KU receives NEH-Mellon Humanities Open Book grant

LAWRENCE — With support from a two-year, $129,000 grant, the University of Kansas Libraries and the University Press of Kansas will convert out-of-print humanities texts into freely accessible digital resources. This project is part of the Humanities Open Book grant program led by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

“This grant offers the opportunity to advance several important priorities for the University of Kansas,” said Kevin L. Smith, dean of libraries. “The support from Mellon and NEH allows us to bring wider attention to some of the excellent scholarship in history and American political thought published by the University Press of Kansas.” 

The grant is to be used over the next two years and will provide the university with a unique opportunity to digitize 70 humanities titles that would be otherwise inaccessible to the public. The proposed list of titles to digitize includes works that illuminate the history of important events; lives of important thinkers, like Leo Strauss, who continue to have a tremendous influence on modern political thought; and movements, including populism and political conservatism, that still shape American politics.

“I am thrilled that the University Press of Kansas has been selected as a grant recipient,” said Conrad Roberts, director of the University Press of Kansas. “In collaboration with our Regents universities libraries, this grant will allow us to create an open access book collection that will dramatically increase the accessibility of information related to U.S. history, culture and politics to scholars and students in our nation and around the globe.”  

The digitized works are expected to be available by spring 2021 through MUSE Open, JSTOR Open, as well as the institutional repositories of all six Kansas Board of Regents universities: KU, Emporia State University, Fort Hays State University, Kansas State University, Pittsburg State University and Wichita State University. 

“In our increasingly complex and fragmented digital era, scholars, students and members of the public need access to reliable and authoritative information,” said Donald Waters, senior program officer at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. “The Humanities Open Book initiative helps provide much-needed access to scholarly works that are now out-of-print but remain crucial invaluable resources.”

To learn more about the University Press of Kansas, please contact Michael Kehoe, marketing and sales director, at mkehoe@ku.edu. For more information about KU Libraries, please contact Leah Hallstrom, communications coordinator, at leahnel@ku.edu.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) was created in 1965 as an independent federal agency. The NEH 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 NEH and its grant programs is available.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation endeavors to strengthen, promote, and, where necessary, defend the contributions of the humanities and the arts to human flourishing and to the well-being of diverse and democratic societies. To this end, the Foundation supports exemplary institutions of higher education and culture as they renew and provide access to an invaluable heritage of ambitious, path-breaking work.

Based at the University of Kansas, UPK represents a consortium of six state universities: Emporia State University, Fort Hays State University, Kansas State University, Pittsburg State University, Wichita State University and KU. UPK publishes scholarly books that advance knowledge and regional books that contribute to the understanding of Kansas, the Great Plains and the Midwest.  

One of the top 50 libraries in the Association of Research Libraries by volumes held, and the largest library in Kansas, the University of Kansas Libraries transform lives by inspiring the discovery and creation of knowledge for the university and our global community. KU Libraries are a place of welcome; a leader in the dissemination of knowledge; and a partner in connecting and engaging communities, fostering student success, and transformative research.