Beginning in 2026, Duke University Press will participate in the MIT Press’s Direct to Open (D2O) initiative, marking the first collaboration of its kind between D2O and another university press. The partnership expands the scope of openly accessible monographs in the humanities and social sciences, reinforcing both presses’ commitment to sustainable open access publishing.
Direct to Open, launched by the MIT Press in 2021, transitions monograph publishing from a conventional market-based model—where libraries and individuals purchase individual titles—to a collaborative, library-supported framework. Through this model, new titles are made openly available without paywalls, supported by library contributions.
Under the agreement, Duke University Press will contribute 20 new monographs annually to the D2O program, alongside the MIT Press’s existing 80-title frontlist. In addition, participating libraries will receive temporary access to a curated backlist of 250 paywalled titles from Duke University Press. This development broadens the range of scholarly materials accessible through the program and increases the diversity of content offered to D2O library partners.
Representatives from both presses noted the strategic value of the partnership. The collaboration was characterized as an important development in advancing open and equitable academic publishing, with Duke’s participation viewed as an opportunity to expand access to scholarly content and support a wider academic readership.
Beginning in 2026, D2O will offer multiple content packages, incorporating titles from both the MIT Press and Duke University Press. Libraries will be able to support one or both presses, enabling institutional flexibility while contributing to a shared model of open access publishing.
Code libraries for COAR Notify now available
One proven way to speed up the adoption of a new protocol is to provide software libraries – in a range of popular programming languages – so that developers can very quickly evaluate and adopt the protocol without needing to spend time and effort on low-level programming. COAR Notify is establishing and maintaining (for a set of software libraries to support the implementation of the COAR Notify protocol.
The first of these – for Python – is now published and available on the COAR Notify website. More are in development for PHP, Ruby and Javascript/Typescript.
Planning future implementations
For the remaining 1.5 years left in the project, the COAR Notify initiative will continue to provide sub-grants to various platforms and infrastructures. We are currently in discussions with several infrastructures and services to discuss potential implementation including: Evidence / NeuroLibre, Humanities Commons, Software Heritage, Center of Open Science Preprint Servers.
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