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Open Access eBooks on MIT Press Direct

MIT Press Direct, launched in 2019 as our own dedicated platform, has allowed us to disintermediate our ebook distribution, building stronger relationships with libraries worldwide. In late 2019, we received generous support from Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, to continue to build on our existing work of making our academic books freely readable. In particular, the Arcadia support has allowed us to begin developing a library supported, collective model to make our academic books on MIT Press Direct open access moving forward. We will be speaking to library partners throughout 2021 about committing to support our efforts to move our academic books open access.

While we develop the Arcadia model, we continue to add open access books to MIT Press Direct, thanks to the support of programs like TOME, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Books, and funding from the MIT Libraries. These titles are free to enjoy on the MIT Press Direct Platform and may be viewed and accessed through the MIT Press Direct search feature. Simply search for any character by entering “*” in the search bar and selecting the filter for open access material to view a complete list.

If you want to go further, please consider supporting open access publishing at the MIT Press by donating an amount of your choice to the MIT Libraries Open Access Publication Fund or The MIT Press Funds.

Open Access at The MIT Press

"'Free' is still a rare practice in academic book publishing, and the MIT Press, with its strong public service orientation, is a leader in thinking about and experimenting with the commercial feasibility of various approaches to open access."—Eric von Hippel, T. Wilson (1953) Professor of Technological Innovation at the MIT Sloan School of Management, in his 2016 book Free Innovation

We have been a leader in open access (OA) book publishing for over two decades, beginning with the publication of William Mitchell's City of Bits, which appeared simultaneously in print and in a dynamic, open web edition in 1995.

Today, the Press actively supports a variety of OA models for digital monographs, trade books, and textbooks, with an emphasis on being author-responsive. Whether or not a book is published OA in digital form has no bearing on how it is curated, peer reviewed, edited, designed, or marketed by the Press. All books proceed through the same quality assurance processes and receive the same support from the press.

For general information about OA at the MIT Press, including our OA journals program, please contact Journals and Open Access Director Nick Lindsay at [email protected].

Support OA at The MIT Press

OA MARC records available for download via our MARC record page.

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