Successful Launch Made Possible with Guidance from ACLS-led Path to Open Community Advisory Committee
NEW YORK, Feb. 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) celebrates the successful launch of 100 open access books in the humanities and social sciences through the Path to Open initiative.
Hosted by JSTOR, part of the nonprofit ITHAKA, Path to Open is a multiyear pilot of a new funding model for open access scholarly publications. The pilot phase aims to make one thousand scholarly books from a diverse group of university presses freely available to readers globally by 2029. The program was conceived by and built in collaboration with university press leaders and ACLS, which convenes the Path to Open Community Advisory Committee. Comprising open access authors and leaders from the academic publishing and library sectors, the committee provides guidance in further developing the model and ensuring Path to Open centers bibliodiversity, equity, sustainability, and transparency in open access book publication.
Explore the First 100 Path to Open Titles
Originally released in 2023 with early access for Path to Open participating libraries, these first 100 titles span a wide range of disciplines across the humanities and social sciences and were published by university presses of all sizes. They include research on public health, religion, education, communications, literature, film studies, and global history, with many addressing topics, regions, and communities that have limited existing scholarly coverage. Five titles are informed by research supported by ACLS fellowships, and several are award-winning titles recognized for their scholarly contribution, all now freely available for course adoption, citation, and research use worldwide.
Path to Open was launched to address a persistent challenge in scholarly publishing: how to expand global access to peer-reviewed academic books in the humanities and social sciences while ensuring long-term sustainability for university presses. The pilot offers a cost-sharing model supported by libraries where publishers receive guaranteed funding from JSTOR for new monographs, while libraries gain early access to frontlist scholarship, and titles ultimately become free to read for anyone, anywhere.
“Path to Open was built to balance sustainability for publishers, opportunity for authors, and affordability for libraries,” said Kevin Guthrie, President of ITHAKA and Manager Director for JSTOR. “Seeing the first 100 titles become openly available shows that a community-driven model can deliver on all three at scale while expanding global access to high-quality scholarship.”
“ACLS is proud to support Path to Open as it directly aligns with our mission to strengthen the creation and circulation of humanistic scholarship,” said Sarah McKee, Project Manager, Amplifying Humanistic Scholarship at ACLS. “This milestone shows how collective action can create a more equitable and durable open access ecosystem for scholarly books.”
This latest Path to Open milestone highlights the important additional impact open access books have through increased discovery and use. Across JSTOR, open access books currently make up about 10% of available titles, yet they account for 45% of all book usage on the platform. Early results from January already show usage of the first 100 Path to Open titles increasing by more than 500% after becoming open access, with readership expanding well beyond participating institutions to readers in 94 countries worldwide.
Today, more than 250 libraries and nearly 50 publishers participate in Path to Open, demonstrating its viability as a financially sustainable, ongoing model for open access book publishing. New libraries are invited to join the program to help shape—and benefit from—the next phase of this evolving model.
Formed a century ago, the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is a nonprofit federation of 81 scholarly organizations. As the leading representative of American scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, ACLS upholds the core principle that knowledge is a public good. In supporting its member organizations, ACLS expands the forms, content, and flow of scholarly knowledge, reflecting our commitment to diversity of identity and experience. ACLS collaborates with institutions, associations, and individuals to strengthen the evolving infrastructure for scholarship.
JSTOR is a mission-driven nonprofit dedicated to increasing access to knowledge. We work with libraries, museums, and publishers to preserve and bring to life scholarly materials, helping more people discover these collections and improve their lives through learning. Our research and teaching platform combined with our innovative collections stewardship tools, make information more affordable and accessible to current and future scholars everywhere. JSTOR is a part of ITHAKA.
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SOURCE American Council of Learned Societies
