9 open access books cross 10,000 reads threshold, bringing total for Direct to Open titles to almost 425,000.

MIT Press’s Direct to Open reaches annual funding goal, opens access to full list of 2024 monographs

9 open access books cross 10,000 reads threshold, bringing total for Direct to Open titles to almost 425,000 

Now in its third year of operation, Direct to Open (D2O) is proud to announce that it has reached its full funding goal in 2024 and will open access to 79 new monographs and edited book collections this year. What makes this year noteworthy is that this is the first year in which D2O has been fully funded by its November 30 deadline and will not require an extension through the end of the fiscal year.  

“Reaching our overall funding goal—in full and on time—is a major milestone in developing a sustainable open access publishing model,” said Amy Harris, senior manager, library relations and sales at the MIT Press. “We are extremely grateful for the support of our library and consortium partners that makes this possible.” 

Launched in 2021, D2O is an innovative sustainable framework for open access monographs that shifts publishing from a solely market-based, purchase model where individuals and libraries buy single eBooks, to a collaborative, library-supported open access model. 

Cover for Active Inference

There are other models that offer fund-to-open opportunities on a title-by-title basis or that focus on opening access within specific disciplines. D2O is unique because it allows the Press to open access to its entire slate of scholarly books at scale during each funding cycle. Thanks to D2O, all monograph authors have the opportunity for their work to be open access and the Press can offer equal support to traditionally underserved and underfunded disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. 

At a time when the traditional market for scholarly books continues to decline, works funded through D2O are reaching larger audiences online than ever before—averaging 2,694 reads per title and bringing important scholarship to new audiences. D2O books have also been academically cited almost 1,100 times.

“D2O is meeting the needs of academics, readers, and libraries alike, and our usage and citation stats demonstrate that the academic community is embracing open access scholarship across a wide range of fields and for many purposes—from the classroom to research projects to professional interest reading,” said Harris. “This further aligns the work of the MIT Press with the mission of MIT to advance knowledge in science, technology, the arts, and other areas of scholarship to best serve the nation and the world, and provides opportunities for expansion of the model in the forthcoming years.”

The MIT Press will now turn its attention to its fourth funding cycle and invites libraries and library consortia to participate. For details, please visit: mitpress.mit.edu/D2O.

Cover of The Entangled Brain

Important statistics:

  • 162 – number of books published in D2O
  • 332 – number of libraries participating in D2O
  • 423,044 – total # of times D2O books were read
  • 12.74% / 54.78% / 32.48% – % of humanities/social sciences/STEM in D2O

9 books with greater than 10,000 reads:

Title list for Spring 2024 Direct to Open:

Cover of Computational Thinking Education in K-12

Media Contact

Jessica Pellien 
Head of Communications
The MIT Press
pellien@mit.edu

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.


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