Direct to Open – Funding Digital Monographs “Once for the World”

“Ensuring equitable participation in knowledge sharing requires barrier-free access for both readers and authors. Open models that eliminate author publication charges are therefore critical for inclusive participation, especially in the social sciences and humanities. MIT Press’s Direct to Open, along with other innovative open monograph models, is an important contribution to advancing open scholarship. SPARC encourages libraries to support D2O and other collective alternatives to closed market models.”

-Heather Joseph, Executive Director, SPARC

With Direct to Open (D2O), libraries have the opportunity to move away from buying digital monographs from the MIT Press once for a single collection to funding them “once for the world.” D2O is a new, collective action open access business model for scholarly ebooks that is looking for library participants. The model will:

• Open access to all new MIT Press scholarly monographs and edited collections (approx. 90 titles per year) from 2022 via recurring participation fees.
• Provide participating libraries with term access to backlist/archives (approx. 2,300 titles), which will otherwise remain gated. Participating libraries will receive access to these titles even if the model is not successful.
• Cover partial direct costs for the publication of high-quality works that are also available for print purchase.

While OhioNet is not participating in D2O at this time, we wanted to make our members aware of this excellent – and affordable – opportunity to support the open access community and expand access to quality research for everyone. 

For more information about the Direct to Open initiative, including how to get involved, please visit: https://direct.mit.edu/books/pages/direct-to-open 

The model Prospectus, including fees, is available here: https://direct.mit.edu/DocumentLibrary/MITP%20D2O%20General%20Prospectus%205%202021.pdf 

Commitments are required by September 30, 2021 in order to receive exclusive participation benefits. Questions about D2O can be addressed directly to [email protected].