University of California Press Publishes First Monographs
in Luminos, Announces Inaugural Luminos Member Libraries - October 13, 2015
With the same high standards for selection, peer review,
production, and marketing as our traditional publishing programs, Luminos is a
transformative model, built as a partnership where costs and benefits are
shared.
October 13, 2015 (Oakland, CA)—Today, we are happy to
announce the culmination of the launch phase of an important new concept in
monograph publishing, with the first five scholarly monographs open to the
world, many more titles to come, and the first of our inaugural Luminos Member
Libraries ready to support the transformation of monograph publishing.
“As an author writing about mass violence in the global
south, I was intrigued by the option of making my insights available to broad
publics, including in countries where, for a variety of reasons, paper copies
cannot be as easily ordered as in Europe or North America,”
notes Joachim Savelsberg, author of the new Luminos title
Representing Mass Violence: Conflicting Responses to Human Rights Violations in
Darfur.
Authors have been eager to publish in the Luminos program
not only because it guarantees the same standards of excellence as all of UC
Press’s programs, but also because of the opportunity to bring their work to
the larger, global audiences that open access provides. As co-author Manuel
Pastor has stated regarding their decision to publish Equity, Growth, and
Community: What the Nation Can Learn from America's Metro Areas in Luminos,
rather than in a more traditional format, “we have long valued our role as
public intellectuals who are willing and indeed, eager, to bring ideas into the
messy real world and participate in the debates that change lives—and this
model is perfectly suited to that sort of effort. Moreover, the central
messages of our book—that equity and opportunity are key for sustainable
growth, that cross-sector conversations can bring new common ground, and that
data deliberations in knowledge communities can forge productive solutions—are
all really reflected in the open-access model Luminos is helping to pioneer.
It’s a perfect fit for us and we’re proud to be part of this launch.”
Institutions of higher education have long advocated for
open access responses to changes in scholarly communication as well as to the
challenges they face meeting the ever-expanding information needs of their
students, researchers, and faculty. In response, Luminos helps broaden access
to scholarly content, and injects some much-needed sustainability into
monograph publishing by sharing cost burdens across stakeholders. For each
title published, UC Press makes a significant financial contribution, which is
augmented by membership funds from Luminos Member Libraries. Each author is
then asked to secure a title publication fee to cover the remaining costs. Any
additional revenue from Luminos Member Libraries, as well as funds from
optional purchase of print editions, help support a waiver fund for future
Luminos authors. Together, this shared financial support helps ensure a
sustainable monograph publishing ecosystem for authors, readers, institutions,
libraries, and UC Press.
UC Press is proud to have the dedicated support of
inaugural Luminos Member Libraries including University of Texas at Austin;
University of California, Los Angeles; and University of California, San Diego.
For information on Luminos Member Library benefits, or to
become a Luminos Member Library, please visit
http://www.luminosoa.org/site/for_libraries.
According to UCLA’s University Librarian, Virginia
Steel, “Market forces have made it
increasingly difficult for faculty, particularly early career, to publish
scholarly monographs. As one solution to that problem, the UCLA Library
strongly supports Luminos, which expands options for authors and increases
discoverability and readership of published research, while maintaining
rigorous academic publishing standards.”
“As a non-profit publisher, partner with scholars, and
part of the world’s greatest public research university, we are committed to
maximizing the reach and impact of the scholarship we publish” said Alison
Mudditt, Director of UC Press. “UC Press is a leader in exploring how this
important and distinctive vehicle for communication in the humanities and
social sciences can not only be preserved but also reinvigorated as we move
towards open, digital models, and we are proud of the resounding support for
Luminos we have seen from authors, faculty, and from librarians around the
world.”
University of California Press is one of the most
forward-thinking scholarly publishers in the nation. For more than 120 years,
it has championed work that influences public discourse and challenges the
status quo in multiple fields of study. At a time of dramatic change for
publishing and scholarship, UC Press collaborates with scholars, librarians,
authors, and students to stay ahead of today’s knowledge demands and shape the
future of publishing.
For more information on Luminos, visit
www.luminosoa.org or contact Lorraine
Weston at
lweston@ucpress.edu.
