publishers, in return for books being made available as a fully downloadable PDF via OAPEN on a CC-BY-NC or CC-BY-NC-ND licence immediately upon publication. MARC records will be available for all of the books in the collection. The Title Fee represents the basic cost of publishing a monograph. Because the Title Fee is a fixed amount, as more libraries participate, the per-library cost of ‘unlatching’ each title is reduced. Our partners already include JISC Collections (UK), Max Planck Society (Germany), New York Public Library (US) with many hundreds of member libraries expected to join before the pledging window closes.   KU is inviting libraries to pledge a capped maximum of US$1,680 to ‘unlatch’ a Pilot Collection of 28 new Humanities and Social Sciences books from 13 recognised publishers. Libraries that participate in the Pilot will receive a membership waiver until January 2016, usage data on the collection, and will have the opportunity to help shape Knowledge Unlatched through a Collections Committee and a Library Steering Committee. If only 200 libraries sign up for the Pilot Collection, the cost per-library of supporting the collection will be US$1,680. This works out to an average of $60 per title. If more than 200 libraries sign up the cost per-library will be less. To find out more about how the model works click here. The KU Pilot is an opportunity for libraries to act as catalysts in the shift towards Open Access and to help create a future that includes free access to high quality scholarly books for readers all over the world. We hope that you will consider taking part in this important initiative. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us."