Open Access Monographs: Knowledge Unlatched Announces “KU Select 2016” Collection, 343 Titles From 54 Scholarly Publishers

From Knowledge Unlatched:

KU Select 2016 is Knowledge Unlatched’s (KU) third collection of specialist scholarly books in the Humanities and Social Sciences which it hopes to make available on an Open Access basis.
As KU moves out of its Pilot phase, it has expanded its offering to 343 titles: 147 front list (to be published between Nov 2016-April 2017) and 196 backlist (published between 2005-2015) books.
There are 14 packages available in the Humanities and Social Sciences: Anthropology, Archaeology, Classics, Economics & Management, History, Information Science, Languages & Linguistics, Literature, Media & Communications, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Sociology, Theology & Religion.
The collection was curated from a list of 681 titles chosen by the KU Title Selection Committee consisting of 40 acquisitions and collections librarians in 12 countries.
54 well-respected scholarly publishers are participating from 5 continents including university presses, commercial publishers and Open Access publishers.
KU is asking for the support of libraries from around the world to share the costs of making these monographs Open Access. The pledging period will run from 1 September 2016 to 31 January 2017 but libraries may already register a non-binding account.
Unlatched books are available on Creative Commons licences as fully downloadable PDFs, with hosting and preservation by OAPEN and HathiTrust as well as being preserved by CLOCKSS and Portico.
KU will be offering a more flexible approach for librarians by introducing a ‘pick and choose option’ for selecting titles. KU will also for the first time be offering libraries their own institutional usage statistics reports for books unlatched in this collection.
Libraries can pledge their participation by selecting a minimum of 90% of the titles in KU Select 2016, which equates to $9,653 (€8,775 / £7,020). The maximum cost of supporting all 343 titles is $10,725 (€9,750 / £7,800). This is $55 (€50 / £40) per new book and $13.75 (€12.50 / £10) per backlist book. KU is introducing a pick and choose option to offer libraries more flexibility. Publishers are recognising additional format purchases by offering KU libraries a 35% discount.

Source URL
KU Select 2016 Resources

• Title List (3 Tabs, .xls)
• Prospectus
• Library FAQs
• Governance Strategy
• KU Select 2016: At A Glance
• Pricing for Libraries

Direct to Full Text Books Previously “Unlatched”
Collection Two (78 Titles From 26 Publishers), 2015-2016)
Pilot Collection (28 Titles From 13 Publishers, 2013-2014)
Date: Usage Statistics
Over 67,000 Downloads in 180 Countries and 20,000 Page Views (Pilot Collection)
via KU Blog Post (August 4, 2016). Data as of End of June 2016.
Direct to Knowledge Unlatched Usage Statistics

Filed under: Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Data Files, Libraries, Management and Leadership, News, Open Access, Preservation, Reports