The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) has announced a new agreement with the NorthEast Research Libraries Consortium (NERL) and the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) in the United States. The arrangement will allow for greater support to DOAJ from the more than 300 members of the two consortia.
As a free and independent database, DOAJ indexes over 16,500 peer-reviewed open access journals from around the world. Under the new partnership both consortia will be able to offer support for DOAJ to their members at a substantial discount.
NERL and CRL include among their membership the majority of US universities that are designated in the Carnegie Classifications as doctoral universities with high or very high research activity. Providing a smooth path for these institutions to provide support for DOAJ will help create a sustainable crowd-funding system, channelling funds directly to the activities of DOAJ.
NERL-affiliated institutions produce an estimated 10-12% of the most important and impactful scholarly research in the world. CRL’s community of more than 200 institutions in Canada and the United States with affiliates across the globe work together to advance solutions to sustain an open knowledge ecosystem. This announcement enables the NERL and CRL consortia to stand alongside the many other consortia in the USA supporting sustainable open access publishing models through DOAJ.
An increased demand for vetted, high-quality online academic research, coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic, has highlighted the critical importance of support for essential library infrastructure services such as DOAJ.
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