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Back(list) to the Future

Making Older University Press Monographs Digitally Available

(and open access where possible)

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Lyrasis and University of Michigan Press

Tuesday, September 2nd 1-2 pm EST

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credit to Martin Paul Eve for the punny title

Logistics

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Use code: 1135 9808

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Who is in the discussion today?

(please share your primary professional identity)

Poll Question

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Overview

Charles Watkinson / Director, University of Michigan Press

watkinc@umich.edu

Press website for individual authors and readers

UMP is . . .

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• A typical mid-sized university press (aka “small scholarly publisher”)

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• We publish 100 books a year in the humanities and qualitative social sciences - 80 of these are monographs (20 text and trade books). Today’s focus is monographs.

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• We are invested in digital publishing and (unusually) run our own ebook collection on the open source Fulcrum platform. 75% of our frontlist monographs are immediately open access.

Ebook collection website for supporting libraries

press.umich.edu

ebc.press.umich.edu

UMP Library Supporters

Abraham Baldwin College

Agnes Scott College

Albany State University

Albany Technical College

Andrew College

Athens Technical College

Atlanta Metropolitan State College

Atlanta Technical College

Augusta Technical College

Augusta University

Bates College

Berry College

Beulah Heights University

Binghamton University

Blue Ridge Community College

Bowdoin College

Brenau University

Brewton-Parker College

Brightpoint Community College

Brock University

Broward College

Brown University

Bucknell University

Cardiff University

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Carleton University

Central Georgia Technical College

Central Michigan University

Central Virginia Community College

Chattahoochee Technical College

Christopher Newport University

The Claremont Colleges Library

Clark Atlanta University

Clayton State University

Coastal Pines Technical College

Colby College

College of Coastal Georgia

College of William & Mary

Columbia Theological Seminary

Columbia University

Columbus State University

Columbus Technical College

Cornell University

Covenant College

Dalton State College

Danville Community College

Dartmouth College

Denison University

Duke University

Duquesne University

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East Georgia State College

Eastern Shore Community College

Emmanuel College

Emory University

Fort Valley State University

Franklin & Marshall College

George Mason University

George Washington University

Georgia Central University

Georgia College & State University

Georgia Gwinnett College

Georgia Highlands College

Georgia Institute of Technology

Georgia Military College

Georgia Northwestern Technical College

Georgia Piedmont Technical College

Georgia Southern University

Georgia Southwestern State University

Georgia State University

Germanna Community College

Gettysburg College

Gordon State College

Grinnell College

Gwinnett Technical College

Harvard University

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Haverford College

Heritage Bible College

Indiana University

Interdenominational Theological Center

Iowa State University

J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College

James Madison University

Johns Hopkins University

John Marshall Law School

Kennesaw State University

Kenyon College

King's College London

KU Leuven

Lafayette College

LaGrange College

Lanier Technical College

Laurel Ridge Community College

Liberty University

Life University

Longwood University

Luther College

Luther Rice College & Seminary

Macalester College

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

McGill University

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UMP Library Supporters 2/3

McMaster University

Mercer University

Mercer University Law School

Mercer University Medical School

Michigan State University

Middle Georgia State University

Middlebury College

Morehouse College

Morehouse School of Medicine

Mountain Empire

Community College

Mountain Gateway

Community College

New River Community College

New York University

Norfolk State University

North Georgia Technical College

Northeastern University

Northern Virginia

Community College

Northwest Florida State College

Northwestern University

Oconee Fall Line Technical College

Ogeechee Technical College

Oglethorpe University

The Ohio State University

Old Dominion University

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Pacific College of Technology

Paine College

Patrick & Henry Community College

Paul D. Camp Community College

Pennsylvania State University

Piedmont University

Piedmont Virginia

Community College

Point University

Princeton University

Purdue University

Radford University

Rappahannock Community College

Reinhardt University

Richard Bland College

Richmont Graduate University

Rowan University

Rutgers University

Savannah State University

Savannah Technical College

Shorter University

Simon Fraser University

South Georgia State College

South Georgia Technical College

Southeastern Technical College

Southern Crescent Technical College

Southern Illinois University Carbondale

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Southern Methodist University

