Syracuse University Press, a division of Syracuse University Libraries, is one of eight institutions to be awarded a grant in the Humanities Open Book Program, jointly sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The grant program will make outstanding out-of-print humanities books available to a wide audience by recreating them as open access ebooks.
“NEH provides support for projects across America that preserve our heritage, promote scholarly discoveries, and make the best of America’s humanities ideas available to all Americans,” says NEH Chairman William D. Adams. “We are proud to announce this latest group of grantees who, through their projects and research, will bring valuable lessons of history and culture to Americans.”
“We are delighted that Syracuse University has received this grant, which supports core library values such as open access to scholarship and quality academic publishing,” says Dean of Libraries David Seaman. SU Press will digitize 23 titles from its Irish Studies and New York State series. The new ebooks will be available through multiple platforms, including Project MUSE Open and SU’s SURFACE repository.
“Syracuse University Press welcomes this opportunity to make available digital editions of widely reviewed and cited early histories of New York state, along with noteworthy books from our Irish Studies series that remain relevant to today’s scholars and students,” says Alice Randel Pfeiffer, director of SU Press.
“We are honored and grateful to the NEH for this chance to bring important books of humanistic interest back into conversation with current scholarship and to make them openly available to a global community of readers,” says SU Press Editor in Chief Suzanne E. Guiod. “Significantly, this grant will allow us to further our collaboration with Syracuse University Libraries in developing Syracuse Unbound, our joint open access publishing initiative.”
“This award presents an outstanding opportunity for SU Press to resurface and vivify important works from its prestigious backlist,” says Terry Ehling, associate director of Project MUSE. “Project MUSE looks forward to working with the Press to ensure that these books are discoverable, usable and potentially transformative to scholars now and in the future.”
SU Press was founded in 1943 by Chancellor William Pearson Tolley as a means to publish and disseminate scholarly research and to extend the University’s reach and academic reputation. The Press has gained national and international acclaim by publishing award-winning and ground-breaking books. With more than 1,700 titles in print, the Press supports the central mission of the University to teach, to support research initiatives, and to disseminate scholarship. The Press also prides itself on publishing carefully edited and beautifully designed books that enhance the intellectual life of general readers.
Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at www.neh.gov.
This project has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this resource do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
