The MIT Press announces new central licensing and invoicing deals with PALCI and GWLA for Direct to Open and extends the participation deadline to November 30, 2021
Today, the MIT Press announced two new consortial relationships with the Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation (PALCI) and the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA) for Direct to Open (D2O) and extended the deadline for libraries to commit to support the collective action model to November 30, 2021.
Libraries that commit to support Direct to Open before November 30, 2021 will earn exclusive benefits. They gain immediate, term access to an archive of gated monographs, including classic works from Rosalind Krauss, Daniel Dennett, Noam Chomsky, Paul Krugman, Sherry Turkle, and many more. D2O participating libraries also receive special discounting on the MIT Press’s trade books collection on the MIT Press Direct platform. If D2O does not reach the success threshold for 2022, participating libraries are assured term access to the archive collection without paying the fee.
“Direct to Open encourages and incentivizes a shift to collective action and collaboration,” said Emily Farrell, library partnerships and sales lead at the MIT Press. “By expanding participation through new consortial relationships and extending the commitment deadline, we hope to allow as many libraries to participate as possible.”
PALCI and GWLA will handle central licensing and invoicing for Direct to Open for their member libraries. Thanks to the centralized service, participating libraries will not have to negotiate agreement terms and will be able to use the invoicing processes that they are used to through their consortium.
Farrell continued, “We recently passed 120 participating libraries. We are almost halfway to the threshold we need to open our 2022 monographs. More libraries are signing on every day. It has been an impressive and affirming show of support for a needed change in the ecosystem for more equitable open books models.”
In addition to PALCI and GWLA, central licensing and invoicing is available to members of the following consortia: Jisc, the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN), and the NorthEast Research Libraries (NERL) and Center for Research Libraries (CRL).
Go here to learn more about Direct to Open or to sign-up to become a participating library, or contact Emily Farrell, Library Partnerships and Sales Lead, the MIT Press.
About the MIT Press
Established in 1962, the MIT Press is one of the largest and most distinguished university presses in the world and a leading publisher of books and journals at the intersection of science, technology, art, social science, and design. MIT Press publications are known for their intellectual daring, scholarly standards, interdisciplinary focus, and distinctive design. Direct to Open (D2O) harnesses collective action to support open access to excellent scholarship. When successful, the model will open access to all new MIT Press scholarly monographs and edited collections (~90 titles per year) from 2022 via recurring participation fees, provide participating libraries with term access to backlist/archives (~2,300 titles) which will otherwise remain gated, and cover partial direct costs for the publication of high-quality works that are also available for print purchase.