Florida Virtual Campus (FLVC), a centralized service supporting the shared needs of Florida’s 40 public colleges and universities, has joined Path to Open, a pilot program to support the open access publication of new groundbreaking scholarly books that will bring diverse perspectives and research to millions of people.

Path to Open launched in 2023 as a collaboration among JSTOR, a nonprofit service of ITHAKA, The University of Michigan Press, the University of North Carolina Press, and the American Council of Learned Societies. The program now has the support of nearly 150 libraries around the world, and 42 presses. FLVC marks Path to Open’s largest library consortia commitment to date with funding for the full 2024-2026 pilot period. This agreement gives all 2 and 4-year public colleges and universities in Florida access to Path to Open books as they are published and helps to ensure that more than 1,000 new books from university presses and their authors will be published through this new sustainable open access model.

“FLVC is honored to fund access to Path to Open on behalf of the 28 state colleges and 12 state universities of Florida,” said Elijah Scott, Executive Director of Library Services, FLVC. “The more than one million students across Florida’s public higher education system will benefit immediately from access to Path to Open books in all areas of the curriculum. Additionally, FLVC is pleased to support an innovative, sustainable program that will make this content fully open access three years after publication.”

JSTOR announced the release of the first Path to Open books last fall. An additional 300 titles will be published in 2024, with the same number anticipated in 2025 and 2026. Every book in the program transitions to open access three years after publication. Among the 2023 list are three books from the University of Florida Press: Lacandón Maya in the Twenty-First Century by James D. Nations; Living Ceramics, Storied Ground by Charles E. Orser Jr.; and The Rise of Central American Film in the Twenty-First Century edited by Mauricio Espinoza and Jared List.

Participation from FLVC, the University of Florida Press, and its authors exemplify the program’s aims and benefits: a sustainable funding model that provides libraries with affordable access to diverse, high-quality frontlist titles; supports small and medium university presses in open access publishing; helps authors reach a global audience; and advances equity of access to underserved researchers around the world.

“We are delighted that the FLVC has chosen to join our community funded pilot to test a scalable, sustainable solution that delivers an open outcome for thought-provoking humanities and social science monographs from outstanding university presses from around the world,” says Rebecca Seger, VP of Institutional Participation and Strategic Partnerships at ITHAKA. “Books like those being produced by Path to Open meaningfully expand our knowledge and human understanding, and it’s possible for us to continue this type of publishing and increase its global impact by working together with partners like FLVC and others across the scholarly ecosystem.”

Learn more about Path to Open.

About Florida Virtual Campus

Florida Virtual Campus (FLVC) provides a wide variety of library resources and services to Florida’s 28 state colleges and 12 state universities, directly supporting the nearly 1.3 million students, faculty, and staff at these institutions. Funded by the state legislature of Florida, FLVC assists libraries by providing a shared integrated library system (ILS) and associated systems; a shared digital repository to house various archival and cultural heritage collections; a statewide collection of library electronic resources; support for group licensing of electronic collections; a robust community for textbook affordability initiatives and the use of Open Education Resources (OER); and much more.

About JSTOR

JSTOR is a part of ITHAKA, a nonprofit organization with a mission to improve access to knowledge and education for people around the world. As a nonprofit that believes in the power of knowledge to change the world for the better, JSTOR partners with libraries, museums, and publishers to reduce costs, extend access, and preserve scholarship for the future as affordably and sustainably as possible. At JSTOR, we strengthen the depth and quality of research by bringing together journals, books, images, and primary sources on a platform with unique tools for teaching and exploration. We do this because we believe in the power of knowledge to change the world for the better.

Media contact

Heidi McGregor
ITHAKA/JSTOR
heidi.mcgregor@ithaka.org