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More than 600 out-of-print scholarly books published by El Colegio de México will be digitized and made available in open access form by JSTOR, thanks to a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The grant has been offered as part of the Humanities Open Book Program, a joint project of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Mellon Foundation to make important scholarly books available widely to students and researchers.

El Colegio de Mexico, or “Colmex,” as it is often known, is one of the most important academic research centers in the world. Founded in 1938, Colmex has published key books in the humanities and humanistic social sciences, yet many of these books have been unavailable for years or even decades. This digitization project not only will make the books available again but will ensure their availability for decades to come.

Dr. Silvia E. Giorguli Saucedo, President of El Colegio de México, said, “El Colegio de México, through its publication, has played a fundamental role in the building of an academic community interested in the history and literature in Mexico and Latin America, as well as in the social, economic, political, demographic, linguistic and cultural processes in the region. It has also set a dialogue regarding its role in the international context. This collaboration with JSTOR will allow us to ensure the preservation of our publications, reach a wider audience and further contribute to the building of knowledge and understanding of our region.”

Herbert S. Klein, Professor Emeritus at Columbia University, said, “El Colegio de México is the leading social science postgraduate center in Mexico and probably the most distinguished such center in Latin America. Its press thus reflects the evolution of this important institution and is the primary publishing outlet for its distinguished faculty as well as foreign scholars. From 1938 it has been publishing major studies in philosophy, psychology, linguistics, economics, demography, sociology, political science, Asian studies and above all in history.”

Jocelyn Olcott, Associate Professor at Duke University commented, “Colmex is indisputably Mexico’s preeminent non-commercial scholarly publisher. The list includes publications by some of Mexico’s most venerated historians — including even the Historia general de México by Daniel Cosío Villegas. It also includes important works of local history and useful volumes cataloging archival holdings as well as edited volumes of conference proceedings.”

JSTOR and El Colegio de México have collaborated for more than ten years. JSTOR offers libraries the full run of eight important journals from Colmex and more than 270 current monographs. Frank Smith, Director of JSTOR’s ebook program, commented, “We are thrilled to expand our collaboration with El Colegio de México. At JSTOR, we have seen high usage for backlist monographs that are digitized and made discoverable to researchers online, and we look forward to measuring the impact of Colmex’s classic publications when freely available on a globally accessed platform like JSTOR.”

The Open Access versions of the books will be available by the end of 2018. To ensure their wide dissemination, they will be accessible from Project MUSE and OAPEN as well as from JSTOR and the website of El Colegio de México. Sign up for our newsletter to receive a notification when the titles are available.

About JSTOR

JSTOR is a not-for-profit digital library with a mission to expand access to scholarly literature and ensure the digital preservation of that literature. The digital library now includes more than 2,400 scholarly journals, 60,000 ebooks, and two million digitized primary source objects.

About The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Founded in 1969, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation endeavors to strengthen, promote, and, where necessary, defend the contributions of the humanities and the arts to human flourishing and to the well-being of diverse and democratic societies by supporting exemplary institutions of higher education and culture as they renew and provide access to an invaluable heritage of ambitious, path-breaking work.