Knowledge Unlatched

📢 KU Survey Says: More Open Access for the Humanities!

A recent survey of librarians, including KU's Librarian Committee, has sent a clear message: Arts and Humanities need a stronger presence in Open Access (OA) book collections.

While OA funding has increasingly shifted toward STEM and social sciences, it's crucial to remember that the book and the monograph remain the cornerstone of research in the Humanities. If we truly believe in equitable access to knowledge, we need to invest in these disciplines.

📖 Why does this matter?

✅ Humanities research thrives in long-form scholarship.
✅ Monographs are essential for deep, contextual analysis.
✅ OA ensures global access to crucial cultural and historical studies.

📚 Calling All Librarians: Help Shape KU’s Collections

Knowledge Unlatched (KU) invites librarians once again to join our growing (and global) Selection Committee—a diverse group of librarians from various parts of the globe who help shape our legacy collections of scholarly books.

This year, we’re expanding our Diamond Open Access offerings more than ever before, and your expertise is vital to ensure every collection is impactful and meaningful.

💡 How to Get Involved
If you’re interested in joining the KU Selection Committee, we’d love to hear from you! Simply reach out by mid-February:

📩 Email us at [email protected] with the subject line "KU Selection Committee"
or
📧 Email us directly for more information.

Let’s work together to make a difference in the world of scholarly publishing and Diamond Open Access.

Curation starts with listening.

Building impactful Open Access (OA) collections begins with the invaluable insights of librarians worldwide. Each year, their feedback guides Knowledge Unlatched in shaping OA collections that meet the evolving needs of the academic community.

We are inviting librarians everywhere to take part in KU's Content Survey 2025. It only takes about three minutes to answer a few questions, including:

🔹 Which subject areas should receive greater focus in OA collections?
🔹 Should KU expand OA collections in Business and Economics?
🔹 Is OA content aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals important?

Librarians' input is vital to ensuring that Open Access collections remain relevant, useful, and forward-thinking. We’d love to hear from librarians everywhere—please tell us what you think.

Shaping Open Access Collections in 2025 and Beyond Dear librarians, Thank you for participating in this survey. Knowledge Unlatched is committed to building Diamond Open Access collections that align with the needs of libraries and their communities. Your feedback will guide our efforts to ensure these collections are impactful, relevant, and worthy...

Final week to pledge for KU’s initiatives! Many thanks to all the and institutions around the world who have pledged for one or more of KU’s collections and partner offerings this year. The 2024 pledging round will end this Friday, December 13th. To add your library’s support, please visit the KU website. https://ow.ly/BzA850UnwAc

A big thank you to our KU Selection Committee 2024! We’d like to express our gratitude to the 200+ around the world who once again gave their time and shared their expertise to curate our flagship collection, KU Select Books. For a second year, the content of the collection was aligned with seven of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): No Poverty (SDG 1), Good Health and Well-being (SDG 3), Gender Equality (SDG 5), Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8), Reduced Inequalities (SDG 10), Climate Action (SDG 13), and Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions (SDG 16), and as customary, the committee voted for the titles that they considered most relevant to be included. This year the Committee also selected the titles for our four new KU Focus Collections: Global Warming and Responses, Economics: Sustainability and Circularity; Public Opinion and Elections; and Regional Studies: Conflict, War and Peace. To learn more about these collections and pledge to support their publication, please visit KU’s website at: https://ow.ly/jICr50UmfxV.

Great news, , if you haven't already done so, there’s still time to pledge your support for this year! has extended its pledging deadline to Friday, December 13, 2024. Every pledge, no matter the size, is valuable and contributes to the broader goal of making scholarly content freely accessible for everyone. , visit the KU website to check out the wide range of Open Access initiatives available to support, that includes scholarly books, videos, encyclopedia entries and journals. Contact your local KU representative to place your pledge today. https://ow.ly/Kxn250UkVjS

represents an important sector of scholarly publishing not only because of the continued growth in scientific output, but also since it removes paywall barriers to academic content

Scientific publishers are producing more papers than ever Concerns about some of their business models are building

Many thanks to all the libraries that have already pledged this year to help make KU Select SDG Books, KU Focus Collections and our partner initiatives available . Librarians, if you haven’t done so yet, there’s still time to add your support, the deadline is December 6, 2024. Please visit https://knowledgeunlatched.org/pledging/ for more information.

Long-term, collaborative, sustainable support for digital infrastructures represents an important aspect of Open Science

Building open scholarly infrastructure: A journey of collaboration and diplomacy - Edward Pentz, 2024 This article expands on the Miles Conrad Award lecture delivered at the NISO Plus 2024 conference. Drawing from over three decades in scholarly publishing, incl...

The author-facing fees that researchers face when publishing in journals continue to be a significant barrier toward the removal of paywall barriers to scholarly output for both scientific communities and professional stakeholders worldwide

Letter: The Rising Shift to Open Access Journals in... : Neurosurgery An abstract is unavailable.