The De Gruyter eBound Foundation is pleased to announce a major milestone for University Press Library Open (UPLOpen), its comprehensive open access initiative and eBook platform. Launched in April 2024 with a goal of drawing attention to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), UPLOpen now hosts 10,000 open access titles from more than 50 prestigious academic publishers.
The diverse collection of titles on UPLOpen cover a wide range of disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. A large number of these are new or recently published titles. Over 1,800 have a copyright date of 2023 or later. Among the publishers represented in UPLOpen are Chicago, Cornell, Duke, NYU, Penn, Stanford, Toronto, De Gruyter, Edinburgh, Manchester, London School of Economics (LSE), Helsinki, and Stockholm. UPLOpen is also home to two unique and complete series collections: Luminos, from the University of California Press, and Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem (TOME), a five-year pilot project of the Association of American Universities, Association of Research Libraries, and Association of University Presses.
Visitors to UPLOpen will also notice a number of other important enhancements to the site. These include:
- Expanded user functionality. In response to feedback and the growing demand for a more intuitive and efficient search experience, UPLOpen’s expanded search capability enables users to find relevant content based on the meaning and context of their queries, rather than just keyword matches.
- Enhanced metric data. Visitors have access to enhanced usage metrics via the OPERAS metrics platform, a leading tool for tracking the impact and reach of open access publications. Developed by Ubiquity for OPERAS, this integration enables greater insight into how content is being accessed and used, supporting data-driven decision-making and further promoting the value of open access publishing.
- Greater discoverability. The UPLO collection is now available in library knowledge bases including OCLC, EBSCO, and Ex Libris. In addition, MARC records for the entire UPLOpen collection are available for bulk download.
Peter Potter, Executive Director of De Gruyter eBound confirms that “the growing number of titles, the enhanced functionality, and improved discoverability on UPLOpen are all designed to meet the evolving needs of users wherever they are in the world. These advancements reflect our ongoing commitment to supporting the open access movement and ensuring that academic research is accessible to everyone, regardless of geographical or institutional barriers.”
“A large part of my career has been focused on global open access and UPLOpen is not only underscoring that need but also providing it,” said Curtis Brundy, Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Communications and Collections at Iowa State University. “This is a big achievement for the scholarly community.”
Jane Bunker, Director of Cornell University Press, expressed gratitude for the platform. “These milestones are incredibly beneficial to everyone in the scholarly publishing landscape – not just libraries, but also publishers. Having user data readily at hand means we can approach publishing content with a different eye.”
