Open Access at the MIT Press
The MIT Press has been an open access leader for nearly three decades, publishing hundreds of books and articles openly, and working with authors, editors, scholars, societies, and research institutions to disseminate scholarly work as broadly as possible. The MIT Press supports a variety of open access funding models for select books and journals and sits on the leading edge of the open access movement in scholarly communication.
We focus our work in three areas: books, journals, and open access initiatives. If you are interested in learning more about open access at the MIT Press, please contact Nick Lindsay, director of journals and open access, at nlindsay (at) mit.edu.
Open access news
Open Access Week 2024: The impact of Direct to Open
The real impact of our diamond model for open access monographs, Direct to Open (D2O)—in the words of authors and librarians.
Read MoreOpen Access Week 2024: MIT Press’s open access initiatives
Through programs and services like Direct to Open and MITops, the MIT Press seeks to encourage experimentation and make scholarship accessible to all.
Read MoreCognitive science journal Open Mind to be cofunded by Harvard Library and MIT Libraries through 2027 in an effort to advance open access publishing
The MIT Press, Harvard Library, and MIT Libraries champion scholar-led open access publishing with Open Mind, a venue for quality research in cognitive science.
Read MoreOpen access books
With the open publication of City of Bits: Space, Place, and the Infobahn by William J. Mitchell in 1995, the MIT Press vaulted into the open access publishing space where it has pushed the limits for close to 30 years. Now, the Press is widely recognized as one of the most innovative open access publishers in the world and has made more than 350 open access books available.
Direct to Open, our open access publishing model, has accelerated our program, publishing over 160 books — scholarly monographs and scholarly collections — in the first two years. And in 2024, we will release the much-anticipated Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, edited by Michael C. Frank (Stanford) and Asifa Majid (Oxford).
Machine Learning in Production
April 8, 2025
January 21, 2025
January 21, 2025
The Nature and Dynamics of Collaboration
January 21, 2025
December 3, 2024
December 3, 2024
Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics
November 26, 2024
October 29, 2024
October 22, 2024
October 15, 2024
October 15, 2024
October 8, 2024
October 1, 2024
October 1, 2024
Reimagining the More-Than-Human City
October 1, 2024
October 1, 2024
September 24, 2024
September 24, 2024
A History of Bodies, Brains, and Minds
September 17, 2024
September 17, 2024
Principles of Argument Structure
September 17, 2024
September 10, 2024
September 3, 2024
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September 3, 2024
August 27, 2024
The Ethics of Entrepreneurship Education
August 27, 2024
Biological Clocks, Rhythms, and Oscillations
August 6, 2024
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August 6, 2024
A Pluralist Theory of Perception
August 6, 2024
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July 9, 2024
July 2, 2024
Critical Perspectives on Ancient DNA
July 2, 2024
June 25, 2024
June 18, 2024
Trace Metals and Infectious Diseases
June 11, 2024
June 4, 2024
Computational Thinking Curricula in K–12
May 21, 2024
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Hedgehogs, Killing, and Kindness
May 14, 2024
May 14, 2024
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May 7, 2024
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Cats, Carpenters, and Accountants
May 7, 2024
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April 30, 2024
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April 23, 2024
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April 23, 2024
The Curious Culture of Economic Theory
April 16, 2024
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April 9, 2024
March 26, 2024
March 26, 2024
Modeling Neural Circuits Made Simple with Python
March 19, 2024
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March 12, 2024
March 5, 2024
February 20, 2024
February 20, 2024
Psychoacoustic Foundations of Major-Minor Tonality
February 13, 2024
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February 6, 2024
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January 23, 2024
January 16, 2024
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A Place for Science and Technology Studies
January 9, 2024
January 2, 2024
December 19, 2023
Demystifying the Academic Research Enterprise
December 19, 2023
December 19, 2023
December 12, 2023
December 5, 2023
December 5, 2023
December 5, 2023
November 28, 2023
November 21, 2023
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October 31, 2023
October 24, 2023
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October 17, 2023
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October 10, 2023
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Exploring and Exploiting Genetic Risk for Psychiatric Disorders
October 10, 2023
October 3, 2023
The Sensorium of the Drone and Communities
October 3, 2023
Mainstreaming and Game Journalism
September 26, 2023
September 19, 2023
September 19, 2023
September 19, 2023
Design, Empathy, Interpretation
September 12, 2023
September 12, 2023
September 5, 2023
August 22, 2023
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August 15, 2023
Probabilistic Machine Learning
August 15, 2023
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The Unequal Effects of Globalization
August 15, 2023
August 8, 2023
Bayesian Models of Perception and Action
August 8, 2023
August 8, 2023
August 1, 2023
Open access journals
The MIT Press open access publishing program in journals began with the conversion of Information Technology and International Development from subscription-based to open access in 2006. Our longest-running open access journal is Computational Linguistics, which moved to open access in 2009. Now we are proud that all of our active journals offer some form of open access support, with 13 diamond or gold open access journals. This means our journals make it easy for authors to comply with open access publishing and science requirements from funders or institutions and ensure their scholarship reaches the widest global audience possible.
Open access initiatives
Much like our parent institution, the MIT Press thrives on creative excellence and effective entrepreneurship. As we work “daily to reimagine what a university press can be,” we strive to disrupt restrictive modes of scholarship and redefine scholarly publishing for the 21st century.
Our dedication to innovation is why we were among the first publishers to embrace digital catalogs and ebooks. It is what led to our launching, with the MIT Media Lab in 2018, Knowledge Futures, now a transformative platform developer for open access tools, which includes the PubPub content platform. It is what inspired Direct to Open, a sustainable and scalable open access publishing model that harnesses the collective power of libraries around the globe and has published over 160 open access books in its first two years.
This commitment to reducing barriers to scholarship continues to inspire our work along new lines of inquiry in scholarly communications and open access publishing.
Launched in 2021, Direct to Open (D2O) harnesses the collective power of libraries to support open and equitable access to vital, leading scholarship. With generous support from Arcadia, and in close collaboration with the library community, we have reached:
- 322 libraries
- 10 consortia
- 160+ books
- 328k reads
MIT Open Publishing Services (MITops) is a scholar-focused, MIT-branded hosting and publishing services operation. Working with our technology partner Knowledge Futures, we provide a portfolio of professional publishing services to mission-aligned partners.
PubPub is an open access publishing platform that socializes the process of knowledge creation by integrating conversation, annotation, and versioning into short- and long-form digital publication. The MIT Press publishes a variety of traditional and experimental projects on PubPub.
Support open access
We are grateful to the many partners who have supported the open access mission at the MIT Press over the years.
In May 2023, we announced the establishment of the Arcadia Open Access Fund to support open access books and journals in science and technology, social sciences, arts, and humanities. This fund is made possible by an outright endowment gift of $5 million from Arcadia, who has also provided a $5 million “challenge” gift to incentivize other funders by matching their support of MIT’s open publishing activities.
Learn more about how you can support open access at the MIT Press.