Cornell University Press has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant worth nearly $100,000 to fund the open access initiative, Cornell Open for the second year in a row.
Cornell is one of four presses to receive a second NEH/Mellon grant. The new grant will allow Cornell Open to expand its selection from 20 to 77 titles, providing a much wider range of subject areas. The initial grant brought back 20 classic out-of-print titles from the Cornell University Press archive; in seven months these open access titles have generated 25,000 downloads at 832 institutions in 152 countries.
Cornell University Library has been instrumental in determining key titles to select for open access, and library subject specialists provided library circulation statistics and professional expertise to develop the list.
In 2016, Cornell celebrated a 'New Century for the Humanities' with a series of events and the unveiling of a new humanities building, Klarman Hall – the first of its kind on campus in 100 years. NEH Chairman William "Bro" Adams gave a presentation as part of the festivities.
The expansion of Cornell Open offers new opportunities to strengthen the humanities by harnessing the power of open access scholarship. As part of this initiative, Cornell University Press plans to join forces with professors to assign texts in the classroom and to disseminate classic out-of-print humanities scholarship on a global scale.
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