Southern Regional Technical College

Southside Virginia Community College

Southwest Virginia Community College

Spellman College

Stanford University

Swarthmore College

Syracuse University

Texas A&M University Libraries

Thomas University

Tidewater Community College

Tilburg University

Toccoa Falls College

Trent University

Truett McConnell University

Underwood University

Université de Montréal

University College London

University of Alberta

University of Arizona

University of Bristol

University of British Columbia

University of California Berkeley

University of California Davis

University of California Irvine

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University of California Los Angeles

University of California Merced

University of California Riverside

University of California San Diego

University of California Santa Barbara

University of California Santa Cruz

University of Cambridge

University of Chicago

University of Connecticut

University of Delaware

University of Florida

University of Georgia

University of Guelph

University of Illinois

University of Iowa

University of Kansas

University of Kentucky

University of Manchester

University of Mary Washington

University of Maryland

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

University of Michigan

University of Minnesota

University of Nebraska

University of North Georgia

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UMP Library Supporters 3/3

University of Notre Dame

University of Nottingham

UNC Chapel Hill

UNC Greensboro

University of Oklahoma

University of Oregon

University of Ottawa

University of Pennsylvania

University of Pittsburgh

University of Rhode Island

University of Richmond

University of Rochester

University of San Francisco

University of Saskatchewan

University of Sheffield

University of South Carolina

University of Tennessee Knoxville

University of Texas Austin

University of Texas San Antonio

University of Toronto

University of Utah

University of Virginia

University of Virginia's College at Wise

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University of Washington

University of West Georgia

University of Wisconsin

Valdosta State University

Vancouver Island University

Vanderbilt University

Vassar College

Virginia Commonwealth University

Virginia Highlands Community College

Virginia Military Institute

Virginia Peninsula Community College

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Virginia State University

Virginia Western Community College

Washington & Lee University

Wesleyan College

West Georgia Technical College

Wiregrass Georgia Technical College

Wytheville Community College

Yale University

York University

Young-Harris College

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Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA)

California Digital Library (CDL)

Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)

Georgia Library Learning Online (GALILEO)

Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)

Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL)

Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC)

Virginia's Academic Library Consortium (VIVA)

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Thank you for investing your time, money, and trust in our mission-driven scholarly publishing and in open source, community-driven infrastructure

Backlist - print legacy, authors/editors have moved on, reception unclear, missing metadata, opaque rights

Frontlist - digital first, author and editor excited, media attention, full records, rights understood

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Why backlist monographs matter

• The unrepeatable experiment: Primary research in the humanities is usually not replicable. The monograph may be the only record.
• On the shoulders of giants: Research in most humanities disciplines builds on other thinkers’ work extending back decades, if not centuries.
• The lessons of history: When events happen, deep synthetic studies help contextualize and understand their origins and meaning.

The unrepeatable experiment

e.g., ethnographies, ethnomusicologies, and archaeological fieldwork reports

On the shoulders of giants

Citations

Little Tools of Knowledge (2001)

Citations

Citations

Citations

Citations

Citations

Citations

Citations

The half-life of publications in the humanities is 20 years, as compared to five years in the life sciences. This suggests that older, foundational works in the humanities remain relevant and are still being cited decades after their publication.

The lessons of history

What is the most compelling reason to convert backlist into ebooks?

Poll Question

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Use code: 1135 9808

UMP “backlist to the future”

2025-2026 initiative to . . .

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• make remainder of entire U-M Press backlist (since 1930 ca. 3,500 titles) digitally available on UMP EBC, and elsewhere as resources allow.
• aim for “as open as possible, as closed as necessary” in the light of financial, legal, and technological considerations.
• ensure that the resulting ebooks are the best possible editions: discoverable, accessible, and durable. Restricted access ebooks should be DRM-free.

