About

Path to Open is a new, multi-year pilot program designed to increase access to diverse ideas and research. It offers sustainable open access solutions, supports the nonprofit university press community, and invests in authors and their scholarship, increasing the impact of their work.

Path to Open was developed in partnership with the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), University of Michigan Press, and The University of North Carolina Press to bring about equitable access and impact for the entire scholarly community. This funding model will provide libraries with affordable access to diverse, high-quality frontlist titles; support small and medium university presses in open access publishing; help authors reach a global audience; and advance equity of access to underserved researchers around the world. This pilot aims to protect the bibliodiversity that these university presses bring to the world—new voices, fresh areas of scholarship, emerging fields, and an expertise in diverse disciplines.

View current titles and preview what’s coming. We are delighted to announce that we have begun publishing titles in this program. The growing collection includes peer-reviewed monographs in disciplines across the humanities and social sciences, with an emphasis on works that bring forward a range of perspectives and ideas. Path to Open books will be available DRM-free with unlimited user access. These titles will be integrated with other scholarly content on the JSTOR platform, where you’ll find thousands of books, journals, and primary source collections. 

How it works

Currently, in collaboration with 40+ participating university presses, we are:

  • Launching Path to Open as a multi-year pilot. Fees for unlimited exclusive access to the full set of titles are tiered according to the participating institution’s JSTOR classification.
  • Releasing the first 100 titles in fall 2023, with 300 new titles added each year starting in 2024.
  • Making the books open access three years after publication, which benefits readers worldwide.