Big Ten Open Books First Collection Launched

August 1st, 2023

In collaboration with the university presses and libraries of the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA), Purdue University Press has launched the Big Ten Open Books project. Big Ten Open Books creates e-book collections that aspire to the highest standards of discoverability, accessibility, durability, and flexibility, all while being made available to read and download at no cost. 

This project furthers Purdue’s long-standing commitment to make information and research widely accessible and the university has contributed a dozen of its open access titles to the initiative. “Purdue University Press is thrilled to join this important collaboration. Our goal is to not only publish high-quality scholarship, but to ensure that scholarship is widely available and easily accessible. We firmly believe knowledge is a public good. The BTAA partnership recognizes that and generously provided the funding to make 100 books open access,” said Justin Race, director of Purdue University Press.

The first 100-title collection is now published and is centered on Gender and Sexuality studies. Many of the works in this collection are being released digitally for the first time. Each title has undergone a rigorous selection and quality certification process that allows readers and users to trust the veracity of the content made available.

 The Big Ten Open Books first collection brings to the reader a wide variety of materials in arts, humanities, and social science disciplines that are centered on gender and sexuality themes. The collection’s impact will be seen through its broad sharing of knowledge and high quality scholarship. 

Big Ten Open Books creates open content that is immediately and universally available, on open infrastructure, Fulcrum, hosted by the University of Michigan, using open distribution models (including Project Muse, JSTOR, and OAPEN) to envision a robust programmatic future for open monograph publishing.

About Purdue University Press: Founded in 1960, Purdue University Press is dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information. We publish books in several key subject areas, including Purdue and Indiana, aeronautics/astronautics, the human-animal bond, Central European studies, Jewish studies, and other select disciplines. Learn more about Purdue University Press at press.purdue.edu.

About the Big Ten Academic Alliance: The Big Ten Academic Alliance is the nation’s preeminent model for effective collaboration among research universities. For more than half a century, these world-class institutions have advanced their academic missions, generated unique opportunities for students and faculty, and served the common good by sharing expertise, leveraging campus resources, and collaborating on innovative programs. Governed and funded by the provosts of the member universities, Big Ten Academic Alliance mandates are coordinated by a staff from its Champaign, Illinois headquarters. The fifteen world-class libraries of the Big Ten Academic Alliance members include Indiana University, Michigan State University, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, Rutgers University–New Brunswick, University of Illinois, University of Iowa, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the University of Chicago.

Learn more about the project and access the first collection here: bigtenopenbooks.org