Open Access Books Program
Project MUSE’s Open Access (OA) Books Program offers publishers the ability to have their open access content available on the MUSE platform. The OA books are fully integrated with all the features and functionality of subscriber-only books and journals on Project MUSE.
Support from a grant from the Mellon Foundation
Supported by a grant of nearly $1 million from the Mellon Foundation, Project MUSE embarked on the development process of MUSE Open in 2016; an initiative to distribute open access monographs on Project MUSE with a best-in-class, newly redesigned and scholar-informed MUSE platform. In the summer of 2018 Project MUSE launched this new platform and released over 300 additional open access monographs in HTML5. By Fall 2021, Project MUSE hosted over 4,000 Open Access titles from nearly 80 publishers.
Submission is easy
In addition to the standard PDF format for Project MUSE Books, the MUSE Open Access Book Program accepts EPUB files, which Project MUSE converts to HTML5 to create a browser native interface. Publishers can deliver metadata via ONIX (2.1 or 3.0) or the Project MUSE proprietary metadata template. As with our "gated" books, Project MUSE works with all DAM vendors.
Library-friendly and highly discoverable
Making content freely available online does not always result automatically in discoverability and exposure. MUSE provides MARC records, KBART files, metadata distribution and linking, and preservation through PORTICO and LOCKSS to ensure your open access books are available in library discovery systems and knowledge bases.
Transition your "gated" books to OA on MUSE
Books in the Project MUSE Books Program, which are sold to libraries both through collections and single titles, can be transferred to the MUSE Open Access Books Program at the publisher’s request. Once books in MUSE are made open access in other venues, Project MUSE will also open those books on the MUSE platform, at no additional cost.
Low Hosting Fee
Project MUSE charges a one-time, per-title hosting fee of $100 USD. This fee helps offset production costs for ingestion and conversion, supports our suite of discoverability, discovery and linking partnerships, and preservation services, and the continual development of our reliable and accurate usage statistics tool. These are all distinguished value-adds for choosing Project MUSE.
To have your Open Access books included in MUSE Open, please complete the form Apply to Put Your Books on Project MUSE. Contact our Publisher Relations Team Kelley Squazzo (muse_colldev@jh.edu) for more information.
