Lafayette College becomes first OtF member with MSU Press

Posted by Tom Grady on Sept. 17, 2025 at 1529

Lafayette College becomes first OtF member with MSU Press 🥳🎉

We are thrilled to announce that the library at Lafayette College is the first institution to join the Opening the Future program with Michigan State University Press. Chartered in 1826, Lafayette College’s students engage in educational experiences that bridge the liberal arts, engineering, and interdisciplinary studies. The Lafayette Library has long been a supporter of the work of open publishing and open access and is excited to further its commitment to these goals by becoming a member of the OtF program with MSU Press. The library is confident that its support will strengthen the overall landscape of open publishing initiatives while simultaneously enhancing access to quality scholarly information through MSU Press.

The library has opted to support the press’ OA commitment by selecting the OA Supporter package that comes without backlist access. As with all MSU Press Opening the Future members, their fees will go towards funding new frontlist titles in OA format in the African and Diaspora Studies series. Lafayette’s students and staff, along with everyone else globally, will benefit from increasing an internationally open collection of scholarship. We are very grateful for their support.

Tom Grady, Copim work package lead on the OtF initiative, said of the new member: “It is fantastic to have the support of Lafayette College for the Opening the Future project at MSU Press. This gets the press off the starting blocks and with this funding, they can begin to advance the cause of OA books in the humanities and social sciences, without author-facing charges.”

MSU Press will use the library’s membership fees to produce new frontlist titles in an open access format - that is, entirely without barriers to access and freely available to read by anyone in the world. MSU Press is a well-known publisher in the fields of history, anthropology, sociology, and political science, as well as interdisciplinary studies, works on the African diaspora, and digital scholarship. 

If you would like to see how your library might enhance their digital collection of eBooks by becoming a member of Opening the Future, you can read more about the programme and benefits on the website.