Knowledge Unlatched (KU) makes scholarly content freely available to everyone and contributes to the further development of the Open Access (OA) infrastructure. Their unique approach provides libraries and institutions worldwide with a central place to support OA collections and models from leading publishing houses and new OA initiatives. With the support libraries and research institutions worldwide, KU transitions monographs and journals in a wide variety of disciplines from paywalled to Open Access content. Additionally, KU offers various tools and services for stakeholders in the OA community.
In 2023, libraries and organizations can pledge their support for Knowledge Unlatched and its partner initiatives at the KU website.
The KU Brochure provides detailed information about all available pledging opportunities.
KU Select 2024 SDG Books (named "2024" to reflect the year in which most of the books will be unlatched)
- For 2023, KU has moved away from its discipline-specific approach and broadening their scope to include Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) subjects related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs)
- 140 front list titles across 7 SDGs with 20 titles each
- Libraries can choose between the Full Collection of HSS/SDG Books or pledge by subject package
- Provisional title lists are available
- Curated by the KU Selection Committee 2023 consisting of librarians worldwide
- Pledge for the full collection or by subject package
Why contribute?
Your participation supports an ever-growing number of institutions that are using acquisitions funds to make HSS book titles Open Access. This model benefits both individual libraries and the wider community, by providing access to scholarly books for every reader across the world. There are a number of additional benefits for libraries:
- Enables libraries to contribute to fulfilling OA mandates in certain territories
- Flexible offering – pick and choose from available subject packages
- Quarterly usage reports to show the real impact of OA publishing
- DRM-free titles
- High-quality MARC records for better discoverability
- Involvement with the creation of future collections by taking part in the KU Selection Committee
Prices for the KU Select 2023 HSS Books
Pledge your participation by selecting:
- Full pledge: The complete KU Select 2024 SDG Books of 140 front list titles for $10,500
- By subject package: You can also select the subject package(s) most relevant to your users for $1,800 per package
Other KU Offers and Partnerships:
- SDG Videos from Latest Thinking
- Anthropology, including: Open Encyclopedia of Anthropology, Berghahn Migration and Development Studies, Berghahn Open Anthro, and HAU Books
- Linguistics: Language Science Press
- Politics, including: Pluto Open Journals and others
- Sociology, including: Routledge African and Development Studies and Routledge Gender and Sexuality Studies
- STEM, including: EDP Sciences Open Mathematics, IWA Publishing Frontlist Books, and IWA Publishing Open Journals/li>
- Spotlight Collections, including: Open Commons of Phenomenology and University of California Press Luminos Membership
KU Open Infrastructures:
- Open Research Library (ORL): ORL includes OA content in different media formats on one central platform for user-friendly discovery, offering a seamless experience for navigating tens of thousands of books and other types of scholarly content from a variety of sources. Libraries investing in ORL contribute to the development of a dedicated infrastructure for the global research community, while participating libraries have the opportunity to benefit from a set of exclusive services.
