Big Ten Open Books Project Launches ‘Indigenous North Americans’ Collection

Big Ten Open Books Launches Second Collection 

In partnership with eight Big Ten-affiliated university presses, the Big Ten Academic Alliance’s Center for Library Programs announces the expansion of the Big Ten Open Books project with the publication of the second 100-book collection. 

The second collection is centered on Indigenous North Americans. The high-quality scholarly works included in the collection have all been previously published in print by the partnering university presses and are now being made openly available in digital form to read and reuse at no cost to the reader or author. Each title has undergone a rigorous selection and quality certification process that allows readers and users of this collection to trust the veracity of the content. Making these works openly available allows them to have tremendous impact through broad engagement and knowledge sharing. Big Ten Open Books creates ebook collections that aspire to the highest standards of discoverability, accessibility, durability, and flexibility. 

The Indigenous North Americans collection explores the history, culture, religion, and resilience of Indigenous populations from the 15th century to present day. Events of Indigenous diplomacy, evolution, education, and contributions to North American history are highlighted in this collection. The presses partnering on this phase of Big Ten Open Books are Michigan State University Press, Penn State University Press, University of Illinois Press, Indiana University Press, University of Michigan Press, University of Minnesota Press, University of Nebraska Press, and University of Wisconsin Press.

The Big Ten Open Books project has established a distinctive model for unified, open-access publishing of scholarly monographs. It creates open content that is immediately and universally available on open infrastructure (Fulcrum, hosted by the University of Michigan) using open distribution models (including Project MUSE, JSTOR, OAPEN, and The Palace Project from Lyrasis ) and envisions a robust programmatic future for open monograph publishing. Funding for this collection has been provided by the libraries of the Big Ten Academic Alliance and the California Digital Library. 

This work is aligned with the Big Ten Academic Alliance’s vision for the BIG Collection, which seeks to unite the collections of the libraries of the Big Ten Academic Alliance into one collection, shared and fully networked. 

2023 marked the launch of the first Big Ten Open Book collection: Gender and Sexuality Studies. In the 21 months since its launch, the books in the collection have been used nearly 200,000 times in over 210 countries and territories, an average of 2,000 times each. Total reported usage across all distribution platforms (adding Project Muse and individual press websites) exceeds 400,000 downloads. 

Big Ten Open Books will be launching three more collections over the course of 2025 and 2026:

• African-, Asian-, and Hispanic Americans
• Health Disparities and Disability Culture
• Human Environmental Impact
  

The Big Ten Academic Alliance continues its advocacy for a sustainable and open publishing ecosystem. Collectively, our institutions’ more than 75,000 faculty, staff, and researchers are supported by over $19 billion in research expenditures, and our institutions have invested significantly in our capacity to further the research mission by advancing public knowledge through open publishing. Together, we produce roughly 15% of the research publications in the United States.

About the Big Ten Academic Alliance

The Big Ten Academic Alliance is the nation’s preeminent model for effective collaboration among research universities. For over half a century, these world-class institutions have advanced their academic missions, generated unique opportunities for students and faculty, and served the common good by sharing expertise, leveraging campus resources, and collaborating on innovative programs. Governed and funded by the provosts of the member universities, Big Ten Academic Alliance mandates are coordinated by a staff from its Champaign, Illinois headquarters. The nineteen world-class libraries of the Big Ten Academic Alliance members include Indiana University, Michigan State University, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, Rutgers University, University of California Los Angeles, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, University of Iowa, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, University of Oregon, University of Southern California, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the University of Chicago.

Contact:

Kate McCready,
Program Director for Open Publishing
Big Ten Academic Alliance
612-626-4357
kate.mccready@btaa.org