UMass Lowell Library has invested in our multidisciplinary collections, and we greatly value their support and commitment. The OJC is dedicated to transforming the way that academic research is published and disseminated, and the support of UMass Lowell will be instrumental in helping us achieve our objectives of making journals free to read and publish in, offering a viable alternative to commercial transformative agreements, and empowering journals to flip to diamond open access.
UMass Lowell Library has long supported open access and open educational resources. They are champions of diamond open access as a more equitable form of scholarly publishing that also aligns with their curriculum and faculty research needs. We are delighted that they have chosen to support us as part of realising their ambitions for diamond open access.
Galadriel Chilton, Dean of the University Library at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, said: “I am thrilled that thanks to funding from UMass Lowell’s Academic Affairs and the Library, that we are joining the Open Journals Collective.
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads in part that ‘Everyone has the right to…seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.’ Yet, we live in a world where information is paywalled. In the United States, research funded by taxpayer dollars, is often only available to a privileged few that have access via expensive personal or institutional subscriptions. Thanks to UMass Lowell’s Assistant Director for Collections’ in-depth analysis of OJC’s content compared to UMass Lowell’s research and learning needs, we know that of the 291 journals currently in the Open Journals Collective, 78% inform 27 major disciplines at UMass Lowell. The remaining titles support subjects that are offered as minor concentrations and support multidisciplinary study and/or research centers on campus.
Establishing and investing in infrastructure and architecture for diamond open access is necessary:
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Scholars should be able to focus on their research and teaching without negotiating to keep the rights to their work.
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Scholarship should be publicly available; equitable access to research enables collaborative scholarship and accelerates innovation.
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UMass Lowell should not have to pay more than the cost of a commercial trip to space, a 59-foot luxury yacht, and a 2026 Mercedes-Benz GLE 350 to subscribe to journals from just three publishers every single year.”
Tom Shaw, the Open Journals Collective’s Library Engagement Lead, said: “It is a great pleasure to welcome the University of Massachusetts Lowell to the Open Journals Collective! In the short time since we launched, UMass Lowell Library have been one of our most committed champions, and have co-presented with us to advocate to libraries our vision of a more equitable system of scholarly publishing. I look forward to working with them as we turn that vision into reality.
Professor Caroline Edwards, Executive Director of the Open Journals Collective, said: “We’re really excited to be working with the University of Massachusetts Lowell. The library is taking a bold stand and inspiring other US-based libraries to join them and divest library spend away from commercial Transformative Agreements. UMass Lowell is a fantastic example of how university libraries can be powerful agents of change and drive the growing non-profit movement for a fairer system of academic publishing.”