Lucy Scribner Library joins OLH LPS model

Skidmore’s Lucy Scribner Library has joined the Open Library of Humanities (OLH) Library Partnership Subsidy (LPS) system.

The OLH is an academic-led, gold open-access publisher with no author-facing charges. With funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the platform covers its costs by payments from an international library consortium, rather than any kind of author fee.

Marta Brunner, Skidmore’s librarian, said that the goal of the OLH is to expand the reach of humanities scholarship throughout the world by creating a sustainable, high-quality publishing platform for humanities scholarship.

“Economic pressures in scholarly publishing have made it harder for college libraries like ours to maintain journal subscriptions and have put a particular squeeze on publishing opportunities in less conventionally ‘profitable’ or ‘practical’ fields within the humanities,” explained Brunner. She continued, “OLH represents an exciting opportunity for Skidmore to contribute to a more sustainable model that will both make high-quality humanities scholarship available to the world and preserve it for future scholars. We're proud to be a part of this effort.”

The OLH will both produce a mega-journal for peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scholarship and host more focused peer-reviewed journals in humanities disciplines. Because the OLH is an open-access publisher, its content will be available free of charge to the entire Skidmore community, including alumni.

Libraries outside the US and UK interested in joining the OLH Library Partnership Subsidy model should contact Dr. Martin Paul Eve. UK-based libraries can join through Jisc Collections. US-based libraries can join through LYRASIS.