Knowledge Unlatched to partner with JSTOR for usage study

Knowledge Unlatched (KU), the open access initiative supporting monographs in the humanities and social sciences, and JSTOR, the digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources, are partnering to study usage patterns in open access by cross-promoting KU titles.

While KU will continue to host its titles on the OAPEN and HathiTrust platforms, it will expand the hosting of 30 open access titles to JSTOR. This set includes titles in history, literature, political science, anthropology, and media and communications – all published by leading scholarly presses and 'unlatched' with the support of libraries around the world.

'The broad use of content is at the core of open access, and it is very important to Knowledge Unlatched,' explained Sven Fund, managing director of KU. 'The publishers and libraries working together in our initiative are constantly looking to ease access and hence broaden usage to the monographs in the humanities and social sciences.'

'We’re delighted to partner with Knowledge Unlatched to make these high-quality titles available to researchers,' added Frank Smith, director of books at JSTOR. 'We are looking forward to conducting an in-depth study to gain insights on the usage and impact of open access titles.'

Continued study of usage will be under the auspices of KU Research, led by associate professor Lucy Montgomery of Curtin University, Australia.