JSTOR releases 100 OA books from leading Argentine publisher

JSTOR, the Latin Americanist Research Resources Project (LARRP), and Libreria Garcia Cambeiro have released 100 Open Access titles from the 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.

“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 contact 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.