The Open Library of Humanities is a nonprofit,

diamond open access Diamond open access refers to academic texts (such as monographs, edited collections, and journal articles) published/distributed/preserved with no fees to either reader or author. Alternative labels include platinum open access, non-commercial o ...

publisher in the humanities and social sciences founded by Martin Paul Eve and Caroline Edwards. Founded in 2015, OLH published 27 scholarly journals as of 2022, and as of 2025 lists 33 journals, including a mega journal, also called Open Library of Humanities, which was modeled on

PLOS PLOS (for Public Library of Science; PLoS until 2012) is a nonprofit publisher of open-access journals in science, technology, and medicine and other scientific literature, under an open-content license. It was founded in 2000 and launched it ...

but not affiliated with it.

History

The Open Library of Humanities was officially launched on 28 September 2015. The project was funded by core grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and uses a library partnership subsidy model to cover costs. It has a number of advisory committees, such as the Academic Steering & Advocacy Committee which includes PLOS co-founder

Michael Eisen Michael Bruce Eisen (born April 13, 1967) is an American computational biologist and the former editor-in-chief of the journal eLife. He is a professor of genetics, genomics and Developmental biology, development at University of California, Berkel ...

, Quebec-based academic Jean-Claude Guédon, and the Director of Scholarly Communication of the

Modern Language Association The Modern Language Association of America, often referred to as the Modern Language Association (MLA), is widely considered the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature. The MLA aims to "str ...

, Kathleen Fitzpatrick. An internationalization committee was formed in 2013 to develop an international strategy. A member of this committee, Francisco Osorio, has written that the open access model of the Open Library of Humanities may be beneficial for researchers publishing in languages other than English. Although originally intended to run on Open Journal Systems, in 2017 OLH started development of a new platform, Janeway. Initially the main press site and the journal ''Orbit'' were hosted on the new platform. In of March 2022 the project to migrate the remaining journals was completed. The

University of Lincoln The University of Lincoln is a public university, public research university in Lincoln, England, Lincoln, England, with origins dating back to 1861. It gained university status in 1992 and its present name in 2001. The main campus is in the hea ...

, in partnership with the

Public Knowledge Project The Public Knowledge Project (PKP) is a non-profit research initiative that is focused on the importance of making the results of publicly funded research freely available through open access policies, and on developing strategies for making thi ...

, offered a funded place for an MSc by Research in Computer Science to develop an open-source

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

typesetting tool as proposed by the Open Library of Humanities technical roadmap. In November 2013 it was announced that the Public Knowledge Project will be funding the development of the typesetter, known as meTypeset. The Open Library of Humanities publishing model relies on support from an international group of

libraries A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

, which enables the publication of articles without the need for article processing charges. In 2021, OLH became part of

Birkbeck, University of London Birkbeck, University of London (formally Birkbeck College, University of London), is a Public university, public research university located in London, England, and a constituent college, member institution of the University of London. Establ ...

, maintaining its nonprofit status while reducing overhead.

Journals

*''Open Library of Humanities'' *''19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century'' *''ASIANetwork Exchange'' *'' Architectural Histories'' *''Body, Space & Technology'' *''C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-Century Writings'' *'' The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship'' *'' Digital Medievalist'' *''Digital Studies / Le champ numérique'' *''Ethnologia Europaea'' *''Francosphères'' *''Genealogy+Critique'' *'' Glossa: a journal of general linguistics'' *''International Journal of Welsh Writing in English'' *''

International Labour Review The International Labour Review is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering labour and employment studies. It was established in 1921 by the International Labour Organization and is published in English, French, and Spanish. On April 7, ...

'' *''Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry'' *''Journal of Embodied Research'' *''Journal of Portuguese Linguistics'' *''Laboratory Phonology'' *''Marvell Studies'' *''Open Screens'' *''Orbit: A Journal of American Literature'' *''Pynchon Notes'' *''Quaker Studies'' *''Studies in the Maternal'' *''Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal'' *''Zeitschrift für Fantastikforschung'' *''The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O'Brien Studies''

References

External links

* {{Authority control Non-profit academic publishers Open access publishers Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Continuous journals Charities based in the United Kingdom 2015 establishments in the United Kingdom