The MIT Press has announced the launch of Direct to Open (D2O). A first-of-its-kind sustainable framework for open access monographs, D2O transfers professional and scholarly books from an exclusively market-based, purchase model where individuals and libraries buy single eBooks, to a collaborative, library-supported open access model.
D2O gives institutions the opportunity to harness collective action to support access to knowledge. Beginning in 2022, all new MIT Press scholarly monographs and edited collections will be openly available on the MIT Press Direct eBook platform. Instead of buying a title once for a single collection, libraries can now fund them one time for the world through participant fees.
In addition to supporting open access for new scholarly monographs, partner libraries will also gain term access to an archive of gated titles. To keep the model affordable for all institutions, D2O will feature equitable and dynamic participation fees based on library type, size, and collections budget. The MIT Libraries has generously signed on as the special launch sponsor for the program.
The D2O pilot program provides an alternative to the traditional market-based business model for professional and scholarly monographs. Until the mid-1990s most U.S. university presses realized sales of 1,500–1,700 units per title, selling just enough copies—largely to academic libraries—to cover both direct and indirect costs. Monograph sales today are typically in the range of 300–500 units. Publishing these works now requires internal subsidy or partial subventions from institutional or philanthropic sources. The Direct to Open model makes the Press’s core mission of curating and disseminating long-form scholarship more sustainable.
The Press will soon release a report on the D2O program that peer institutions can adopt and adapt, with the aim of making it possible for many more scholarly monographs published each year by university and other mission-driven presses to be discovered, accessed, and shared broadly.
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