Path to Open is a groundbreaking Books at JSTOR initiative that supports the transition of high-quality scholarly monographs to open access at scale. Recently, the program reached a pivotal milestone: the first 100 books, which were published in 2023, flipped to open access, and became freely available to readers around the world. 

We looked ahead to this moment in a September 2025 blog post, and are now celebrating its arrival. This achievement begins to mark the realization of Path to Open’s core goal of providing free global access to high-quality academic books that usually require authentication through a participating institution. It’s an accomplishment for the entire community of libraries, publishers, and authors who believe in an open future for scholarly communication.

Powered by libraries and publishers

Photographic cover showing a red-haired person in medieval-inspired clothing wearing large green headphones at a banquet table, with the title “Fantasies of Music in Nostalgic Medievalism” and the author’s name.
Illustrated cover featuring colorful flowers and leaves with a white bird in the center, overlaid with the title “Stories of Our Living Ephemera” and a subtitle about Cherokee National Seminaries.
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The success of Path to Open was truly community-driven, as it was developed in partnership with the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the University of Michigan Press, and the University of North Carolina Press. 

Launched as a pilot in early 2023 with 30 university presses and just over 60 academic libraries participating, Path to Open has grown each year. Today, more than 260 libraries and nearly 50 publishers participate—an expansion made possible through sustained support from the academic community and a shared commitment to open scholarship.

The Path to Open mission has allowed libraries to spend their funds in a way that aligns with the values of our organizations and our profession. We, as librarians, want to provide access to information… Expanding access to this collection through open access publishing accomplishes that goal.

Kate McCready, Project Director for Open Publishing 

Big Ten Academic Alliance Center for Library Programs

ACLS continues to play a central role in the program’s evolution by leading the Path to Open Community Advisory Committee, helping to guide its direction and ensure it reflects the needs, values, and priorities of the scholarly community.

“ACLS support for Path to Open stems directly from our own mission to support the robust creation and circulation of humanistic scholarship. The Community Advisory Committee convenes key stakeholders—publishers, libraries, and scholars—to help develop a sustainable and equitable open access book model that works for everyone,” says Sarah McKee, Project Manager for Amplifying Humanistic Scholarship at ACLS.

By pooling resources, libraries are expanding access for their own users during the period when books are exclusively part of Path to Open, and ensuring these titles eventually become freely available to everyone around the world. 

Without this community-backed model, these books would remain licensed to a select number of paying academic institutions and their users. Instead, they become open to all, providing a powerful example of how libraries and publishers can partner to advance access to knowledge. 

Reflecting on the shared goals of presses and libraries, Charles Watkinson, Director of the University of Michigan Press, emphasizes the promise of Path to Open: “Presses and libraries are deeply aligned in our desire to nurture a bibliodiverse, robust scholarly publishing ecosystem that supports authors as well as the faculty and student researchers who benefit from access to their research. Path to Open is showing real promise as a new way to do this that is impactful and financially sustainable for everyone involved, including the many great smaller university presses.”

By participating in Path to Open, university presses secure up-front funding, subsidized by JSTOR, and expanded exposure for their authors. This alignment of library and publisher interests, sustainable publishing, and maximizing access is the heart of Path to Open—demonstrating how our community of nonprofit presses, libraries, and platform providers can come together to build an affordable, high-impact solution for open scholarship.

Transformative impact: Global reach and increased usage

Illustrated map-style cover in green and orange showing Central America and southern Mexico, with the title “Central American Migrations in the Twenty-First Century” and editors’ names in white text.
Illustrated book cover showing a colorful city street scene with buildings, cars, and people standing in a line, set against a warm brown background, with the title “Urban Indigeneities” and subtitle “Being Indigenous in the 21st Century.”
Red geometric book cover layered over grayscale historical photographs, with the title “Serial Mexico” and subtitle in blue text and the author’s name below.

