The MIT Libraries have joined the Open Library of Humanities’ (OLH), an academic-led, all open access publisher of humanities journals. The platform, which has funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, covers its costs by payments from an international library consortium, rather than any kind of author fee. The platform hosts peer-reviewed open access journals in the humanities, as well as OLH’s own multidisciplinary open access journal.
The platform is also supporting a new journal, Glossa, created when the entire editorial team of the Elsevier journal Lingua resigned and started a new open access journal with the same focus and scope as Lingua. The editorial board made the move when they proposed to Elsevier that Lingua should become an open access journal, with reasonable article fees paid by a new consortium. The goal was to make the journal free to readers and authors. Elsevier did not agree to the plan.
Elsevier claims the rights to the name Lingua, so the new journal will be called Glossa. But according to Kai von Fintel, MIT Professor of Linguistics, “in the eyes of the community [Glossa] is the rightful continuation of Lingua…a colleague suggested the alternative name ‘Zombie Lingua’ for the Elsevier project, which I hope will stick,” von Fintel says.
In his blog, von Fintel calls upon linguists to “not assist Elsevier in standing up a new journal that usurps the Lingua goodwill. Do not serve on the editorial team, do not submit articles, do not review for them. I certainly won’t.” The linguistics faculty at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee have pledged to support these principles and Glossa as the “true successor” to Lingua. Conversations are said to be underway on other campuses.
For more information:
- Kai von Fintel’s blog
- Open Library of the Humanities announcement of MIT Libraries support
- Press release from the OLH
- Summary of MIT Libraries’ support for various open access publishing models
- MIT Libraries Open Access publishing fund for authors
