Berlin, 14.01.2019. In 2018, Knowledge Unlatched (KU), the central platform for Open Access (OA) financing models, has expanded into new collections and introduced new partnerships, resulting in the doubling of the number of books made available as Open Access. For the first time titles have been offered in both Humanities, and Social Science (HSS) and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).

In 2018, KU collected institutional funding to make more than 700 books available Open Access across KU Select 2018, Transcript Political Science, Luminos, and KU Open Services. This represents a growth of 100% in the number of books made OA compared to 2017. “KU would like to thank the library community for their growing commitment to Open Access for a wide variety of content and services.” says Dr. Sven Fund, Managing Director of KU. In partnership with OCLC, MARC records for all 700 books will be made freely available to libraries worldwide via KU’s website.

In 2019, Knowledge Unlatched will continue to promote its Partner programs to further grow the number of OA titles and services. Currently libraries and institutions can support a broad number of programs, such as Peter Lang IT Law, KU Romance Studies, IntechOpen Engineering, OpenEdition, Luminos, OAPEN Library Membership program, DeltaThink, Latest Thinking, and HAU Books. These programs hold the potential to further unlatch hundreds of books in 2019, while also providing important services supporting OA publishing. More information about new KU Partner programs will be shared shortly.

At the same time, the KU team is incorporating feedback from publishers, academic institutions, and the library community to tailor the upcoming KU Select 2019 collections. “We are very happy with the increasing number of OA books, and we also wish to thank our publishing partners for making compromises on the funding for some of these titles.” says Dr. Sven Fund. A more focussed KU Select 2019 program will be calling for new submissions this February.

KU will shortly announce the outcome of the KU Select 2018 Journals Collection.

About Knowledge Unlatched (KU): Knowledge Unlatched (KU) offers free access to scholarly content for every reader across the world. Our online platform provides libraries worldwide with a central place to support Open Access models from leading publishing houses and new OA initiatives.

Contact:

Knowledge Unlatched:

Philipp Hess

philipp@knowledgeunlatched.org