Financial Considerations

Jamie Jones / Director of Sales, Marketing, and Outreach

jojamie@umich.edu

Prioritizing selection

• Circulation, usage, direct requests
• Subject Area
• Rights & Permissions
• Prioritization using AI

Securing funding

As well as self-funding backlist conversion, U-M Press has participated in a number of programs to make backlist books “as open as possible,” including the Humanities Open Book program, Big Ten Open Books, and Knowledge Unlatched

NEH / Mellon Humanities Open Book

creating workflows, opening access, demonstrating demand

• 100 backlist books made open access
• Funded by National Endowment for the Humanities
• Books published by U-M Asian studies centers
• Converted by MPub 2017-2018
• Backlist conversion workflow established
• Great feedback from users outside the academy

https://www.neh.gov/project/michigan-asian-studies-open-access-books-collection

Big Ten Open Books

collaborative approaches, sustainable models, library-led

• Two collections of 100 books each
• Gender and Sexuality Studies (2023)
• Indigenous North Americans (2025)
• Three more collections coming
• So far mainly funded by BTAA and CDL libraries
• Books published by BTAA UPs
• Converted by MPub 2024-2025
• Scaling backlist conversion

https://bigtenopenbooks.org/collections/

Knowledge Unlatched

international supporters, publisher diversity, efficient systems

• 45 “recent backlist” books, published 2018-2022
• Three themed collections
• German Studies
• European Studies
• Democracy and Authoritarianism
• Annual Reviews launches pledging September 8
• Builds on previous U-M Press relationship with KU

Description and list of books: https://myumi.ch/79n2r

So how much does it cost?

“Fully loaded” cost of $3,800 per title to create OA edition of a backlist book

• $2,000 for rights research, file location, author correspondence (of which ca. $350 to the author)
• $500 to convert the print book to fully accessible EPUB3 and PDF files
• $250 to host, in perpetuity, an ebook on the Fulcrum platform (includes AP Trust & CLOCKSS preservation)
• $200 for discovery services including the external preparation of MARC and KBART records, sharing files with 3rd party content hosts (e.g., JSTOR, Project Muse, OAPEN), and sending metadata to discovery services
• $350 for title list development, coordination, and overall project management
• $300 for marketing, outreach to libraries, and administration of fundraising
• $100 supports outreach to affiliated scholarly communities and tracking of usage statistics
• $100 per book reinvestment in opening of other backlist titles without specific support

https://bigtenopenbooks.org/stories/2025-05-19-transparency-is-fundamental-to-diamond-open-access-how-big-ten-open-books-welcomes-community-engagement/

What criteria would you prioritize in selecting backlist titles to bring back into availability for libraries?

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(you can select multiple options)

Poll Question

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Use code: 1135 9808

Legal considerations

Charles Watkinson / Director, U-M Press

watkinc@umich.edu

Contract and book analysis

• Contract, permissions file (where available), book analyzed
• Category assigned based on rights issues:
• Category A: UMP has print rights to work & 3rd-party inserts, or work in US public domain
• Category B: UMP has rights to work, a few 3rd-party inserts with uncertain rights
• Category C: UMP has rights to work, but likely not to most of the 3rd-party inserts
• Category D: UMP lacks rights in the main work
• Approach Category A and B authors to sign digital contract addendum
• Including royalty rate on for sale ebook, or option for open access
• Research Category C and D

NYPL Partnership

• New York Public Library Scholarly Press Backlist Revival Initiative
• Established which UMP books are public domain
• NYPL has digitized and structured the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries
• Not only pre-1930 titles but also 1930-1977 copyrighted books that were not renewed
• Researched and resolved some UMP category D and C issues
• Research done and contact information provided by the Authors Guild
• UMP then could decide whether to follow up to get rightsholder permission
• In many cases, the rightsholder was an overseas publisher

The Grey Zone

• As we move down the list, legal status gets less clear
• When can UMP proceed to make an older book available as an ebook?
• When some third-party rights remain unclear
• When we try to locate the author or their heirs but cannot
• UMP needs to be willing to take a risk when
• We have done due diligence
• There are no obvious objections we can perceive
• We believe taking action is good for the author’s legacy

Technology considerations

Emily Fernandez, Digital Publishing Assistant

Digital Conversion

This work done by codemantra in Chennai, India

MARC records are created by U-M Library Technical Services

codemantra process (calibrai.ai)

