(12 Jan 2026) JSTOR, part of the nonprofit ITHAKA, today announced a major milestone for open scholarship: the first 100 books published through Path to Open are now openly available to readers around the world. Originally released in 2023 with early access for Path to Open participating libraries, these titles have officially “flipped” to open access, marking the first cohort to complete the program’s three-year pathway to openness.
Path to Open was launched to address a persistent challenge in scholarly publishing—how to expand global access to peer-reviewed academic books while ensuring long-term sustainability for university presses. Through a cost-sharing model supported by libraries, publishers receive guaranteed funding from JSTOR for new monographs, libraries gain early access to frontlist scholarship, and titles ultimately become free to read for anyone, anywhere increasing the impact of authors’ scholarship. This milestone marks the beginning of the realization of that founding vision.
Their release also highlights the important additional impact open access books have through increased discovery and use. Across JSTOR, open access books currently make up about 10% of available titles, yet they account for 45% of all book usage on the platform. JSTOR anticipates usage of the first 100 Path to Open titles will increase by more than 300% after becoming open access, as they become discoverable to readers at thousands of institutions worldwide and beyond the academy.
Today, more than 250 libraries and nearly 50 publishers participate in Path to Open, demonstrating its viability as a financially sustainable, ongoing model for open access book publishing.
The announcement in full is here.
