JSTOR, the Latin Americanist Research Resources Project (LARRP), and Libreria Garcia Cambeiro have released 100 Open Access titles from the highly respected Argentine publisher, Prometeo Editorial.
JSTOR, the Latin Americanist Research Resources Project (LARRP), and Libreria Garcia Cambeiro have released 100 Open Access titles from the highly respected Argentine publisher, Prometeo Editorial. Now globally accessible on JSTOR, these books span the humanities and social sciences with an emphasis on Argentina and Latin America, filling an important gap in openly accessible scholarship.
The availability of this scholarship is the result of an innovative multi-year collaboration wherein Libreria Garcia Cambeiro leads publisher relations and rights management with Latin American publishers, JSTOR publishes the ebooks to its platform, supports their use, and ensures their long-term preservation, and LARRP members and additional supporting libraries provide funding to defray costs for JSTOR, Librería García Cambeiro, and the publishers to make the books openly accessible. This latest work with Prometeo builds off the success of the group’s earlier CLACSO ebook pilot which made 200 titles open access.
“It is very important for publishers in Latin America to join these efforts where researchers, publishers, universities, and information integration coordinators work together for the common good,” said Raul Carioli, Director of Prometeo Editorial. “As a society, we must ensure that the information generated daily through research and analysis is available for reflection and use by others. In this sense, group actions like Open Access consolidate and guarantee the common good, research activity, and the democratic development of humanity, allowing the same information to be in the hands of African, Asian, or Latin American researchers simultaneously.”
Usage of open access books on JSTOR is evidence of the impact Carioli describes. The Prometo books, available on JSTOR since March, have been used more than 10,354 times so far by users at 585 institutions in 76 countries, including the U.S., China, Argentina, Spain and Mexico. The group expects this impact will grow based on evidence from related efforts. Since launching in January 2019, the 442 CLACSO books on JSTOR generated a total of 2,074,133 item requests. Results were similar with a foundational project undertaken directly by JSTOR with El Colegio de México, documented in a 2019 white paper, The Impact of Open Access on Latin American Scholarship: Digitizing the Backlist of El Colegio de México’s Press.
“It’s exciting to see usage of these books growing,” said John Lenahan, VP, Content Strategy & Relationships at ITHAKA. “Every use represents an engagement between individual researchers and the research. Being able to connect a student for the first time, or a seasoned researcher anywhere in the world, with the work being done by a scholar in Latin America that they may never have had the opportunity to otherwise encounter and which changes the course of their own work is exactly why making these works open access is so valuable.”
All the partners in this collaboration share a broad commitment to sustainable open access and a focus on bringing underrepresented voices to the forefront within the academic community.
“The first three years of this project have shown the power of collaboration in assuring the stewardship of scholarly OA monographs from Latin American nonprofit presses,” said Melisssa Gasparotto, member of the LARRP Advisory Board. “With year four, we’ve taken the next leap to expand access to the scholarly output of a high quality commercial press, further securing the long term preservation and discoverability of this important content. We are so grateful to the publishers and partner libraries who have helped make this happen, and welcome new participants as we continue to highlight and promote access to the full diversity of the region’s intellectual contributions.”
The vision for this collaboration has been to increase the number of Latin American ebooks available open access today, while exploring whether this collaborative model is scalable and sustainable. Based on the success of the pilot—thanks largely to the great partnership between JSTOR and LARRP—discussions and planning around expanding access to books from Latin America will continue as part of a broader effort to help libraries transition from print to digital holdings.The group will be looking closely at costs for the partners, the ongoing impact of the books, and how the model might grow in a controlled way to encompass more Latin American publishers and beyond in the future.
Libraries interested in learning more about how to support this work are encouraged to reach out to Angela Carreño. Those attending the 2024 Charleston Conference are invited to join the project team for Making Direct-to-Open eBooks from Latin America Globally Accessible: A Collaborative Effort on November 14, 2:40- 3:20 PM.
About the project partners
LARRP is a consortium of research libraries that seeks to increase free and open access to information in support of learning and scholarship in Latin American Studies.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit digital library for discovering and connecting research, images, and primary sources.
Libreria García Cambeiro is an Argentinian bookseller that specializes in locating, selecting, and supplying Latin American academic publications.
Prometeo Editorial is widely recognized in the academic world for its books and the authors from Latin America and the Caribbean that nourish its catalog.