Metadata preparation

Title

Subtitle

PublisherName

Format

ExclusiveForSaleCountries

PubDate

CopyrightYear

BISACStatus

ProductAvailabilityCode

EloquenceApproval

PrimaryLanguage

SecondaryLanguage

EAN

DSMARC

PrimaryISBN

PrintISBN

TrimLength

TrimWidth

TrimSizeUnitOfMeasure

InsertsIllustrations

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Pages

Series

VolumeNumber

AuthorTitle1

AuthorLastName1

AuthorFirstName1

AuthorMiddleName1

AuthorSuffix1

AuthorDisplayName1

PrimaryAuthor1

AuthorType1

AuthorBio1

GroupOrMononymousInd1

FullAuthorDisplayName

FullAuthorBiography

BISACCategory1

BISACCategory2

BISACCategory3

EditionType

EditionNumber

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DiscountCode

Audience1

Audience2

Audience3

LongDescription

Keywords

BookPrice_PriceType1

BookPrice_CurrType1

BookPrice_Final1

OriginalPubDate

PartnerID

Copyright Holder

Publisher

Publisher Location

Full Text on Fulcrum

EBC Year

DOI

Open Access Avail.

OAFunder

OpenAccessLabel

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• The Firebrand Import Template (FIT) spreadsheet is ingested into the Press’s title management system (Firebrand).
• Each book gets allocated a new “for sale” ebook ISBN or “open access” ebook ISBN.

GenAI long-descriptions

Book descriptions

• Pasted the book’s table of contents and first 10,000 words into U-M ChatGPT
• Used prompt “summarize as one paragraph book description”
• Reviewed and then submitted to marketing domain experts for human check

Author Bios

• Searched for existing web sources, mostly Wikipedia pages and university websites
• Asked U-M ChatGPT to summarize
• Checking for hallucinations or wrong affiliations was important

Do you think using Generative AI to enrich metadata is an acceptable practice?

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Poll Question

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Use code: 1135 9808

Final Reflections

Charles Watkinson / Director, University of Michigan Press

watkinc@umich.edu

What we are learning…

• Around 2,500 / 3,500 UMP backlist titles are now available on UMP EBC. Because we’ve started with the clearest cases, the legal, financial, and technology obstacles get greater as we go down the list.
• When we can locate authors and heirs, they are pleased we are making their works digitally available. Most opt for open access as well because this amplifies the impact and legacy of the author(s) hard work.
• Not all backlist titles can be made openly available but, when they are, there is an eager audience outside as well as inside higher education institutions.
• The amount of detailed work needed to make backlist titles available again to the best possible standards is expensive. Technology (GenAI) and expert partners (e.g., codemantra) can make it cheaper, but the expenses of getting metadata right, doing due diligence on rights, and accessible ebook creation are real.

Is it all worth it?

https://bigtenopenbooks.org/impact

Responses from individual readers:

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• “I am an adjunct academic who loves researching and teaching on Indigenous issues and your collection is incredible!”
• “It’s a privilege and a blessing to have access to these books, especially a digital copy that’s actually readable (😊thank you, thank you, thank you!)”
• “Thank you for this wonderful project and for sharing and empowering queer knowledge outside the closed walls of academia, into which some of us have less access.”
• “I really appreciate this is available for free. I don’t have much disposable income and it’s important to me to know my elders and understand my community better.”
• “Thank you so much for making these books freely available. I look forward to other academic publishers doing the same.”

Opportunities to Get Involved

• No cost: Turn on access to the titles we have made open access already (900 UMP EBC; 200 BTOB)
• MARC bundles and the list of discovery services including collections:
• https://ebc.press.umich.edu/implement and https://bigtenopenbooks.org/librarians
• More expensive ($6,578 Tier 5 - $789 Tier 1): Invest in UMP EBC to get patron access to UMP’s entire scholarly list (2,500 titles, more every month) - includes frontlist as well as backlist and supports 60 new open access titles a year: https://ebc.press.umich.edu/invest
• Less expensive ($3,800): Sponsor a book (perhaps of an affiliated author) that’s part of the BTOB new collections so that it can become open access: https://bigtenopenbooks.org/librarians
• If you are interested, please contact Lyrasis for your institution’s accurate pricing

INVITATION: Join the FREE Charleston Preconference “How Can Libraries and Publishers Collaborate to Make Backlist Monographs Open Access” to brainstorm multi-publisher collaborations, November 4, 1-4 pm https://www.charleston-hub.com/the-charleston-conference/welcome/preconferences/