When the first subset of ebooks on JSTOR transitioned from licensed to open access, global usage of those titles increased by an average 5,500%. Today, open access monographs represent nearly 10% of the books on JSTOR, and account for 45% of all ebook usage.  

In the case of Path to Open, we project an increase of at least 300% in the first year, as millions of readers can access the titles. Researchers will be able to find and use these books on JSTOR’s platform alongside journals, research reports, and images, without any paywalls or restrictions.

Authors also benefit by seeing their scholarship reach audiences around the globe, fulfilling the very purpose of academic publishing.

OA is the path of the future for sharing scholarly publications in my field.

James A. Anderson of UNC Greensboro

Author of The Dong World and Imperial China’s Southwest Silk Road: Trade, Security, and State Formation

High-quality scholarship, recognized and rewarded

Abstract book cover with soft green background and swirling clouds of pink, gray, and black color, featuring the title “Covid and… How to Do Rhetoric in a Pandemic” and editors’ names.
Winner of the ARSTM Book Award
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Received an Honorable Mention for the Outstanding Book Award in Edited Collection, from the Conference on College Composition and Communication, 2024

The first 100 Path to Open books were carefully selected in collaboration with participating presses, and represent a wide range of disciplines and perspectives including public health, religion, education, communications, literature, conflict resolution, film studies and more. 

Many of the titles offer fresh insights into underrepresented topics or regions, aligning with the program’s emphasis on bibliodiversity. All the books underwent rigorous peer review and editorial development by their university press publishers, ensuring that open access does not come at the expense of scholarly quality. These titles can find their place in syllabi, reference lists, and research projects worldwide, amplifying their contribution to their respective fields.

Some of these ebooks have already earned accolades, highlighting their scholarly excellence. For example, “Covid and… How to Do Rhetoric in a Pandemic,” an edited volume published by Michigan State University Press in 2023, was honored with the 2024 ARSTM Book of the Year Award (from the Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine). This award-winning volume—which examines how public communication shaped the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic—will now be freely accessible to readers everywhere, undoubtedly increasing its impact and citation in future research. 

Momentum toward 1,000 open books and a shared future

Illustrated historical-style cover showing a Black man in a top hat standing near sailing ships, with the title “The Race for America” and subtitle in decorative serif lettering.
Minimalist black cover with soft purple and blue text reading “On Music Theory and Making Music More Welcoming for Everyone,” with a multicolored waveform graphic beneath the title.
Bold graphic cover with large, overlapping yellow and white block letters spelling “Influential Machines” on a light background, with the subtitle and author’s name below.

Releasing 100 open access books is an important milestone, but it is only the beginning. In both 2024 and 2025, 300 titles were selected and published, and so far, 100 of the planned 300 titles for 2026 have been selected. This reflects publishers’ ongoing interest in publishing their titles through the program. By the end of 2026, a total of 1,000 titles will be on the path to open access. This means 1,000 newly published scholarly books will have a guaranteed timeline to become open, representing a vast expansion of freely available knowledge.

Each year, hundreds of new books in the humanities and social sciences—fields that are often under-funded—are being secured for eventual global release. With Path to Open, hundreds of authors are seeing their works reach millions of readers in a sustainable way, and participating libraries are extending their impact far beyond their institutions, knowing that the content they help unlock will be used by researchers and students worldwide.

Celebrating and advancing open scholarship together

We celebrate the collaboration that brought us here, and thank the librarians who invested in the vision, the publishers who were willing to experiment, and the authors who entrusted their books to this model. 

As we look ahead, we invite you to join us on the Path to Open, and explore all of the titles, including the first 100 that have flipped to open access.

Written by:

author headshot

John Lenahan

As vice president of published content, John collaborates with publishers and libraries to develop products and programs that support their organizational needs and missions. He works with the more than 2,000 publishers partnered with ITHAKA to make their content available on the JSTOR platform. He also works closely with libraries to develop growth strategies for the journals and books programs to ensure we meet their research, teaching, and preservation needs.

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