Open Access Latin American Monograph Project Formally Announced, First Phase Makes 200 eBooks Available Open Access

From a JSTOR Announcement:

A partnership led by the Latin American Research Resources Project (LARRP) in collaboration with the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), JSTOR, and Latin American bookseller García Cambeiro is working toward introducing a sustainable Open Access model for monographs to be developed and supported by the library community.

This project is funded by the following LARRP member libraries: NYU, Columbia University, the New York Public Library, Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Pittsburgh, and Duke University.

The first phase of the pilot project is making 200 ebooks available on an Open Access basis on JSTOR. The collaboration will initially cover CLACSO’s frontlist titles published in Argentina in 2018-2019. Nearly one hundred titles in 17 disciplines across the social sciences and humanities are already available on JSTOR, and the pilot will reach 200 titles this fall.

“LARRP prioritizes projects that promote free and equitable access to resources for the global scholarly community,” noted Melissa Guy, LARRP Advisory Council Chair. “It is an honor to partner on this important endeavor to increase access to OA content from Latin America.”

Karina Batthyány, Executive Secretary of CLACSO, commented, “Knowledge is a public good, and Open Access is key to the access to knowledge. Joining this agreement implies reaching another audience, other frontiers where our publications were in circulation, but not in such a general way. In addition, it secures the preservation of our publications long-term.”

The titles have seen significant usage in the short time they have been available on JSTOR, with more than 26,000 chapter views and downloads in 155 countries in the past six months. “We are pleased to make the important scholarship published by CLACSO discoverable and accessible to institutions and independent researchers around the world,” commented John Lenahan, AVP of Journals and Books at JSTOR.

As the pilot project unfolds, the pilot participants will assess the results and report on the model, technical services, discovery services, usage, and overall contribution to scholarly communication, as well as the cost per title to publish and preserve the OA content. They will establish a three-year plan to increase the number of Latin American OA ebooks and explore the opportunities for expanding this model to ensure the long-term stewardship of additional sets of OA content.

Filed under: Frontiers, Libraries, News, Open Access, Preservation, Public Libraries